Part 11 (2/2)
The night was clear and silent.
The light-pulse of the stars as they wheeled with slow certainty to meet the dawn was the only visible movement in the whole expanse of shadowed earth and sky.
And the only sound audible was my own life breath as I sate beside the glowing embers of the camp fire.
Strictly speaking, however, there was no camp, for I, and the two coolies who carried my breakfast, had missed our way in our detour through the eternal sameness of faint curve and level in the wide uplands, and finally, in despair of rejoining our tents, had bivouacked as best we could on the sh.o.r.e of a small frozen lake; one of those obstinate, rock-bound pools which, even when spring has set seal of conquest on the world, refuse to melt, and so yield up their treasure of sweet water to its renewed thirst for Life.
My servants had forced this particular lakelet to philanthropy with rude blows; wantonly rude it had seemed to me, as I watched the swift s.h.i.+ver with which the stable unity of surface had split into forlorn fragments of ice, each adrift at the mercy of that which they had held prisoner for so long.
The other necessary element, fire, my men had also commandeered by a raid on the low juniper which crept like moss below the taller gra.s.ses of the plain.
The result had not been altogether satisfactory, for the pungent smoke of the aromatic wood had--at least, so the sufferers averred, though, at the time, I suspected a recourse for comfort to my whisky-flask--produced unmistakable symptoms of intoxication in the amateur cooks, who, after valiantly serving me up a rechauffe of breakfast had succ.u.mbed to sleep. The mattress of creeping juniper on which they lay like logs was springy enough to have hidden them from sight even if the shadowed earth had not been so dark; for it was dark, formless, void, as only an unbroken expanse of featureless plain can be when the very sky grows velvet black because of the infinitely distant brilliance of the stars. Indeed, the uniformity of indefinable shadow was almost oppressive, although I knew right well the scene that lay around me; for who that has once seen it can fail of seeing again with the mind's eye the marvellous mosaic as of white marble and precious jewels which covers the high upland stretches of the World's Roof, when the winter snow retreats reluctantly, as if loth to leave the carpeting of spring flowers which follow on its fleeing footsteps.
I even remembered as I watched the embers that just behind them, finding faint shelter from a solitary boulder, there grew a tiny azalea I had never seen before; a fragile, leafless thing set spa.r.s.ely with sweet-scented flowers that were flecked rose on saffron like a sunset sky.
And the silence was oppressive also. I caught myself listening--listening almost breathlessly--for a sound--for some sound!
But there was not even a whisper among the tall gra.s.ses.
In sudden impulse I threw a fresh juniper branch upon the embers, and the silence, the stillness ended as if by magic; for the green spines spat and sputtered as they shrivelled, and sent out a dense cloud of smoke to circle up endlessly into the darkness.
A pungent smoke indeed! Involuntarily I drew back from it and covered my eyes with my hand waiting until the smouldering should lighten into flame.
The waiting, however, prolonged itself strangely. No flicker of light reached me, and I began to wonder dreamily what had happened; so dreamily, indeed, that when at last I looked up, I did so reluctantly, and with a curious sense of confusion.
It was this, no doubt, which prevented surprise at finding that I was no longer the solitary watcher of those dull embers.
Opposite me, nearly hidden in the endless curlings of the juniper smoke was a man crouching towards the fire as if he felt the cold of the high uplands. Only his face, and the hands he held towards the heat, showed clearly; the rest was lost in billowy clouds which, drifting upwards behind him, obscured the very stars.
I sate silent for a while, disinclined even for curiosity, and then, rather to my own surprise, I spoke as I might have spoken to a familiar friend.
”You are cold, I'm afraid.”
To this day, I do not know in what language he replied--if, indeed! he spoke at all. My only recollection is of the eloquence of liquid, l.u.s.trous eyes, the confident certainty of comprehension which is the child's ere it can speak articulately.
”I am a Star-gazer; so the Fire draws me.”
”Why?”
”Why? Surely all know it is the Star Fire which fell when She first came to me--Hai-me! Hai-me! When She first came and laid her hand in mine.”
The drifting billows parted, showing the stars above his head, then closed again, blotting them out; blotting out all things, it seemed to me, even my own self as I sate listening to the faint wail which rose vaguely, filling the wide shadows.
”Io! Io! Disturber of dreams, why didst thou come? Io! Io! Bringer of dreams, why didst go? Lo! the Star fire was not thine though thou earnest with the Fire of the Star.”
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