The Servitor
Colum, Padraic
503 THE SERVITOR By PADRAIC COLUM "DENAIAH, King Solomon's giant captain, spied •*-' within the cave where the Servitor of the Lord of Earth had his lair. He saw him lying with his hair in...
...He raged, and sometimes in his rages he broke down trees and buildings with his kicks...
...And then, until the sunset came, he stayed there drinking the wine that he lifted to his mouth with his joined hands...
...Benaiah had brought with him chains to lay upon the Servitor of the Lord of Earth—chains that even he might not break on account of their being inscribed with the magical names that were known to King Solomon...
...But coming to it he smelled, not the clear smell of snow-water, but the smell of wine...
...And then they filled up the cistern with wine from their wine-skins, and they went back to their camp in the high grasses...
...Samur, his wise men told him, was the possession of him who is called the Lord of Earth...
...He dipped his joined hands in and raised them to his mouth...
...They dug beneath the cistern and they drained off the water that was in it, and they turned away from it the course of the water that came down from the snow of the mountain...
...The Servitor did not see King Solomon's giant captain, and Benaiah after he had looked upon him went back to his camp in the high grasses...
...He saw him lying with his hair in tangles, and all around him were the bones and teeth of dragons...
...This he did, fetching them down from a far mountain...
...They stopped up the hole they had made with a pack of wool...
...Benaiah made the Servitor of the Lord of Earth go with him towards the city of King Solomon...
...In a while he came forth again...
...And having drunk greatly of the snow-water that came down to that cistern, Sokar went back to his cave...
...And as soon as Sokar was brought before King Solomon, he uttered a cry so shrill that the earth quaked to it...
...For King Solomon would have him bear the stones that were for the building of the Temple...
...Then Benaiah, the giant captain, and his comrades, went to where Sokar was lying in his stupor...
...It was then that his wise men spoke to King Solomon, telling him of samur...
...But how, without the iron chisel and the iron sledge, might stones be cut so that they would fit together...
...They put the heavy chains upon him—the chains that were inscribed with the magical names that King Solomon knew...
...But Solomon made him gaze upon his ring, and when he had gazed upon it, Sokar, the Servitor of the Lord of Earth, knew that Solomon would have to be obeyed...
...Then Solomon sent him to fetch stones for the building of the Temple...
...They went to the cistern, Benaiah and the men sent by Solomon, and they looked into it...
...But even crouched, Sokar had great bulk—and when he stood up he was immensely tall...
...He went to a place, and stooping down, he took water in his joined hands and drank...
...It was a great cistern, but Sokar had nearly emptied it of the water it held...
...They heard his shouts of exultation as the wine went through his veins...
...He whirled in his hands the staff that was the mid-bone of a dragon...
...And when Benaiah laid against his bones a link that had a magic name inscribed upon it, he shouted out in pain and terror...
...When he awakened from his stupor Sokar, the Servitor of the Lord of Earth, found himself weighed down with chains...
...He came forth, crouched towards the ground...
...And now Benaiah, the giant captain, had looked upon him, Sokar, whose strength was the strength of the storm, and he went back to his camp in the high grasses, and he and his comrades whispered together as to what they might do...
...When he heard this, Solomon pondered in his heart...
...In a day, they saw Sokar come forth from that cave that went deep into the earth...
...Then Sokar, fearing that a trap had been set for him, went back to his cave...
...When they went back again to their camp in the high grasses, they made up a plan by which Sokar, the Servitor of the Lord of Earth, might be taken...
...And Sokar came forth upon another day...
...Solomon, since he might not use iron to shape the stones for his temple, resolved to use samur...
...It was then that an angel of God told Solomon that on the stones that were for the building of the Temple, no tool of iron was to be used...
...Huge and earth-colored, the Servitor of the Lord of Earth stood there in the sunset, and was beheld of Benaiah and his comrades...
...Samur, they told him, is a living substance of about the size of a barleycorn— laid upon a stone or upon anything harder than stone, it cuts its way through...
...Leaving the staff that was the mid-bone of a dragon against the cistern, he dipped in his hand, and he drank the wine he had taken up in his hand...
...King Solomon brought his wise men together and he asked this question of them...
...He had been commanded by King Solomon to seize Sokar, the Servitor of the Lord of Earth, and to bring him to him—Sokar who had the strength of the storm...
...For iron was used in weapons that were for the killing of men, and for that reason iron might not be used in the making of the Temple that was as a sign of peace between God and mankind...
...It might be, he thought, that the Servitor of the Lord of Earth who fetched the stones for the Temple, would...
...And then he lay down upon the earth, overcome with the wine he had drunk...
...They saw that Soka'r drank out of a cistern that he had made...
...His strength, that was the strength of a storm, failed him when he tried to break the chains...
...He came forth holding in his hand the mid-bone of a dragon for a staff, and he went to the cistern he had made...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 21
