Chapter VIII
It was early in October when the mystery of the Ibandru began to take pronounced form.
Then it was that I became aware of an undercurrent of excitement in the village, a suppressed agitation which I could not explain, which none would explain to me, and which I recorded as much by subconscious perception as by direct observation. Yet there was sufficient visible evidence. The youth of the village had apparently lost interest in the noisy pastimes that had made the summer evenings gay; old and young alike seemed to have grown restless and uneasy; while occasionally I saw some man or woman scurrying about madly for no apparent reason. And meantime all bore the aspect of waiting, of waiting for some imminent and inevitable event of surpassing importance. Interest in Yulada was at fever pitch; a dozen times a day some one would point toward the stone woman with significant gestures; and a dozen times a day I observed some native prostrating himself in an attitude of prayer, with face always directed toward the figure on the peak while he mumbled incoherently to himself.
But the strangest demonstration of all occurred late one afternoon, when a brisk wind had blown a slaty roof across the heavens, and from far to the northeast, across the high jutting ridges of rock, a score of swift-flying black dots became suddenly visible. In an orderly, triangular formation they approached, gliding on an unwavering course with the speed of an express train; and in an incredibly brief time they had passed above us and out of sight beyond Yulada and the southern peak. After a few minutes they were followed by another band of migrants, and then by another, and another still, until evening had blotted the succeeding squadrons from view and their cries rang and echoed uncannily in the dark.
To me the surprising fact was not the flight of the feathered things; the surprising fact was the reaction of the Ibandru. It was as if they had never seen birds on the wing before; or as if the birds were the most solemn of omens. On the appearance of the first flying flock, one of the Ibandru, who chanced to observe the birds before the others, went running about the village with cries of excitement; and at his shouts the women and children crowded out of the cabins, and all the men within hearing distance came dashing in from the fields. And all stood with mouths open, gaping toward the skies as the successive winged companies sped by; and from that time forth, until twilight had hidden the last soaring stranger, no one seemed to have any purpose in life except to stare at the heavens, calling out tumultuously whenever a new band appeared.
That evening the people held a great celebration. An enormous bonfire was lighted in an open space between the houses; and around it gathered all the men and women of the village, lingering until late at night by a flickering eerie illumination that made the scene appear like a pageant staged on another planet. In the beginning I did not know whether the public meeting had any connection with the flight of the birds; but it was not long before this question was answered.
In their agitation, the people had evidently overlooked me entirely. For once, they had forgotten politeness; indeed, they scarcely noticed me when I queried them about their behavior. And it was as an uninvited stranger, scarcely remembered or observed, that I crept up in the shadows behind the fire, and lay amid the grass to watch.
In the positions nearest the flames, their faces brilliant in the glow, were two men whom I immediately recognized. One, sitting cross-legged on the ground, his features rigid with the dignity of leadership, was Abthar, the father of Yasma; the other, who stood speaking in sonorous tones, was Hamul-Kammesh, the soothsayer. Because I sat at some distance from him and was far from an adept at Pushtu, I missed the greater part of what he said; but I did not fail to note the tenseness with which the people followed him; and I did manage to catch an occasional phrase which, while fragmentary, impressed me as more than curious.
"Friends," he was saying, "we have reached the season of the great flight.... The auguries are propitious ... we may take advantage of them whenever the desire is upon us.... Yulada will help us, and Yulada commands...." At this point there was much that I could not gather, since Hamul-Kammesh spoke in lower tones, with his head bowed as though in prayer.... "The time of yellow leaves and of cold winds is upon us. Soon the rain will come down in showers from the gray skies; soon the frost will snap and bite; soon all the land will be desolate and deserted. Prepare yourselves, my people, prepare!—for now the trees make ready for winter, now the herbs wither and the earth grows no longer green, now the bees and butterflies and fair flowers must depart until the spring—and nowthe birds fly south, the birds fly south, the birds fly south!"
The last words were intoned fervently and with emphatic slowness, like a chant or a poem; and it seemed to me that an answering emotion swept through the audience. But on and on Hamul-Kammesh went, on and on, speaking almost lyrically, and sometimes driving up to an intense pitch of feeling. More often than not I could not understand him, but I divined that his theme was still the same; he still discoursed upon the advent of autumn, and the imminent and still more portentous advent of winter....
After Hamul-Kammesh had finished, his audience threw themselves chests downward on the ground, and remained thus for some minutes, mumbling unintelligibly to themselves. I observed that they all faced in one direction, the south; and I felt that this could not be attributed merely to chance.
Then, as though at a prearranged signal, all the people simultaneously arose, reminding me of a church-meeting breaking up after the final prayer. Yet no one made any motion to leave; and I had an impression that we were nearer the beginning than the end of the ceremonies. This impression was confirmed when Hamul-Kammesh began to wave his arms before him with a bird-like rhythm, and when, like an orchestra in obedience to the band-master, the audience burst into song.
I cannot say that the result pleased me, for there was in it a weird and barbarous note; yet at the same time there was a certain wild melody ... so that, as I listened, I came more and more under the influence of the singing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice not of individuals but of a people, a people pouring forth its age-old joys and sorrows, longings and aspirations. But how express in words the far-away primitive quality of that singing?—It had something of the madness and abandon of the savage exulting, something of the loneliness and long-drawn melancholy of the wolf howling from the midnight hilltop, something of the plaintive and querulous tone of wild birds calling and calling on their way southward.
After the song had culminated in one deep-voiced crescendo, it was succeeded by a dance of equal gusto and strangeness. Singly and in couples and in groups of three and four, the people leapt and swayed in the wavering light; they flung their legs waist-high, they coiled their arms snake-like about their bodies, they whirled around like tops; they darted forward and darted back again, sped gracefully in long curves and spirals, tripped from side to side, or reared and vaulted like athletes; and all the while they seemed to preserve a certain fantastic pattern, seemed to move to the beat of some inaudible rhythm, seemed to be actors in a pageant whose nature I could only vaguely surmise. As they flitted shadow-like in the shadowy background or glided with radiant faces into the light and then back into the gloom, they seemed not so much like sportive and pirouetting humans as like dancing gods; and the sense came over me that I was beholding not a mere ceremony of men and women, but rather a festival of wraiths, of phantoms, of cloudy, elfin creatures who might flash away into the mist or the firelight.
Nor did I lose this odd impression when at intervals the dance relaxed and the dancers lay on the ground recovering from their exertions, while one of them would stand in the blazing light chanting some native song or ballad. If anything, it was during these intermissions that I was most acutely aware of something uncanny. It may, of course, have been only my imagination, for the recitations were all of a weird nature; one poem would tell of men and maidens that vanished in the mists about Yulada and were seen no more; another would describe a country to which the south wind blew, and where it was always April, while many would picture the wanderings of migrant birds, or speak of bodiless spirits that floated along the air like smoke, screaming from the winter gales but gently murmuring in the breezes of spring and summer.
For some reason that I cannot explain, these legends and folk-tales not only filled my mind with eerie fancies but made me think of one who was quite human and real. I began to wonder about Yasma—where was she now? What part was she taking in the celebration? And as my thoughts turned to her, an irrational fear crept into my mind—what if, like the maidens described in the poems, she had taken wing? Smiling at my own imaginings, I arose quietly from my couch of grass, and slowly and cautiously began to move about the edge of the crowd, while scanning the nearer forms and faces. In the pale light I could scarcely be distinguished from a native; and, being careful to keep to the shadows, I was apparently not noticed. And I had almost circled the clearing before I had any reason to pause.
All this time I had seen no sign of Yasma. I had almost given up hope of finding her when my attention was attracted to a solitary little figure hunched against a cabin wall in the dimness at the edge of the clearing. Even in the near-dark I could not fail to recognize her; and, heedless of the dancers surging and eddying through the open spaces, I made toward her in a straight line.
I will admit that I had some idea of the unwisdom of speaking to her tonight; but my impatience had gotten the better of my tongue.
"I am glad to see you here," I began, without the formality of a greeting. "You are not taking part in the dance, Yasma."
Yasma gave a start, and looked at me like one just awakened from deep sleep. At first her eyes showed no recognition; then it struck me there was just a spark of anger and even of hostility in her gaze.
"No, I am not taking part in the dance," she responded, listlessly. And then, after an interval, while I stood above her in embarrassed silence, "But why come to me now?... Why disturb me tonight of all nights?"
"I do not want to disturb you, Yasma," I apologized. "I just happened to see you here, and thought—"
My sentence was never finished. Suddenly I became aware that there was only vacancy where Yasma had been. And dimly I was conscious of a shadow-form slipping from me into the multitude of shadows.
In vain I attempted to follow her. She had vanished as completely as though she had been one of the ghostly women of the poems. No more that evening did I see her small graceful shape; but all the rest of the night, until the bonfire had smoldered to red embers and the crowd had dispersed, I wandered about disconsolately, myself like a ghost as I furtively surveyed the dancing figures. A deep, sinking uneasiness obsessed me; and my dejection darkened into despair as it became plainer that my quest was unavailing, and that Yasma had really turned against me.