Wonderfully strengthened, she was, by the voyage. Sorrow had destroyed large fields of verdure, and turned barren the future, but its devouring was finished. Quentin Charter was adjusted in her mind to a duality with which Paula Linster could have no concern. Only to one mistress could he be faithful; indeed, it was only in the presence of this mistress that he became the tower of visions to another; in the midst of the work he worshipped, Quentin Charter had heard the Skylark sing. Paula did not want to see him again, nor Selma Cross. To avoid these two, as well as the place where the Destroyer had learned so well to penetrate, she had managed not to return to her apartment during the two days before sailing.... There would never be another master-romance—never again so rich a giving, nor so pure an ideal. Before this tragic reality, the inner glory of her womanhood became meaningless. It was this that made the future a crossing of sterile tundras,—yet she would keep her friends, and love her work, and try to hold her faith....
Bellingham did not call her at sea, but he had frightened her too profoundly to be far from mind. The face she had seen in the hall-way was drawn and disordered by the dreadful tortures of nether-planes; and awful in the eyes, was that feline vacancy of soul. Once in a dream, she saw him—a pale reptile-monster upreared from a salty sea, voiceless in that oceanic isolation, a shameful secret of the depths. The ghastly bulk had risen with a mute protest to the sky against dissolution and creeping decay—and sounded again....
To her, Bellingham was living death, the triumph of desire which rends itself, the very essence of tragedy. She gladly would have died to make her race see the awfulness ofjust flesh—as she saw it now.... His power seemed ended; she felt with the Reifferscheids and Madame Nestor, that her secret was hermetic, and there was a goodly sense of security in the intervening sea....
And now there was a new island each day; each morning a fresh garden arose from the Caribbean—sun-wooed, rain-softened isles with colorful little ports.... There was one tropic city—she could not recall the name—which from the offing had looked like the flower-strewn gateway to an amphitheatre of mountains.
TheFruitlandshad lain for a day in the hot, sharky harbor of Santiago; had run into a real cloudburst off the Silver Reefs of Santo Domingo, and breathed on the radiant next morning before the stately and ancient city of San Juan de Porto Rico—shining white as a dream-castle of old Spain, and adrift in an azure world of sky and sea. She spent a day and an evening in this isle of ripe fruits and riper amours; and took away materials for a memory composite of interminable siestas, restless radiant nights, towering cliffs, incomparable courtesy, and soft-voiced maidens with wondrous Spanish eyes that laugh and turn away.
Then for two days they had steamed down past the saintly archipelago—St. Thomas, St. Martin, St. Kitts; then Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, and a legion of littler isles—truncated peaks jutting forth from fragrant, tinted water. There were afternoons when she did not care to lift her voice or move about. Fruit-juices and the simplest salads, a flexible cane chair under the awnings, a book to rest the eyes from the gorgeous sea and enchanted shores, somnolence rather than sleep—these are enough for the approach to perfection in the Caribbean, with the Lesser Antilles on the lee.... Then at last in late afternoon, the great hulking shape of Pelée loomed watery green against the sky; in the swift-speeding twilight, the volcano seemed to swell and blacken until it was like the shadow of a continent, and the lights of Saint Pierre pricked off the edge of the land.
At last late at night, queerly restless, she sat alone on deck in the windless roadstead and regarded the illumined terraces of Saint Pierre. They had told her that the breath from Martinique was like the heavy moist sweetness of a horticultural garden, but the island must have been sick with fever this night, for a mile at sea the land-breeze was dry, devitalized, irritating the throat and nostrils.
There was no moon, and the stars were so faint in the north that the mass of Pelée was scarcely shaped against the sky. The higher lights of the city had a reddish uncertain glow, as if a thin film of fog hung between them and the eye; but to the south the night cleared into pure purple and unsullied tropic stars. The harbor was weirdly hot.
Before her was the city which held the quest of her voyaging—Father Fontanel, the holy man of Saint Pierre....Only a stranger can realize what a pure shining garment his actual flesh has become. To me there was healing in the very approach of the man....This was the enduring fragment from the Charter letters; and in that dreadful Sunday night when she began her flight from Bellingham, already deep within her mind Father Fontanel was the goal.... Paula set out for shore early the next morning. The second-officer of theFruitlandssat beside her in the launch. She spoke of the intense sultriness.
"Yes, Saint Pierre is glowing like a brazier," he said. "I was ashore last night for awhile. The people blame the mountain. Old Pelée has been acting up—showering the town with ash every little while lately. It's the taint of sulphur that spoils the air."
She turned apprehensively toward the volcano.La Montague Pelée, over the red-tiled roofs of Saint Pierre, looked huge like an Emperor of the Romans. Paled in the intense morning light, he wore a delicate ruching of white cloud about his crown. They stepped ashore on the Sugar Landing where Paula found a carriage to take her to theHotel des Palms, a rare old plantation-house on theMorne d'Orange, recently converted for public use.
The ponies were ascending the rise inRue Victor Hugo, at the southern end of the city, when Paula discovered the little Catholic church she had imaged for so many weeks,Notre Dame des Lourdes, niched away in the crowded streets with a Quebec-like quaintness, and all the holier from its close association with the lowly shops. From these walls had risen the spiritual house of Father Fontanel—her far bright beacon.... Theporteuses, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, steadying the baskets upon their heads. The pressure of the heat, and the dispiriting atmosphere revealed their effects in the distended eyelids and colorless, twisted lips of the burden-bearers.
The ponies at length gained the eminence of theMorne d'Orange, and ahead she saw the broad, white plantation-house—Hotel des Palms. To the right was the dazzling, turquoise sea where theFruitlandslay large among the shipping, and near her a private sea-going yacht, nearly as long and angelically white. The broad verandas of the hotel were alluring with palms; the walls and portcullises were cooled with embroidering vines. Gardens flamed with poinsettias and roses, and a shaded grove of mango and India trees at the end of the lawn, was edged with moon flowerets and oleanders. Back of the plantation-house waved the sloping seas of cane; in front, the Caribbean. On the south rose the peaks of Carbet; on the north, the Monster.
Paula had hardly left the veranda of magnificent vistas two hours later, when the friendly captain of theFruitlandsapproached with an elderly American, of distinguished appearance, whom he presented—Mr. Peter Stock, of Pittsburg.
"Since you are to leave us here, Miss Wyndam," the captain added, "I thought you would be glad to know Mr. Stock, who makes an annual cruise around these Islands—and knows them better than any American I've encountered yet. Yonder is his yacht—that clipper-built beauty just a bit in from the liner."
"I've already been admiring the yacht," Paula said, "and wondering her name. There's something Venetian about her dazzling whiteness in the soft, deep blue."
"I get it exactly, Miss Wyndam—that 'mirage of marble' in the Italian sky.... My craft is theSaragossa." His eyelids were tightened against the light, and the voice was sharp and brisk. His face, tropically tanned, contrasted effectively with the close-cropped hair and mustache, lustrous-white as his ship.... Paula having found the captain's courtesy and good sense invariable during the voyage, gladly accepted his friend, who proved most interesting on the matter of Pelée.
"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual," he told her, pointing toward the mountain, "to study the old man yonder. Pelée, you know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell—I use the word to signify a geological stratum—is very close to the surface down here. All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time under the Caribbean—and rub out our very pretty panorama."
"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked.
The vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips. "Pelée and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the archipelago—Pelée's present internal complaint, for instance,—should be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this morning—except for the heavy rain before dawn."
"You mean volcanic ash?"
"Exactly."
"That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to behave this way?"
"From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelée has had a session of grumbling."
"I mean as a usual thing——"
He turned to her abruptly and inquired, "Didn't you know that there hasn't been a sound from Pelée for twenty years before the month of April now ending?"
This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda.
"Ever been in Pittsburg?" he asked.
"No."
"I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air—to think I'm back among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela."
"The moon looks like beaten egg," Paula said with a slight shiver. "They must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelée, Mr. Stock, please tell me more about him."
He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. "It's the ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen," he explained. "We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain."
They turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like distant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelée was unscathed by lightning.
"Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?"
"Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelée is acting out of the ordinary is quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions."
He discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of the world—Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Ætna, calling them chronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame.
"A thousand years is nothing to them," he added. "They wait, still as crocodiles, until seers have built their temples in the high rifts and cities have formed on their flanks. They have tasted blood, you see, and the madness comes back. Twenty years is only a siesta. Pelée is a suspect."
"I think I should prefer to hear you tell the treachery of volcanoes outside of the fire-zone," she declared. "It's like listening to ghost stories in a haunted house."
Pelée rumbled again, and Paula's fingers involuntarily started toward his sleeve. The heavy wooden shutters of the great house rattled in the windless night; the ground upon which they stood seemed to wince at the Monster's pain. She was conscious of the fragrance of roses and magnolia blooms above the acrid taint of the air. Some strange freak of the atmosphere exerted a pressure upon the flowers, forcing a sudden expulsion of perfume. The young moon was a formless blotch now in the fouled sky. A sigh like the whimpering of many sick children was audible from the servants' cabins behind the hotel.... Later, from her own room, she saw the double chain of lights out in the harbor—theSaragossapulling at her moorings among the lesser craft, like a bright empress in the midst of dusky maid-servants; and in the north was Vulcan struggling to contain the fury of his fluids. She was a little afraid of Pelée.
Very early abroad, Paula set out on her first pilgrimage toNotre Dame des Lourdes. Rain had not fallen in the night, and she regarded a white world, as Stock had promised, and the source of the phenomenon with the pastelle tints of early morning upon his huge eastern slope. She had slept little and with her face turned to the north. A cortege had passed before her in dream—all the destroyers of history, each with a vivid individuality, like the types of faces of all nations—the story of each and the desolation it had made among men and the works of men.
Most of them had given warning. Pelée was warning now. His warning was written upon the veins of every leaf, painted upon the curve of every blade of grass, sheeted evenly-white upon the red tiles of every roof. Gray dust blown by steam from the bursting quarries of the mountain clogged the gutters of the city and the throats of men. It was a moving, white cloud in the river, a chalky shading that marked the highest reach of the harbor tide. It settled in the hair of the children, and complicated the toil of bees in the nectar-cups. With league-long cerements, and with a voice that caused to tremble his dwarfed companions, the hills andmornes, great Pelée had proclaimed his warning in the night.
Father Fontanel was out in the parish somewhere. One of the washer-women told her this, at the door of the church. There were many sick in the city from the great heat and the burned air—many little children sick. Father Fontanel always sought the sick in body; those who were sick in soul, sought him.... So the woman of the river-banks, in her simple way, augmented the story of the priest's love for his people. Paula rested for a few moments in the dim transept. Natives moved in and out for a breath of coolness, some pausing to kneel upon the worn tiles of the nave. Later she walked among the lower streets of the suffering city, her heart filled with pity for the throngs housed on the low breathless water-front. Except when the wind was straight from the volcano, the hotel on theMorne d'Orangewas made livable by the cool Trades.
The clock in theHopital l'Militairestruck the hour of nine. Paula had just hired a carriage at the Sugar Landing, when her eye was attracted by a small crowd gathering near the water's edge. The black cassock of a priest in the midst drew her hurrying forward. A young man, she thought at first, from the frail shoulders and the slender waist.... A negress had fallen from the heat. Her burdens lay together upon the shore—a tray of cakes from her head, and a naked babe from her arms.... A glimpse at the priest's profile, and she needed not to be told that this was the holy man of Saint Pierre.
Happiness lived in the face above the deep pity of the moment. It was an attraction of light, like the brow of Mary in Murillo'sImmaculate Conception; or like that instant ethereal radiance which shines from the face of a little child passing away without pain. The years had put an exquisite nobility upon the plain countenance, and the inner life had added the gleam of adoration—"the rapture-light of holy vigils kept."
Paula rubbed her eyes, afraid lest it were not true; afraid for a moment that it was her own meditations that had wrought this miracle in clay. Lingering, she ceased to doubt the soul's transfiguration.... Father Fontanel beckoned a huge negro from a lighter laden with molasses-casks—a man of strength, bare to the waist.
"Take the little mother to my house," he said.
A young woman standing by was given charge of the child.... "Lift her gently, Strong Man. The woman will show you the way to the door." Then raising his voice to the crowd, the priest added, "You who are well—tell others that it is yet cool in the church. Carry the ailing ones there, and the little children. Father Pelée will soon be silent again.... Does any one happen to know who owns the beautiful ship in the harbor?"
His French sentences seemed lifted above a pervasive hush upon the shore. The native faces wore a curious look of adulation; and Paula marvelled in that they seemed unconscious of this. She was not a Catholic; yet she uttered his name with a thrilling rapture, and with a meaning she had never known before:
"Father Fontanel——"
He turned, instantly divining her inspiration.
"Mr. Stock, who owns the ship yonder, is staying at theHotel des Palms," she said quickly. "I have a carriage here. I was thinking that the sick woman and her child might be taken to your house in that. Afterward, when she is cared for, you might wish to ride with me to the Hotel—where I also live."
"Why, yes, Child—who are you?"
"Just a visitor in Saint Pierre—a woman from the States."
Her arrangement was followed, and the negro went back to his work. Father Fontanel joined her behind the carriage.
"But you speak French so well," he observed.
"Not a few Americans do. I was grateful that it came back to me here."
"Yes, for I do not speak a word of English," he said humbly.
They walked for a moment in silence, his head bowed in thought. Paula, glancing at him from time to time, studied the lines of pity and tenderness which shadowed the eyes. His mouth was wonderful to her, quite as virgin to the iron of self-repression as to the soft fullness of physical desire. This was the marvel of the face—it was above battle. Here were eyes that had seen the Glory and retained an unearthly happiness—a face that moved among the lowly, loved, pitied, abode with them; yet was beautiful with the spiritual poise of Overman.
"It was strange that you did not meet Lafcadio Hearn when he was here," she said at length.
He shook his head, asked the name again and the man's work.
"A writer who tarried here; a mystic, too, strange and strong."
"I know no writer by that name—but how did you know that I did not meet him, Child?"
"I was thinking he would write about you in his book of Martinique sketches—had he known."
He accepted the explanation innocently. "There was a writer here—a young man very dear to me—of whom you reminded me at once——"
"Of whom I reminded you, Father?" she repeated excitedly. "You mean because I spoke of another writer?"
"No, I saw a resemblance—rather some relationship of yours to my wonderful young friend.... He said he would come again to me."
She had spoken of Hearn in the hope that Father Fontanel would be reminded of another writer whose name she did not care to mention. His idea of relationship startled her to the heart; yet when she asked further, the good man could not explain. It had merely been his first thought, he said,—as if she hadcomefrom his friend.
"You thought much of him then, Father Fontanel?"
He spoke with power now. "A character of terrible thirsts, Child,—such thirsts as I have never known. Some moments as he walked beside me, I have felt him—like a giant with wolves pulling at his thighs, and angels lifting his arms. Great strength of mind, his presence endowed me, so that I would have seen more of him, and more,—but he will come back! And I know that the wolves shall have been slain, when he comes again——"
"And the angels, Father?" she whispered.
"Such are the companions of the Lifted, my daughter.... It is when I meet one of great conflicts that I am suffused with the spirit of worship in that I am spared. God makes my way so easy that I must wonder if I am not one of His very weak. It must be so, for my mornings and evenings are made lovely by the Presence. My people hearken unto my prayers for them; they love me and bring their little children for my blessing—until I am so happy that I cry aloud for some great work to do that I may strive heroically to show my gratitude to God—and lo, the doors of my work are opened, but there are no lions in the way!"
She knew now all that Charter had meant. In her breast was a silent mystic stirring—akin to that endearing miracle enacted in a conservatory of flowers, when the morning sun first floods down upon the glass.... The initial doubt of her own valor in suffering Selma Cross to shatter her Tower, sprang into being now. Father Fontanel loved him, and had looked within.
That the priest had perceived a "relationship" swept into the woman's soul. Low logic wrought from the physical contacts of Selma Cross trembled before the other immaterial suggestion—that Quentin Charter would come back to Saint Pierre triumphantly companioned, his wolves slain.... She forgot nothing of the actress's point of view; nor that the Westerner did not reach her floor in theZoroasterand encounter an old attraction by accident. He was not one to force his way there, if the man at the elevator told him Miss Linster was not in. All of these things which had driven her to action were still inexplicable, but final condemnation was gone from the evidence—as the stone rolled away.
Bellingham?... The mystery now, as she stood within this radiant aura, was that any point of his desire could ever have found lodgment within. Her sense of protection at this moment was absolute. She had done well to come here.... Again swept into mind, Quentin Charter's silent part in saving her from the Destroyer—the book, the letter, the voice; even to this sanctuary she had come through a sentence from him. For a moment the old master-romance shone glorious again—like a lone, valiant star glimpsed in the rift of storm-hurled clouds.
They had reached the low street door of Father Fontanel's house, a wing of the church. A native doctor had been summoned and helped to carry the woman in. She was revived presently.
"Father," Paula said, remembering the words of the washer-woman, as they emerged into the street, "when one is sick of soul—does one knock here?"
"One does not knock, but enters straightway," he answered. "The door is never locked.... But you look very happy, my daughter."
"I am happy," she answered.
They drove together to theHotel des Palms. Paula did not ask, though she had something of an idea regarding the priest's purpose in asking for Peter Stock. Though she had formed a very high opinion of the American, it occurred to her that he would hardly approve of any one directing arteries of philanthropy to his hand. He had been one of those ruffian giants of the elder school of finance who began with the axe and the plow; whose health, character and ethics had been wrought upon the anvil of privation; whose culture began in middle life, and, being hard-earned, was eminent in the foreground of mind—austere and inelastic, this culture, yet solidly founded. Stock was rich and loved to give, but was rather ashamed of it. Paula could imagine him saying, "I hate the whining of the strong." For twenty years since his retirement, he had voyaged about the world, learning to love beautiful things, and giving possibly many small fortunes away; yet he much would have preferred to acknowledge that he had knocked down a brute than endowed an asylum. Mr. Stock was firm in opinion, dutiful in appreciation for the fine. His sayings were strongly savored, reliant with facts; his every thought was the result of a direct physical process of mind,—a mind athletic to grip the tangible, but which had not yet contracted for its spiritual endowment. In a word a splendid type of American with which to blend an ardently artistic temperament.... Paula, holding something of this conception of the capitalist, became eager to see what adjustment could follow a meeting with his complement in characteristic qualities—her revered mystic. Mr. Stock was pacing up and down the mango grove. Leaving Father Fontanel on the veranda, she joined the American.
"I found a holy man down on the water-front, mildly inquiring who owned theSaragossa," she said laughingly, "and asked him to share my carriage. He has not told me what he wants, but he's a very wonderful priest."
She noted the instant contraction of his brows, and shrank inwardly at the hard, rapid tone, with which he darted the question:
"Are you a Catholic?"
"No, Mr. Stock."
"Yes. I'll see him." It was as if he were talking to his secretary, but Paula liked him too well to mind. They drew near the veranda.
"... Well, sir, what is it?" he spoke brusquely, and in French, studying the priest's upturned face. Mr. Stock believed he knew faces. Except for the years and the calling, he would have decided that Father Fontanel was rather too meek and feminine—at first glance.
"What I wished to ask depends upon your being here for a day or two," the priest said readily. "Father Pelée's hot breath is killing our children in the lower quarters of the city, and many of the poor women are suffering. The ship out in the harbor looked to me like a good angel with folded wings, as I walked the water-front this morning. I thought you would be glad to let me send some mothers and babies—to breathe the good air of the offing. A day, or a night and a day, may save lives."
Paula had felt a proprietary interest in Father Fontanel's mission, no matter what it proved to be. She was pleased beyond measure to find that he was entirely incapable of awe or cringing, before a man of stern and distinguished mien and of such commanding dignity. Moreover, he stated the favor quite as if it were an advantage which the American had not thought of for himself. So interested was she in the priest's utterance, that when her eyes turned from his face to Stock's—the alteration there amazed her. And like the natives of the water-front, the American did not seem to beawareof the benign influence. He had followed the French sentences intently at first, but caught the whole idea before the priest was finished.
"Did you know I wasn't a Catholic?" he asked. The question apparently had been in his mind before he felt himself responding to the appeal.
"No," Father Fontanel answered sincerely. "The truth is, it didn't occur to me whether you were or not."
"Quite right," Mr. Stock said quickly. "It has no place, whatever, so long as you don't think so. You've got a good idea. I'll be here for a day or two. You'll need money to hire boats; then my first officer will have to be informed. My launch is at the Sugar Landing.... On second thought, I'll go back down-town with you.... Miss Wyndam—later in the day—a chat with you?"
"Of course."
Father Fontanel turned, thanking her with a smile. "And the name is 'Wyndam,'" he added. "I had not heard it before."
Paula watched them walking down the driveway to the carriage which she had retained for Father Fontanel. The inclination was full-formed to seek the solitude of her room and there review the whole delightful matter.... She was glad that the priest had not asked her name, for under his eyes—she could not have answered "Wyndam."
It was not until the following evening, after a day of actual physical suffering from Pelée and the heat, even on theMorne, that she had the promised talk with Peter Stock.
"I like your priest," he said, "He works like a man, and he hasn't got a crook in his back. What he wants he seems to get. I have sent over a hundred natives out yonder on theSaragossa, negotiated for the town's whole available supply of fresh milk, and Laird, my chief officer, is giving the party a little cruise to-night——"
"Do you know—I think it is splendid?" she exclaimed.
"What?"
"The work—your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!"
"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used for some such purpose?"
"None, whatever," she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust the matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own benefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy was to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father Fontanel—or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further activities unfolded:
"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here—Les Colonies?"
Paula had not.
"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday that Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of course, this may be true, but he doesn't know it—unless he should have the Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough percentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in the sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat of M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable assurances. This I restrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue appears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous warning against Pelée. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand people for a few days—until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the mountain took on a sudden destroying streak—just see what he would have done! Some glory in saving lives on that scale."
"Vine leaves, indeed," said Paula, "Did M. Mondet tell you he would print this warning?"
"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's inhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within reason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a practical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they really are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will do. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't volcane—sorely tempting to old Father Pelée—a sort of challenge. It would be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's danger—but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of Saint Pierre——"
"Did you tell him that?" Paula asked hastily.
"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of me—kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally showed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite. At all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!' I really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes, chickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere between here and Fort de France."
Paula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that he had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She would have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this rousing ardor of her new friend. "And you really think Pelée may not hold out?" she asked.
"I'm not a monomaniac—at least, not yet," he replied, and his voice suggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. "Call it an experiment that I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes are past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of the fire-zone, until Pelée is cool—or a billion tons lighter. This ordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I don't say that Pelée will blow his head off this week or this millennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that monster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's corpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high; that they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelée has already sprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful archipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters at this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that Krakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves scattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before giving way; that Pelée is joggling now."
"If M. Mondet would write just that," Paula said softly, "I think you would have your exodus."
She sought her room shortly afterward. Pelée's moods had been variable that day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon. The ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezyMorne, six miles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the people in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight had brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real freshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her from the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to bathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly evidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of reaction—simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies come and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no wound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud has blown by.
Her mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into a doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her throat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours seemed to fall asleep in passing. From her balcony she peered into the dead-black of the North where Pelée rumbled at intervals. Back in the south, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of children reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation was dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time passed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back into the past....
ThePanther, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the passing of time, determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The glass showed her a pallid face, darkly-lined.
The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down through the city to the Landing she found theRue Victor Hugoalmost deserted. Theporteuseswere gone from the highway; all doors were tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she imagined the smell of death.
"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she perceived the lights of a big liner lying near theSaragossa. There was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be thePantherwith letters from New York. According to her schedule, the steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after theFruitlands. Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails would be distributed.
"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the Hotel?" the clerk inquired.
"Yes."
"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. ThePantheranchored at two this morning."
"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself.
The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work and a hope for her health—the whole, brief, fine and tonic—like her friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of emotions:
This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten you that I searched, but because I think if you understood entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I had the heart yet to seeThe Thing. Reifferscheid tells me that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and subtly terrifying—this ordeal for which I have been prepared. I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you to-night—sweet gift of the world to me.Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy complications—and you will bring back a splendid store of energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity—but I have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary—when I decide upon it—at theGranville. Some time soon I shall hear from you. All shall be restored—even serenity to your beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to make you wiser, happier,—to keep youwinged. This, as I know the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....My window at theGranvillefaces the East—the East to which I have come—yet from the old ways, I still look to the East for you. New York has found her Spring—a warm, almost vernal night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths are fluttering at the glass—softly, eagerly to get at the light—as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... butyouwould not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....Bless your warm heart that brims with singing—singing which I must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless—as I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the heart of Quentin Charter.
This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten you that I searched, but because I think if you understood entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter. I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I had the heart yet to seeThe Thing. Reifferscheid tells me that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and subtly terrifying—this ordeal for which I have been prepared. I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you to-night—sweet gift of the world to me.
Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy complications—and you will bring back a splendid store of energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity—but I have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.
I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary—when I decide upon it—at theGranville. Some time soon I shall hear from you. All shall be restored—even serenity to your beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to make you wiser, happier,—to keep youwinged. This, as I know the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....
My window at theGranvillefaces the East—the East to which I have come—yet from the old ways, I still look to the East for you. New York has found her Spring—a warm, almost vernal night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths are fluttering at the glass—softly, eagerly to get at the light—as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the electric bulb. The analogy is inevitable ... butyouwould not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....
One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....
Bless your warm heart that brims with singing—singing which I must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless—as I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the heart of Quentin Charter.
She was unconscious of passing time, until her eye was attracted by the heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon aHerriot Theatreenvelope. This communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives.
I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the hallthat night, because I saw your hat as you started to walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I sent a telephone-message to theGranvillefor him to call. He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man at theZoroasterhad orders from me to show a gentleman inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall—to hear at once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap thatwehad arranged—that you were somewhere in the apartment listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words—there is so much, and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat so helplessly against a wall.But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. Villiers had a spy watching all our movements—and was thus informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter had talked to men—all the things that his spy had learned. He did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that if it is not you—some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic possibility of calling him to theZoroasterblinded my judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old neighbor—who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the world, but who meant to be square with you.
I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the hallthat night, because I saw your hat as you started to walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I sent a telephone-message to theGranvillefor him to call. He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man at theZoroasterhad orders from me to show a gentleman inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.
My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall—to hear at once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap thatwehad arranged—that you were somewhere in the apartment listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words—there is so much, and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat so helplessly against a wall.
But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations. Villiers had a spy watching all our movements—and was thus informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter had talked to men—all the things that his spy had learned. He did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth. Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that if it is not you—some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic possibility of calling him to theZoroasterblinded my judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old neighbor—who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the world, but who meant to be square with you.
Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched arms, poured forth an ecstasy of gratitude for his sake; for the restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first line brought back old fears:
I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,—the desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost unbearable that I should be forced to tell him—when I love you so—if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his powers—that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to be the victory. He is breaking up or he would notcome to you....
I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,—the desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost instantly, I succumbed to the old mastery.... When his control was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have passed by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost unbearable that I should be forced to tell him—when I love you so—if, indeed, that has come to pass.... He has altered terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his powers—that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to be the victory. He is breaking up or he would notcome to you....
For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelée, and the gray menace that charged the burnt-out air.
Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising vibration—until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the balustrade for the repetition of a voice that an instant before had thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying:
"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall have to call upon him again."
Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words:
"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a line about Pelée's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see theSaragossalying familiarly in the roadstead——"
Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked.
Charter did not find Paula Linster in the week of New York that followed his call at theZoroaster, but he found Quentin Charter. The first three or four days were rather intense in a psychological way. The old vibrations of New York invariably contained for him a destructive principle, as Paris held for Dr. Duprez. The furious consumption of nerve-tissue during the first evening after his arrival; a renewal of desires operating subconsciously, and in no small part through the passion of Selma Cross; his last struggle, both subtle and furious, with his own stimulus-craving temperament, and the desolation of the true romance—combined, among other things, worthily to test the growth of his spirit.... The thought that Skylark had fallen into the hands of Selma Cross, and had been given that ugly estimate of him which the actress held before his call, as he expressed it in his letter, "drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity." Over this, was a ghastly, whimpering thing that would not be immured—the effect of which, of all assailants to rising hope, was most scarifying: That Paula Linster had suffered herself to listen to those old horrors, and had permitted him to be called to the bar before Selma Cross. No matter how he handled this, it held a fundamental lesion in the Skylark-fineness.
Charter whipped his wastrel tendencies one by one until on the fifth day his resistance hardened, and the brute within him was crippled from beating against it. His letter to Paula Linster was a triumph of repression. Probably one out of six of the thoughts that came to him were given expression. He felt that he had made of Selma Cross an implacable enemy, and was pursued by the haunting dread (if, indeed, the conversation had not been overheard), that she might think better about "squaring" him. It was on this fifth day that for a moment the mystic attraction returned to his consciousness, and he heard the old singing. This was the first reward for a chastened spirit. Again and again—though never consciously to be lured or forced—the vision, unhurt, undiminished, returned for just an instant with a veiled, but exquisite refinement.
The newspaper account of Pelée's overflowing wrath immediately materialized all his vague thought of voyaging. His quest had vanished from New York. Had Selma Cross been true to her word; at least, had any part of their interview been empowered to restore something of the faith of Paula Linster—there had been ample time for him to hear it. He was afraid that, in itself, his old intimacy with the actress had been enough to startle the Skylark into uttermost flight. Reifferscheid's frigidity had required only one test to become a deep trouble. His hint that Miss Linster would be away two or three months rendered New York and a return to his own home equally impossible. Father Fontanel held a bright, substantial warmth for his isolated spirit—and thePantherwas among the imminent sailings.
He bought his berth and passage on the morning of the sailing date, and there was a matinée ofThe Thingin the meantime. Charter did not notify Selma Cross of his coming, but he liked the play unreservedly, and was amazed by the perfection of her work. He wrote her a line to this effect; and also a note of congratulation and greeting to Stephen Cabot.... It was not without a pang that he looked back at Manhattan from The Narrows that night.
For several mornings he had studied the gaunt, striding figure of a fellow-passenger, who appeared to be religious in the matter of his constitutional; or, as a sailor softly remarked as he glanced up at Charter from his holy-stoning, "He seems to feel the need av walkin' off sivin or eight divils before answerin' the breakfast-gong...." In behalf of this stranger also, Charter happened to overhear the chief-steward encouraging one of the waiters to extra-diligence in service, Queerly, in the steward's mind, the interest seemed of a deeper sort than even an unusual fee could exact—as if he recognized in the stranger a man exalted in some mysterious masonry. And Charter noticed that the haggard giant enforced a sort of willing slavery throughout the ship—from the hands, but through the heads. This strange potentiality was decidedly interesting; as was the figure in itself, which seemed possessed of the strength of vikings, in spite of an impression, inevitable to Charter when he drew near—of one enduring a sort of Promethean dissolution. Charter reflected upon the man's eyes, which had the startling look of having penetrated beyond the formality of Death—into shadows where inquisition-hells were limned. It was not until he heard the steward address the other as "Doctor Bellingham," that the fanciful attraction weakened. His recollection crowded instantly with newspaper paragraphs regarding the Bellingham activities. Charter was rather normal in his masculine hatred for hypnotic artists and itinerary confessionals for women.
ThePantherran into a gale in that storm-crucible off Hatteras. Charter smiled at the thought, as the striding Bellingham passed, doing his mileage on the rocking deck, that the roar of the wind in the funnels aloft was fierce energy in the draughts of this human furnace. While his own interest waned, the other, curiously enough, began to respond to his unspoken overtures of a few days before. ThePantherwas a day out from San Juan, steaming past the far-flung coral shoals off Santo Domingo, when Charter was beckoned forward where Bellingham sat.
"This soft air would call a Saint Francis down from his spiritual meditations," the Doctor observed.
The voice put Charter on edge, and the manner affected him with inward humor. It was as if the other thought, "Why, there's that pleasant-faced young man again. Perhaps it would be just as well to speak with him." As he drew up his chair, however, Charter was conscious of an abrupt change in his mental attitude—an inclination to combat, verbally to rush in, seize and destroy every false utterance. His initial idea was to compel this man who spoke so glibly of meditations to explain what the word meant to him. This tense, nervous impatience to disqualify all the other might say became dominant enough to be reckoned with, but when Charter began to repress his irritation, a surprising inner resistance was encountered. His sensation was that of one being demagnetized. Thoughts and words came quickly with the outgoing energy of the current. Altogether he was extraordinarily affected.
"These Islands are not particularly adapted for one who pursues the austerities," he replied.
"Yet where can you find such temperamental happiness?" Bellingham inquired, plainly testing the other. His manner of speech was flippant, as if it were quite the same to him if his acquaintance preferred another subject.
"Anywhere among the less-evolved nations, when the people are warm and fed."
The Doctor smiled. "You will soon see the long, lithe coppery bodies of the Islanders, as they plunge into the sea from the Antillean cliffs. You will hear the soft laughter of the women, and then you will forget to deny their perfection." Sensuality exhaled from the utterance.
"You speak of the few brief zenith years which lie at the end of youth," Charter said. "This sort of perfection exists anywhere. In the Antilles it certainly is not because the natives have learned how to preserve life."
"That's just the point," said Bellingham, "Add to their natural gifts of beautiful young bodies—the knowledge of preservation."
"Take a poor, unread Island boy and inform him how to live forever," Charter observed. "Of course, he'll grasp the process instantly. But wouldn't it be rather severe on the other boys and girls, if the usual formula of perpetuating self is used? I mean, would he not have to restore his vitality from the others?"
Bellingham stared at him. Charter faced it out, but not without cost, for the livid countenance before him grew more and more ghastly and tenuous, until it had the effect of becoming altogether unsubstantial; and out of this wraith shone the eyes of the serpent. The clash of wills was quickly passed.
"You have encountered a different fountain of youth from mine," the Doctor said gently.
"Rather I have encountered a disgust for any serious consideration of immortality in the body."
"Interesting, but our good Saint Paul says that those who are in the body when the last call sounds, will be caught up—without disturbing the sleep of the dead."
"It would be rather hard on such bodies—if the chariots were of fire," Charter suggested.
He was inwardly groping for his poise. He could think well enough, but it disturbed him to feel the need to avoid the other's eyes. He liked the shaping of the conversation and knew that Bellingham felt himself unknown. Charter realized, too, that he would strike fire if he hammered long enough, but there was malevolence in the swift expenditure of energy demanded.
Bellingham smiled again. "Then you think it is inevitable that the end of man is—the clouds?"
"The aspiration of the spirit, I should say, is to be relieved of feet of clay.... Immortality in the body—that's an unbreakable paradox to me. I'm laminated, Harveyized against anything except making a fine tentative instrument of the body."
"You think, then, that the spirit grows as the body wastes?"
"Orientals have encountered starvation with astonishing results to philosophy," Charter remarked. "But I was thinking only of a body firmly helmed by a clean mind. The best I have within me declares that the fleshly wrapping becomes at the end but a cumbering cerement; that through life, it is a spirit-vault. When I pamper the body, following its fitful and imperious appetites, I surely stiffen the seals of the vault. In my hours in which the senses are dominant the spirit shrinks in abhorrence; just as it thrills, warms and expands in rarer moments of nobility."
"Then the old martyrs and saints who macerated themselves wove great folds of spirit?"
The inconsequential manner of the question urged Charter to greater effort to detach, if possible, for a moment at least, the other's Ego. "In ideal," he went on, "I should be as careless of food as Thoreau, as careless of physical pain as Suso. As for the reproductive devil incarnated in man—it, and all its ramifications, since the most delicate and delightful of these so often betray—I should encase in the coldest steel of repression——"
"You say, in ideal," Bellingham ventured quietly. "... But are not these great forces splendid fuel for the mind? Prodigious mental workers have said so."
"A common view," said Charter, who regarded the remark as characteristic. "Certain mental workers are fond of expressing this. You hear it everywhere with a sort of 'Eureka.' Strength of the loins is but a coarse inflammation to the mind. A man may use such excess strength, earned by continence, in the production of exotics, feverish lyrics, and in depicting summer passions, but the truth is, that so long as that force is not censored, shriven and sterilized—it is the same jungle pestilence, and will color the mind with impurity. It is much better where it belongs—than in the mind."
"You do not believe in the wild torrents, the forked lightnings, and the shocking thunders of the poets?"
"I like the calm, conquering voices of the prophets better.... Immortality of the body?... There can be no immortality in a substance which earth attracts. We have vast and violent lessons to learn in the flesh; lessons which can be learned only in the flesh, because it is a matrix for the integration of spirit. It appears to me that, in due time, man reaches a period when he balances in the attractions—between the weight of the body and the lifting of the soul. This is the result of a slow, refining process that has endured through all time. Reincarnation is the best theory I know for the process. That there is an upward tendency driving the universe, seems to be the only cause and justification for Creating. Devolution cannot be at the centre of such a system.... The body becomes more and more a spotless garment for the soul; soul-light more and more electrifies it; the elimination of carnality in thought may even render the body delicate and transparent, but it is a matrix still, and falls away—when one's full-formed wings no longer need the weight of a thorax——"
"What an expression!" Bellingham observed abruptly. He had been staring away toward a low, cloudy film of land in the south. One would have thought that he had heard only the sentence which aroused his comment. Charter was filling with violence. The man's vanity was chained to him like a corpse. This experience of pouring out energy to no purpose aroused in Charter all the forces which had combined to force the public to his work. The thought came that Bellingham was so accustomed to direct the speech and thought of others, mainly women, that he had lost the listening faculty.
"Let me express it, then," Charter declared with his stoutest repression, "that this beautiful surviving element, having finished with the flesh, knows only the attraction of Light. It is the perfect flower of ages of earth-culture, exquisite and inimitable from the weathering centuries, and is radiant for a higher destiny than a cooling planet's crust——"
"My dear young man, you speak very clearly, prettily, and not without force, I may say,—a purely Platonistic gospel."
Charter's mental current was turned off for a second. True or false, the remark was eminently effective. A great man might have said it, or a dilettante.
"In which case, I have a firm foundation."
"But I am essentially of the moderns," said Bellingham.
"Perhaps I should have known that from your first remark—about the brown bodies of the Islanders, rejoicing in the sunlight and bathing in these jewelled seas."
"Ah, yes——" The softening of Bellingham's mouth, as he recalled his own words, injected fresh stimulant into the animus of the other. As Charter feared the eyes, so he had come to loathe the mouth, though he was not pleased with the intensity of his feelings.
"Do you honestly believe that—that which feels the attraction of earth, and becomes a part of earth after death—is the stuff of immortality?" he demanded.
"By marvellous processes of prolongation and refinement—and barring accident—yes."
"Processes which these poor Islanders could understand?"
"We are moving in a circle," Bellingham said hastily.
For the first moment, Charter felt the whip-hand over his own faculties.
"I've noted the great, modern tendency to preachbody," he said, inhaling a big breath of the fragrant air, "to make a religion of bodily health—to look for elemental truth in alimentary canals; to mix prayer with carnal subterfuge and heaven with health resorts. Better Phallicism bare-faced.... I read a tract recently written by one of these body-worshippers—the smug, black devil. It made me feel just as I did when I found a doctor book in the attic once, at the age of ten.... Whatever I may be, have done, may feel, dream or think below the diaphragm—hasn't anything to do with my religion. I believe in health, as in a good horse or a good typewriter, but my body's health is not going to rule my day."
"You are young—to have become chilled by such polar blasts," Bellingham said uneasily, for he now found the other's eyes but without result.
"I came into the world with a full quiver of red passions," Charter said wearily, yet strangely glad. "The quiver is not empty. I do not say that I wish it were, but I have this to declare: I do not relish being told how to play with the barbs; how to polish and point and delight in them; how to put them back more deadly poisoned. I think there are big blankets of mercy for a natural voluptuary—for the things done when tissues are aflame—but for the man who deliberately studies to recreate them without cost, and tells others of his experiments—frankly, I believe in hell for such men-maggots. Oblivion is too sweet. The essence of my hatred for these Bodyists is because of the poison they infuse into the minds of youths and maidens, whose character-skeletons are still rubbery.... But let such teachers purr, wriggle, and dilate—for they're going back right speedily to the vipers!"
Bellingham's eyes had been lost in the South. He turned, arose, and after a pause said lightly, "Your talk is strong meat, young man.... I—I suffered a serious accident some months ago and cannot stay too long in one place. We shall talk again. How far do you go with thePanther?"
"Saint Pierre."
Charter already felt the first pangs of reaction. His vehemence, the burn of temper for himself, in that he had allowed the other's personality to prey upon him, and the unwonted aggressiveness of his talk—all assumed an evil aspect now as he perceived the occultist's ghastly face. In rising, Bellingham seemed to have stirred within himself centres of unutterable torture. His look suggested one who has been drilled in dreadful arcanums of pain, unapproached by ordinary men.
"I think I must have been pent a long time," Charter said in his trouble. "Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a warning for the strength of my own bridle-arm—since we're swinging down into these Isles of Seduction."
"You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and cease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came eating and drinking——'"
Charter started under the touch of the old iron. "But 'wisdom is justified of all her children,'" he responded quickly.
They were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the promenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. "I see you have your Scriptures, too," he said. "We must talk again."
"How far do you go with thePanther?" Charter asked, drawing away. His eyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the photograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin.
"I have not decided—possibly on to South America."
Charter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a pertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking; that he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from another school—quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of his furious seasons of work had just ended—that rare and excellent kind of work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind as with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham during the rest of the voyage.
Long before dawn thePanthergained the harbor before Saint Pierre, and Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone on deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he was delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, "Saragossa," through the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an acquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and fruitful memory....
Father Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the city. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both hands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the younger man—something which Charter did not exactly understand, about wolves being slain.
"What have you been doing with Old Man Pelée, Father? We heard him groaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness."
"Ah, my son, I am afraid!"
Had all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and uttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would not have turned a more serious look at Pelée than he did that moment.... At thePalms, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged for luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city.... That proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment persuaded Miss Wyndam to join them.
Charter was disturbed with the thought that he had seen her before; and amazed that he could have forgotten where. He could only put it far back among the phantasmagoria of drinking days. Certainly the sane, restored Charter had never met this woman and forgotten. His veins were dilated as by a miraculous wine.
"The name is new to me, but I seem to have seen you somewhere, Miss Wyndam," he declared.
"That's the second time you've said that, young man," Mr. Stock remarked. "Don't your sentences register?"
"It's always bewildering—I know how Mr. Charter feels," Paula managed to say. "I'm quite sure we were never introduced, though I know Mr. Charter's work."
"That's good of you, indeed," he said. "I don't mean—to know my work—but to help me out with Friend Stock. It is bewildering that I have forgotten. I feel like a boy in an enchanted forest. Pelée has been working wonders all day."
"I can't follow you," the Capitalist sighed. "Your sentences are puckered."
They hardly heard him. Paula, holding fast with all her strength to the part she had planned to play, sensed Charter's blind emotion, distinct from her own series of shocks. To her it was that furious moment of adjustment, when a man and his ideal meet for the first time in a woman's heart. As for this heart, she feared they would hear its beating. Instantly, she knew that he had not come to Saint Pierre expecting to find her; knew that she was flooding into his subconsciousness—that he feltworldsand could not understand. She found the boy in his eyes—the boy of his old picture—and the deep lines and the white skin of a man who has lived clean, and the brow of a man who has thought many clean things. He was thinking of the Skylark, and "Wyndam" disturbed him.... Always when he hesitated in his speech, the right word sprang to her lips to help him. She caught the very processes of his thinking; his remoteness from the thought of food, was her own.... For hours, since she had heard his voice below, Paula had paced the floor of her room, planning to keep her secret long. She would play and watch his struggle to remember the Skylark; she would weigh the forces of the conflict, stimulate it; study him among men, in the presence of suffering, and in the dread of the mountain. All this she had planned, but now her whole heart went out to the boy in his eyes—the boy that smiled. All the doubts which at best she had hoped for the coming days to banish were erased in a moment; she even believed in its fullness the letter from Selma Cross—because he was embarrassed, brimming with emotions he could not understand, quite as the boy of her dreams would be. She lived full-length in his silences, hardly dared to look at him now, for she felt his constant gaze. She knew that she was colorless, but that her eyes were filled with light.... Presently she realized that they were talking of Father Fontanel.
"He's a good old man," said Peter Stock. "He works day and night—and refuses to call it work. Just think of having a servant with a God like Father Fontanel's to make work easy!"
"He's even a little bit sorry for Pelée," Charter said. "I'm never quite the same in Saint Pierre. Many times up in the States, I ask myself, if it isn't largely in my mind about Father Fontanel's spirit and his effect upon me. It isn't. Stronger than ever it came to me this morning. You know him?" He turned the last to the woman.
"Yes, I found him down on the water-front——"
"And brought him to me," said Mr. Stock, and added: "You know what bothered me about priests so long—they seem to have it all settled between them that theirs is the only true Air-line Limited to God. Fontanel's down in the lowlands, where life is pent and cruel, where there are weak sisters and little ones who have to be helped over hard ways—that's what gets Peter Stock."
"You don't know how good that is to hear," Paula said softly. "I have thought it, too, about some men in holy orders—black figures moving along in a 'grim, unfraternal' Indian file, with their eyes so occupied in keeping their feet from breaking fresh ground—that it seems they must sometimes lose the Summit."
Charter looked from one to the other. Peter Stock regarded their plates. Paula made a quick pretense of eating, and was grateful when Charter broke the silence: "Yes, Father Fontanel has found one of the trails to the Top—one of the happy ones. Sometimes I think there are just as many trails, as an ant could find to the top of an apple. Wayfarers go a-singing on Father Fontanel's trail—eyes warm with soft skies and untellable dreams. It's a way of fineness and loving-kindness——"