The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus Read online

  "Stupid birds!" she shouted up at them, her face growing redder than her hair. "Sure you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, spoiling the finale like that! What kind of performers do you think you are then? Where's your sense of propriety?"

  "If you ask me," said Malachi to Domingo, in his coolest tones, "she knew they wouldn't fly off. She was always one for sentimentality."

  The clown laughed. "Malachi," he said. "You're too suspicious."

  "Suspicious? Me?" replied the crocodile, narrowing his eyes to slits. "You take my word for it—it's like a woman, that. Nefertiti was the same."

  "Who?"

  "A woman who captured me in my youth. A neck like a Nile swan she had, and eyes—eyes the colour of ...." He ceased there, gazing wistfully into the smoking ashes of the table.

  "He's forgotten," thought Domingo.

  ~ * ~

  That evening, when the time finally came for goodbye, all of Indigo's birds were perched on her shoulders, chirping and screeching contentedly. The Archaeopteryx had even chosen to settle upon Lorenzo's head. It was clear that they intended to stay.

  "Well, Indigo," said Mr. Bacchus at the wrought-iron gates of the castle. "It's time we were on our way. There are towns and villages—I can smell the autumn air now—from here to the Edge of the World, waiting for the Circus to appear! There are gaudy posters on mossy walls announcing our imminent arrival! We mustn't get behind schedule. We shall miss you."

  "Sure, and that's nonsense," said Indigo, with a sad smile. "Oh no," said Mr. Bacchus. "You are the best bird girl in the world. Where will we ever find another act like yours?"

  "Not standing here," yawned Malachi.

  Mr. Bacchus looked stern.

  "Crocodile," he said, "a most inappropriate remark under the circumstances."

  "Well," replied Malachi, "I can't do with sentiment."

  "Sure and he's right," said Indigo. "You'll find an act as good as mine any day now. And I think you're a marvelous crocodile, sure I do, Malachi," and she bent down and kissed his scaled nose.

  Malachi backed off with a startled look on his face.

  "Leave me alone," he said, coughing loudly to mask his embarrassment, and muttered, "Women! Forever slobbering over you. Nefertiti was the same."

  When all the good-byes were done, everyone climbed aboard the painted caravan; Hero took the reins of Thoth, and they rattled off down the pink gravel road that led from the city gates. It was now late evening, and by the light of the sinking sun, the castle might have been built of burning bronze. Slowly, the figures of Indigo and Lorenzo, who were still standing and waving at the iron gates, were swallowed up by the blue twilight, until at last they disappeared altogether. The pink gravel road gave way to a furrowed mud-track. The sun had gone. The wheels of the caravan squealed and thudded through filthy puddles upon which the first frost was forming, drab rain clouds swept over the moon, and from the stubble of a harvest field an owl rose on dank wings, screeching mournfully. The Circus was on the road once more.

  ~ * ~

  A day or two later, they came to the crossroads. "Which road do we take, Bacchus?" asked Hero.

  Mr. Bacchus waved his stick around his head melodramatically.

  "Does it matter?" he exploded, leaves spiraling through the air. "Does the vine ask where the sun is summoning it to? Why, there are towns everywhere, my boy! To the North! To the East! To the West! To the South! And everyone who lives loves the Circus. Who could resist it? The lights! The music! The magic! The spectacle! Oh we shall go where e'er the road leads, my boy! Now voyager, seek thou forth and find!"

  "But there are three roads to choose from," said Hero.

  "Which one shall we take?"

  "Why not ask the man sitting on the road side?" suggested Ophelia.

  "Why not?" said Mr. Bacchus. "A gentleman of the road, no doubt, like me. A traveller on life's thoroughfares, and familiar with the area."

  On the grass, in the shade of a wind-crippled hawthorn bush, sat an old man with a flea-ridden mongrel asleep beside him.

  "Excuse me," said Ophelia, climbing down from the caravan, "but could you possibly tell us where these roads lead?"

  The old man got up slowly and grimaced.

  "Ah!" he said. "That is a question a lot of people ask. Now to the left many say lay the Galapagos, and the road straight ahead—that's said to lead to Glastonbury. The road to the right, however, is a mystery."

  "Ah, the Mysteries!" said Mr. Bacchus wistfully. "Tell us more."

  "Well, sir, nobody is sure where the road leads," said the old man.

  "Nobody?" said Ophelia.

  "Except as it happens, myself," replied the old man, with a careful glance behind him, as if he might be overheard. "I know where the road leads because when I was seventeen, I followed it.

  "And where does it lead, sir?" asked Mr. Bacchus.

  "To the strange and wonderful country, beyond the Himalayas where the Yeti sing, to glorious Cathay."

  "Cathay?" said Malachi cynically. "The place is a myth."

  "Oh no, wyrm," replied the old man. "There is such a country, and stranger it is than all the myths that are told of it. It lies in Asia the Deep, and there rules a Khan called Kublai, who is the grandchild of the conqueror Genghis Khan, he who overcame Prester John, and he lives in a magnificent palace - nay, city -nay, world - called Xanadu."

  "Really?" said Bacchus, his eyes widening. "And do you think that this Khan would enjoy a Circus?"

  "I'm sure he would," replied the old man nodding. "For he is a highly civilized Khan, and they have all too few visitors in Xanadu these days to delight him, as it is inaccessible to all but the most fanciful."

  "Then we shall go to Cathay," announced Mr. Bacchus. "And entertain this Khan called Kublai. How far is it along the road? Beyond Dogger Bank? Beyond Lincoln?"

  "Beyond the Greater Magellanic Cloud, it seems," said the old man. "But you will reach there eventually," and having spoken, he sat down again to stroke his flea-ridden mongrel, who was barking in her sleep.

  "Thank you kindly, sir," said Mr. Bacchus, bowing deeply and tipping his hat.

  "Take the road to the right," he said to Hero, stepping aboard the caravan once more. "We're going to Cathay."

  As the caravan turned onto the Cathay road, the old man under the hawthorn bush suddenly got to his feet again and called after Mr. Bacchus.

  "Sir!" he cried, his old voice shaking. "Remember me to Xanadu! Remember me to the Khan called Kublai! Tell him I will be there! And tell him Marco Polo thinks of him often!"

  "I will," said Mr. Bacchus, at which the old man smiled to himself and went back to lying in the shelter of the hawthorn bush and comforting the mongrel dog with a hand tanned by ocean winds, long since exhausted.

  ~ * ~

  The road to Asia the deep was a long and uneven one, and it was uncomfortable in the small caravan. Although it had been generally agreed at the beginning of the journey that the idea of going to Cathay was a good one, as the days passed, and the road became narrower, it seemed less and less attractive.

  They had been travelling on the road for about five or six days when they came to an orchard. There were hundreds of trees laid out in avenues—plum, apple, peach, fig and pomegranate—all heavily laden with ripe fruit. In the evening sky the Plough was rising, so Hero stopped the caravan and everybody climbed out to stretch their legs and to smell the sweet September air. Suddenly, the perfect silence was broken by a loud voice: "Thief! Thief!" it shouted. "Stop thief!" and as its first echoes died, between the trees there ran a young man with long black curls, pursued from the depths of the orchard by the orchard-keeper himself, shouting oaths and accusations. Run as he might, however, the keeper was too short and fat to catch up, until suddenly the beautiful young man tripped over the sprawling roots of a plum tree and fell headlong into the uncut grass. There he lay, quite still, and when the angry keeper at last reached the spot and raised the youth's head by the hair his eyes were closed and his mouth gaped like that
of a Lantern Fish. The orchard keeper was too angry to notice, however, and seizing up a dead branch from the ground he cried:

  "I shall beat you, boy—within an inch of paradise and back again."

  At that moment Mr. Bacchus opened the orchard gate and marched towards the keeper.

  "You, sir!" he said, pointing his stick at the panting little man.

  "What do you want, Mummer?" growled the keeper.

  "That boy is either senseless or dead, sir," replied Mr. Bacchus. "May I suggest you unhand him?"

  "What?" exclaimed the orchard-keeper with a horrified look, releasing the youth's hair as if it had become snakes and bitten him. "Dead? What's that? I didn't touch him. Did I strike him? Did the blow fall? No!"

  By now Ophelia was kneeling beside the fallen youth, trying to turn him over.

  "Let me," said Hero, and with one hand rolled the young man onto his back.

  The sight was not a pretty one. The youth's white shirt was entirely stained with blood. Malachi turned pale at the sight.

  "Aten!" he muttered. "I can't stand the sight of blood. It makes me feel dizzy," and he scuttled up into one of the apple trees and hid there with only his twitching tail dangling down between the branches. At that moment the young man's eyes opened. It was as if a candle had emerged from behind a veil. "He's not dead," said Hero.

  "Of course not," said Domingo, dancing on the spot. "How could he be?"

  "But the blood!" said Ophelia.

  The young man looked down solemnly at his wounded chest and smiled.

  "Squashed fruit," he said. "I hid the fruit inside my shirt." "What's your name, fellow?" demanded Mr. Bacchus. "Angelo, sir," replied the young man, getting to his feet and retrieving the ruined fruit from inside his shirt.

  "And you are a thief, are you not?" said Mr. Bacchus sternly.

  "I am, sir," replied the youth. "That is the lightest of my sins, and I will admit to it. I had no money, and I was hungry, so..."

  "So he stole my fruit," interrupted the orchard keeper, becoming angry again and mopping his forehead with a small lace handkerchief. "And now who'll pay for it?"

  "I would gladly, sir," replied Mr. Bacchus. "But unfortunately I have not the price of a glass of wine."

  Then another voice was heard in the orchard; a woman's voice, half-begging, half-calling:

  "Madeline! Madeline!"

  "That's my wife," explained the orchard keeper. "Calling in my daughter for her supper."

  The voice approached, still calling, until the keeper's wife appeared through the trees, tears pouring down her cheeks. As soon as she set eyes on her husband she rushed to him, sobbing.

  "Madeline is gone," she wept. "She wandered off while I was in the house taking pies out of the oven."

  "It will be dark soon," said the orchard-keeper, and as he spoke, a look of fear moved in his eyes. "Do you know where she went, woman?"

  The keeper's wife began to sob even louder at this, and pointed to the forest that stood poised at the perimeter of the orchard. The trees were pines, and unlike the well-tended avenues of the fruit trees, they had a look of the wasteland about them, as if their sap might be tar and their cones the eggs of the cockatrice.

  "She was playing close to the forest," said the keeper's wife.

  "Then she must have wandered in," replied the keeper grimly. "There are peacocks in there with two thousand eyes, tigers and barking mandrills with purple snouts. They will have eaten her by now."

  "Oh, don't worry," said Mr. Bacchus. "Malachi will deal with the peacocks and the tigers, and Hero can wrestle the mandrills."

  Malachi peered from out of the apple tree when he heard his name being mentioned. "Must I?" he said. "Your peacock is a savage beast when roused."

  "We must help the gentleman find his daughter," said Mr. Bacchus. "And if that means wrestling peacocks and tigers—then surely wrestle them we shall."

  Now the sun was sinking, and the air that had been sweet with perfume of ripe fruit was cold, and it seemed to stink of peacocks. The dying light of the sun, passing through the rows of trees, striped each of the company like tigers, and from the forest, unnamable sounds drifted. The keeper's wife began to cry once more.

  "Madeline," she said. "We'll never see her again."

  Angelo interrupted her. "I have stolen your fruit," he said quietly. "And I must make amends. I will go to the forest and find your daughter."

  "It's useless, thief," said the keeper bitterly. "The forest is as endless as Mino's maze and the tigers will tear you to pieces before you have taken a step."

  But Angelo only smiled, and, with the others following behind, slipped between the trees to the place where the orchard surrendered itself to the pines. It was growing darker and darker every moment, as the sun slipped behind the Himalayas, and now and then, in the depths of the forest it seemed as though they heard the baboons picking their teeth.

  Angelo stood on the very edge of the pines and closed his eyes. Utter silence fell. Even the nameless noises ceased. The sun was immersed altogether, and the Himalayas fled up to meet the night. Then, very slowly, Angelo opened his eyes, and a light seemed to flow from them, a light that flickered like a flame in a breath.

  Everybody gasped in amazement. "What is it?" hissed Domingo.

  "Ssssh!" insisted Ophelia. "It's magic!" "A trick?" said Hero. "That's no trick."

  Trick or riot, the light was real, and even as they watched, from the shadows of the pines, and from the grass, from between the patterns of dead pine-needles, and from under the vanes of the cones, moths began to appear. It was the light from Angelo's eyes that they were fluttering towards, and they gathered around his head like so many stars. Now even Malachi stared in disbelief.

  Suddenly, something in the forest moved. Everybody slowly took a step back. And another. A baboon screeched hysterically among the high branches, like a Bird of Paradise mad with its beauty.

  "Back!" cried the orchard-keeper.

  "What is it?" asked Mr. Bacchus.

  "A tiger!" the keeper yelled. "It's a tiger!"

  "Are you sure?" said Mr. Bacchus, raising his stick.

  "Look!" replied the keeper, and pointed into the darkness. Something was emerging from the forest, albino, as if it had been centuries without light. Its pale form was threaded through the trees like a will-o-the-wisp in reeds.

  "A tiger!" cried the keeper again. "A white tiger! Run!"

  Nobody needed a further warning. Everyone turned and ran like the wind, back to the safety of the orchard. Only Angelo remained at the edge of the pines, still making the moths dance in the light around his head.

  "He doesn't see it!" said Hero. "He doesn't see the tiger."

  "Don't look!" cried the keeper, expecting the tiger to leap from the darkness on top of Angelo and tear him hand from arm. Ophelia hid her eyes, Domingo stood on his head, and Malachi ran up a tree again. They waited as the living darkness engulfed them, frozen in fear. Long minutes passed. The orchard was silent. Ophelia peered tentatively between her fingers, Domingo turned a somersault to stand on his feet, and Malachi parted the leaves of the apple tree. There was no sign of the tiger. Nor a peacock. Not even a barking baboon.

  Instead, from the clutches of the pine forest emerged a little girl in a muddied white dress, laughing to herself as she chased the moths that were fluttering in front of her towards Angelo's eyes.

  "Madeline!" cried the orchard-keeper's wife, rushing forward to sweep her daughter up into her arms. "Madeline, my girl, where have you been?"

  "In the forest," replied the child, with a grin.

  "What about tigers, girl?" said her father, peering into the pines. "Why didn't the tigers eat you? Or have they, and you are an apparition?"

  "What are tigers?" said Madeline.

  There was a moment's silence. The keeper shook his head.

  "Home for you," said the wife to her daughter, and carried her down the avenues of the trees, scolding and kissing her at the same time. The orchard-keeper just looked bewi
ldered.

  "She said she saw no tigers," he said. "Yet the forest is full of them."

  "Perhaps," said Bacchus knowingly, "it is your heads which are full of tigers."

  "Not mine," said Malachi. "They smell."

  By this time, the light in Angelo's eyes had faded, and he was walking off towards the road.

  "Thief," the orchard-keeper called after him. "You have brought my daughter back to me. Please—will you come home and eat with us?"

  "A capital idea," said Mr. Bacchus "Malachi, you may come out of that tree now."

  When they had dined on pies and wine, Angelo told them how he had been exiled from his father's house when it was discovered that his eyes glowed like candle-flames.

  "They believed I was a changeling," he said. "That I was the son of a satyr."

  "No such thing," said Malachi.

  "Oh dear me!" said Bacchus. "Why, in Arcady, the times we'd—"

  Ophelia interrupted him before he could begin his reminiscing.

  "What are you going to do now?" she asked Angelo.

  "I don't know," he replied. "I shall just follow the road wherever it goes."

  "A splendid philosophy," said Mr. Bacchus. "My own! My own! I'm taking my circus to Cathay, in Asia the Deep, my boy, to delight the Khan called Kublai with tumbling and mumming. I should be charmed if you'd join us, and come along to Xanadu. What an act you have! Angelo and his dancing moths! Extraordinary! Will you come, my dear boy?"

  "Thank you," said Angelo. "I should be honoured." "True," said Bacchus.

  And so they said goodbye to the orchard-keeper, to his wife, and to Madeline the apparition, and one by one they climbed back into the caravan with a high bright moon turning the road before them to a silver ribbon, and set off once more on their journey to Cathay and to the lichened towers of Xanadu.