Chapter IV
For more than five weeks I lay on my sick-bed, at first close to death, then slowly convalescing. After my rescue and temporary revival, a raging fever had attacked me; and I have little recollection of what followed, except that it was a nightmare of blurred impressions. Among my jumbled memories of those days when I lay balanced on the borderline, there is only one image that stands forth distinctly: the picture of a great pair of smoldering brown eyes surmounted by auburn curls and ringlets. Curiously enough, that picture became associated in my mind with visions of paradise. At times, for rare brief snatches, it seemed as if I were surrounded by that heaven in which I had long lost faith, and as if the possessor of the brown eyes were a ministering angel. Around her there seemed to be a light, as of some celestial presence; and when she went away she left only darkness and vacancy. Other forms there were, of course, other forms ceaselessly coming and going, coming and going, moving on tiptoe, silent or whispering like conspirators. But these were mere shadows in a void, grotesque or cloudy thin or unreal, the monstrous creatures of a world I had almost ceased to inhabit.
Perhaps it would have been well if I had indeed ceased to inhabit this world. Certainly, it would have been well for one whose tragic eyes come before me even now, haunting me like a ghost and looking reproach at every line I write. But that is to anticipate; destiny works in circuitous ways; and I, the stranger in the Vale of Sobul, could not have known that my arrival was to weave a fatal spell over her whom of all the world I should least have wished to injure.
But no such gloomy thoughts obsessed me as by degrees my fever subsided and the clouds lifted from across my mind. Even in my feebleness and dependence upon strangers, I could see cause for thanksgiving; once more I felt that the world was a bright place, and life worth living. Perhaps I would have thought otherwise had it not been that every day, in the early dawn and then again at sunset-time, an auburn-haired visitor came to attend me. Always she would bear some offering, sometimes merely a flask of spring water, sometimes some dainty morsel of food, more often a spray of wildflowers with which she would decorate the cabin walls. Although many of her tribesmen visited me frequently, supplying me with all physical necessities, her arrival was the one event of importance; and the long waking hours became tolerable and even pleasant through the thought of her.
Our relations, fortunately, were not long confined to the stares and gestures of our first acquaintanceship. Realizing that I desired to speak with her, and encouraged by finding that I already knew a few words of Pushtu, she set about to teach me her language; and every day, for half an hour or more, she transformed herself from the smiling friend into the solemn instructress, first teaching me the local term for every visible object, and then linking the words together to form simple sentences. As her tutorship was ably furthered by her tribesmen, it was not long before I had mastered a vocabulary of all the more common words; and since I amused myself during my spare hours by repeating these words mentally and combining them into phrases, not many days had passed before I could speak Pushtu at least as well as a five-year-old.
And what a joy when at last I could converse! Merely to exchange the simplest ideas with my friend was delight enough! But all the while there had been questions that I had been burning to ask, and now one by one I could ask them! No longer would that lovely creature be nameless to me—she confided with a blush that she was called Yasma, and was the daughter of Abthar, the vine-grower. As for her people—they were the Ibandru, a tribe which from the beginning of time had inhabited the Valley of Sobul, tilling the land for its rich harvests but finding their chief joy in roving the mountainsides. But who her people were and whence they were descended Yasma could not tell me; she could only say that they possessed the valley undisputed, and had little intercourse with other tribes; and she related for me an ancient legend that the first of her people had been born of the nuptials of the south wind and the spring flowers, so that the spirit of the flowers and of the wind must breathe through the tribe forever.
Naturally, I was less interested in such myths than in facts touching upon my own predicament. I was curious as to all that had occurred since my rescue from the mountain ledge; and was particularly anxious to know the meaning of that strange scene with the white-bearded seer on my first day in Sobul. And to most of my questions I received an answer, although not always one that satisfied me. My rescue was explained simply enough: the Ibandru habitually roamed the mountains for miles around their valley, and a party of six had been going in search of a little blue stone which one of their sages had declared to exist upon the higher slopes, and the possession of which would mean happiness. With their trained eyes accustomed to scanning the far distances, they had observed what they at first took to be some peculiar animal crawling along a ledge; and, drawn closer by curiosity, had discovered that the supposed animal was human, and was in distress. Common humanity dictated that they come to the rescue, bear me to safety, and house me in an unoccupied cabin whose owner (to use the native phrase) had gone "beyond those mountains that no man crosses twice."
Thus far I saw no reason to doubt the explanation; but when I mentioned the white-bearded tribesman I could see that I trod upon questionable ground. It was not only that Yasma hesitated before answering; it was that she replied with a nervous, uneasy air. She informed me—and this much was certainly true—that the old man was Hamul-Kammesh, the soothsayer, whose wisdom was held in high esteem; and she stated that, immediately following my arrival, he had been called upon to judge of the signs and omens. But what had he said? She refused to tell me. Or, rather, she told me with transparent dissimulation. She declared that he had prognosticated something of good, and something of evil; and her reluctant manner testified that the evil tipped the balance of the scales. But just what evil did he imagine my coming might do? And to whom would the damage be done? No matter how I pleaded and questioned, Yasma shook her head sadly, and refused to reply.
Could it be that the prophecy concerned me in some vital way? that it would endanger me, or make my lot harder to bear? Yasma was still sphinx-like. "I cannot answer," she maintained, in response to all my entreaties. "I cannot." And biting her underlip, she remained resolutely silent.
But I could not accept her refusal. "Why cannot you answer?" I insisted. "Surely, there is nothing to fear."
"That you cannot know," she sighed, her lips compressed as though in suffering, and an unexplained sadness shining from her eyes.
Then, seeing that I was about to return to the assault, she disarmed me by murmuring, resignedly, "Well, if I must tell you, I must. You see, it is not this prophecy alone. This only confirms another—another prophecy made years and years ago. And that first prediction was dark as a night-cloud."
"Dark—as a night-cloud?" I asked, noting that her beautiful rounded cheeks were becoming drawn and blanched, while a light of fear and agony, a light as of a hunted creature, was shining in her eyes.
"Yes, dark as a night-cloud," she muttered, mournfully. "But more than that I cannot say." And then, as if afraid that she would say more despite herself, she flitted to the door, and with a whispered "Good-bye!" was gone, leaving me amazed and angry and yet just a little overawed, as if in defiance of reason I recognized that my coming had cast a shadow over the homes of my hosts.