Part 32 (1/2)
Like a light flaming from dark, the face shone through the gloom.
”Love, a phantom,” laughs the mocking voice of the imperious Hortense I knew long ago; and the thrill of her laugh proves love the realest phantom life can know.
Then the child Hortense becomes of a sudden the grown woman, grave and sweet, with eyes in the dark like stars, and strange, broken thoughts I had not dared to hope s.h.i.+ning unspoken on her face.
”Life, a phantom-substance, the shadow--love, the all,” the dream-face seems to be saying. ”Events are G.o.d's thoughts--storms and darkness and prey are his puppets, the blind G.o.ds, his slaves-G.o.d is love; for you are here! . . . You are here! . . . You are here with me!”
When I feel through the dark this time is the grip of a living hand.
Then we lock arms and sweep through s.p.a.ce, the northern lights curtaining overhead, the stars for torches, and the blazing comets heralding a way.
”The very stars in their courses fight for us,” says Hortense.
And I, with an earthy intellect groping behind the winged love of the woman, think that she refers to some of M. Picot's mystic astrologies.
”No--no,” says the dream-face, with the love that divines without speech, ”do you not understand? The stars fight for us--because--because----”
”Because G.o.d is love,” catching the gleam of the thought; and the stars that fight in their courses for mortals sweep to a noonday splendour.
And all the while I was but a crazy dreamer lying captive, wounded and weak in a pirate cave. Oh, yes, I know very well what my fine gentlemen dabblers in the new sciences will say--the fellow was daft and delirious--he had lost grip on reality and his fevered wits mixed a mumble-jumble of ancient symbolism with his own adventures. But before you reduce all this great universe to the dimensions of a chemist's crucible, I pray you to think twice whether the mind that fas.h.i.+oned the crucible be not greater than the crucible; whether the Master-mind that shaped the laws of the universe be not greater than the universe; whether when man's mind loses grip--as you call it--of the little, nagging, insistent realities it may not leap free like the jagged lightnings from peak to peak of a consciousness that overtowers life's commoner levels!
Spite of our boastings, each knows neither more nor less than life hath taught him. For me, I know what the dream-voice spoke proved true: life, the shadow of a great reality; love, the all; the blind G.o.ds of storm and dark and prey, the puppets of the G.o.d of G.o.ds, working his will; and the G.o.d of G.o.ds a G.o.d of love, realest when love is near.
Once, I mind, the dark seemed alive with wolfish shades, sniffing, prowling, circling, creeping nearer like that monster wolf of fable set on by the powers of evil to hunt Man to his doom. A nightmare of fear bound me down. The death-frosts settled and tightened and closed--but suddenly, Hortense took cold hands in her palms, calling and calling and calling me back to life and hope and her. Then I waked.
Though I peopled the mist with many shadows, Le Borgne alone stood there.
CHAPTER XX
WHO THE PIRATES WERE
How long I lay in the pirates' cave I could not tell; for day and night were alike with the pale-blue flame quivering against the earth-wall, gusts of cold air sweeping through the door, low-whispered talks from the inner cave.
At last I surprised Le Borgne mightily by sitting bolt upright and bidding him bring me a meal of buffalo-tongue or teal. With the stolid repartee of the Indian he grunted back that I had tongue enough; but he brought the stuff with no ill grace. After that he had much ado to keep me off my feet. Finally, I promised by the soul of his grandfather neither to spy nor listen about the doors of the inner cave, and he let me up for an hour at a time to practise walking with the aid of a lance-pole. As he found that I kept my word, he trusted me alone in the cave, sitting crouched on the log-end with a buckskin sling round my shattered sword-arm, which the wolves had not helped that night at the stake.
In the food Le Borgne brought was always a flavour of simples or drugs.
One night--at least I supposed it was night from the chill of the air blowing past the bearskin--just as Le Borgne stooped to serve me, his torch flickered out. Before he could relight, I had poured the broth out and handed back an empty bowl.
Then I lay with eyes tight shut and senses wide awake. The Indian sat on the log-end watching. I did not stir. Neither did I fall asleep as usual. The Indian cautiously pa.s.sed a candle across my face. I lay motionless as I had been drugged. At that he stalked off. Voices began in the other apartment. Two or three forms went tip-toeing about the cave. Shadows pa.s.sed athwart the flame. A gust of cold; and with half-closed eyes I saw three men vanish through the outer doorway over fields no longer snow-clad.
Had spring come? How long had I lain in the cave? Before I gained strength to escape, would M. Radisson have left for Quebec? Then came a black wave of memory--thought of Jack Battle, the sailor lad, awaiting our return to rescue him. From the first Jack and I had held together as aliens in Boston Town. Should I lie like a stranded hull while he perished? Risking spies on the watch, I struggled up and staggered across the cave to that blue flame quivering so mysteriously.
As I neared, the mystery vanished, for it was nothing more than one of those northern beds of combustibles--gas, tar, or coal--set burning by the ingenious pirates. [1]
The spirit was willing enough to help Jack, but the flesh was weak.
Presently I sank on the heaped pelts all atremble. I had promised not to spy nor eavesdrop, but that did not prohibit escape. But how could one forage for food with a right arm in bands and a left unsteady as aim of a girl? Le Borgne had befriended me twice--once in the storm, again on the hill. Perhaps he might know of Jack. I would wait the Indian's return. Meanwhile I could practise my strength by walking up and down the cave.
The walls were hung with pelts. Where the dry clay crumbled, the roof had been timbered. A rivulet of spring water bubbled in one dark corner. At the same end an archway led to inner recesses. Behind the skin doorway sounded heavy breathing, as of sleepers. I had promised not to spy. Turning, I retraced the way to the outer door. Here another pelt swayed heavily in the wind. Dank, earthy smells of spring, odours of leaves water-soaked by melting snows, the faint perfume of flowers pus.h.i.+ng up through mats of verdure, blew in on the night breeze.