The Magus - John Fowles [92]
so it seemed. A figure had appeared on the terrace, not fifty feet away, facing and above me. It was Lily. It couldn't be her, but it was her. The same hair blew about in the wind; the dress, the sunshade, the figure, the face, everything was the same. She was staring out to sea, over my head, totally ignoring me. It was a wild, dislocating, disactualizing, shock. Yet I knew within the first few seconds that although I was obviously meant to believe that this was the same girl as the one on the beach, it was not. But it was so like her that it could be only one thing--a twin sister. There were two Lilies in the field. The night before, the nymph, was explained. But I had no time to think. Another figure appeared beside the Lily on the terrace. It was a man, much too tall to be Conchis. At least, I presumed it was a man; perhaps "Apollo" or "Robera Foulkes"--or even "de Deukans." I couldn't see, because the figure was all in black, shrouded in the sun, and wearing the most sinister mask I had ever seen: the head of an enormous black dog, or jackal, with a long muzzle and high pointed ears. They stood there, the possessor and the possessed, looming death and the frail maiden. There was almost immediately, after the first visual shock, something vaguely grotesque about it; it had the overdone macabreness of a horror-magazine illustration. It certainly touched on some terrifying archetype; but it shocked common sense as well as the unconscious. Again, I had no feeling of the supernatural, no feeling that this was more than another nasty twist in the masque; a black inversion of the scene on the beach. That does not mean I was not frightened. I was, and very frightened; but my fear came from a feeling that anything might happen. That there were no limits in this masque, no normal social laws or conventions. Two things happened in the moments I stood there. Maria came towards me; and the two figures swiftly withdrew, as if to avoid any chance of her seeing them. Lily's doppelganger was pulled back imperiously by the black hand on her shoulder. At the very last moment she looked down at me, but her face was expressionless. I began to run back towards the point on the path where I could see down to the beach. I flung a look over my shoulder. The figures on the terrace had disappeared. I came to the bend from which I could see down, from where, not half a minute before, I had watched the Lily on the beach last wave. The jetty was deserted; that end of the small cove was empty. I ran further down, to the little flat space with the bench, from where I could see almost all the beach arid most of the path up. I waited in vain for the mounting bright dress to appear. I thought, she must be hiding in the little cave, or among the rocks. I turned and began to climb swiftly back towards the house. Maria was still waiting for me at the edge of the colonnade. She had been joined by a man. I recognised Hermes, the taciturn donkeydriver. He could have been the man in black, he had the right height; but he looked unruffled, a mere bystander. I said quickly in Greek, _mia stigmi_, one second, and walked indoors past them. Maria was holding out an envelope, but I took no notice. Once inside I raced up the stairs to Conchis's room. I knocked on the door. No sound. I knocked again. Then I tried the handle. It was locked. I went back down, and paused in the music room to light a cigarette; and to take a grip on myself. "Where is Mr. Conchis?" "_Then eine mesa_." He's not in. Maria raised the envelope again, but I still ignored it. "Where's he gone?" "_Ephyge me ti varca_." Gone with the boat. "Where?" She didn't know. I took the envelope. It had _Nicholas_ written on it. Two folded papers. One was a note from Conchis. _Dear Nicholas, I am obliged to ask you to entertain yourself until this evening. Unexpected business requires my presence urgently in Nauplia. M. C._ The other was a radiogram. There was no telephone or cable line to the island, but the Greek coastguard service ran a small radio station. It had been sent from Athens the evening before.