Chapter XI
When I staggered back to my cabin through the snow-storm in the November dusk, I could not realize the ghastliness of my misfortune. My mind seemed powerless before the bleak reality; it was not until I had re-entered the cabin that I began to look the terror in the face. Then, when I had slammed the door behind me and stood silently in that frigid place, all my dread and loneliness and foreboding became concentrated in one point of acute agony. The shadows deepening within that dingy hovel seemed living, evil things; the wind that hissed and screeched without, with brief lulls and swift crescendos of fury, was like a chorus of demons; and such desolation of spirit was upon me that I could have rushed out into the storm, and delivered myself up to its numbing, fatal embrace.
It was long before, conscious of the increasing chill and the coaly darkness, I went fumbling about the room to make a light. Fortunately, I still had a half-used box of matches, vestiges of the world I had lost; and with their aid, I contrived to light a little wax candle.
But as I watched the taper fitfully burning, with sputtering yellow rays that only half revealed the bare walls of the room and left eerie shadows to brood in the corners, I almost wished that I had remained in darkness. How well I remembered Yasma's teaching me to make the candle; to melt the wax; to pour it into a little wooden mould; to insert the wick in the still viscid mass! Could it be but a month ago when she had stood with me in this very room, so earnestly and yet so gaily giving me instructions? Say rather that it was years ago, eons ago!—what relation could there be between that happy self, which had laughed with Yasma, and this forlorn self, which stood here abandoned in the darkness and the cold?
And as I thought of Yasma, and gazed at her handiwork, the full sense of my wretchedness swept over me. Could she really be gone, mysteriously gone, past any effort of mine to bring her back? Was it possible that many a long bitter day and cold lonely night would pass before I could see her again? Or, for that matter, how did I know that she would ever return?—How attach any hope to her vague promises? What if she could not keep those promises? What if calamity should overtake her in her hiding place? She might be ill, she might be crippled, she might be dead, and I would not even know it!
While such thoughts blundered through my mind, I tried to keep occupied by kindling some dry branches and oak logs in the great open fireplace. But my broodings persisted, and would not be stilled even after a wavering golden illumination filled the cabin. Outside, the storm still moaned like a band of driven souls in pain; and the uncanny fancy came to me that lost spirits were speaking from the gale; that the spirits of the Ibandru wandered homelessly without, and that Yasma, even Yasma, might be among them! Old folk superstitions, tales of men converted into wraiths and of phantoms that appeared as men, forced themselves upon my imagination; and I found myself harboring—and, for the moment, almost crediting—notions as strange as ever disturbed the primitive soul. What if the Ibandru were not human after all? Or what if, human for half the year, they roamed the air ghost-like for the other half? Or was it that, like the Greek Persephone, they must spend six months in the sunlight and six months in some Plutonian cave?
Preposterous as such questions would formerly have seemed, they did not impress me as quite absurd as I sat alone on the straw-covered floor of my log cave, gazing into the flames that smacked their lean lips rabidly, and listening to the gale that rushed by with a torrential roaring. Like a child who fears to have strayed into a goblin's den, I was unnerved and unmercifully the prey of my own imagination; I could not keep down the thought that there was something weird about my hosts. Now, as rarely before during my exile, I was filled with an overpowering longing for home and friends, for familiar streets, and safe, well-known city haunts; and I could almost have wept at the impossibility of escape. Except for Yasma—Yasma, whose gentleness held me more firmly than iron chains—I would have prayed to leave this dreary wilderness and never return.
Finally, in exhaustion as much of the mind as of the body, I sank down upon my straw couch, covered myself with my goatskin coat, and temporarily lost track of the world and its vexations. But even in sleep I was not to enjoy peace; confused dreams trailed me through the night; and in one, less blurred than the others, I was again with Yasma, and felt her kiss upon my cheek, wonderfully sweet and compassionate, and heard her murmur that I must not be sad or impatient but must wait for her till the spring. But even as she spoke a dark form intruded between us, and sealed our lips, and forced her away until she was no more than a specter in the far distance. And as in terror I gazed at the dark stranger, I recognized something familiar about her; and with a cry of alarm, I awoke, for the pose and features were those of Yulada!
Hours must have passed while I slept; the fire had smoldered low, and only one red ember, gaping like a raw untended wound, cast its illumination across the cabin. But through chinks in the walls a faint gray light was filtering in, and I could no longer hear the wind clamoring.
An hour or two later I arose, swallowed a handful of dried herbs by way of breakfast, and forced open the cabin door. It was an altered world that greeted me; the clouds had rolled away, and the sky, barely tinged with the last fading pink and buff of dawn, was of a pale, unruffled blue. But a white sheet covered the ground, and mantled the roofs of the log huts, and wove fantastic patterns over the limbs of leafless bushes and trees. All things seemed new-made and beautiful, yet all were wintry and forlorn—and what a majestic sight were the encircling peaks! Their craggy shoulders, yesterday bare and gray and dotted with only an occasional patch of white, were clothed in immaculate snowy garments, reaching far heavenward from the upper belts of the pines, whose dark green seemed powdered with an indistinguishable spray.
But I tried to forget that terrible and hostile splendor; urged by a hope that gradually flickered and went out, I made a slow round of the village. At each cabin I paused, peering through the window or knocking at the unbolted door and entering; and at each cabin I sank an inch nearer despair. As yet, of course, I had had no proof that I was altogether abandoned—might there not still be some old man or woman, some winter-loving hunter or doughty watchman, who had been left behind until the tribe's return in the spring? But no man, woman or child stirred in the white spaces between the cabins; no man, woman or child greeted me in any of the huts.... All was bare as though untenanted for months; and here an empty earthen pan or kettle hanging on the wall, there a dozen unshelled nuts forgotten in a corner, yonder a half-burnt candle or a cracked water jug or discarded sandal, were the only tokens of recent human occupancy.
It was but natural that I should feel most forlorn upon entering Yasma's cabin. How mournfully I gazed at the walls her eyes had beheld a short twenty-four hours before! and at a few scattered trifles that had been hers! My attention was especially caught by a little pink wildflower, shaped like a primrose, which hung drooping in a waterless jar; and the odd fancy came to me that this was like Yasma herself. Tenderly, urged by a sentiment I hardly understood, I lifted the blossom from the jar, pressed it against my bosom, and fastened it securely there.
The outside world now seemed bright and genial enough. From above the eastern peaks the sun beamed generously upon the windless valley; and there was warmth in his rays as he put the snow to flight and sent little limpid streams rippling across the fields. But to me it scarcely mattered whether the sun shone or the gale dashed by. Now there was an irony in the sunlight, an irony I resented even as I should have resented the bluster of the storm. Yet, paradoxically, it was to sunlit nature that I turned for consolation, for what but the trees and streams and soaring heights could make me see with broader vision? Scornful of consequences, I plodded through the slushy ground to the woods; and roaming the wide solitudes, with the snow and the soggy brown leaves beneath and the almost denuded branches above, I came to look upon my problems with my first trace of courage.
"This too will pass," I told myself, using the words of one older and wiser than I. And I pictured a time when these woods would be here, and I would not; pictured even a nearer time when I should roam them with laughter on my lips. What after all were a few months of solitude amid this magnificent world?
In such a mood I began to warm my flagging spirits and to plan for the winter. I should have plenty to occupy me; there were still many cracks and crannies in my cabin wall, which I must fill with clay; there was still much wood to haul from the forest; there were heavy garments to make from the skins supplied by the natives; and there would be my food to prepare daily from my hoard in the cabin, and my water to be drawn from the stream that flowed to the rear of village. Besides, I might be able to go on long tours of exploration; I might amuse myself by examining the mountain strata, and possibly even make some notable geological observations; and I might sometime—the thought intruded itself slyly and insidiously—satisfy my curiosity by climbing to Yulada.
Emboldened by such thoughts, I roamed the woods for hours, and returned to my cabin determined to battle unflinchingly and to emerge triumphant.
It will be needless to dwell upon the days that followed. Although the moments crawled painfully, each week an epoch and each month an age, very little occurred that is worthy of record. Yet somehow I did manage to occupy the time—what other course had I, this side of suicide or madness? As in remembrance of a nightmare, I recall how sometimes I would toil all the daylight hours to make my cabin snug and secure; how at other times I would wander across the valley to the lake shown me by Karem, catching fish with an improvised line, even though I had first to break through the ice; how, again, I would idly follow the half-wild goat herds that browsed in remote corners of the valley; how I would roam the various trails until I had mapped them all in my mind, and had discovered the only outlet in the mountains about Sobul—a long, prodigiously deep, torrent-threaded ravine to the north, which opened into another deserted valley capped by desolate and serrated snowpeaks. The discovery of this valley served only to intensify my sense of captivity, for it brought me visions of mountain after mountain, range after range, bleak and unpopulated, which stretched away in frozen endless succession.
But the days when I could rove the mountains were days of comparative happiness. Too often the trails, blocked by the deep soft drifts or the ice-packs, were impassable for one so poorly equipped as I; and too often the blizzards raged. Besides, the daylight hours were but few, since the sun-excluding mountain masses made the dawn late and the evening early; and often the tedium seemed unendurable when I sat in my cabin at night, watching the flames that danced and crackled in the fireplace, and dreaming of Yasma and the spring, or of things still further away, and old friends and home. At times, scarcely able to bear the waiting, I would pace back and forth like a caged beast, back and forth, from the fire to the woodpile, and from the woodpile to the fire. At other times, more patient, I would amuse myself by trying to kindle some straw with bits of flint, or by returning to the ways of my boyhood and whittling sticks into all manner of grotesque designs. And occasionally, when the mood was upon me, I would strain my eyes by the flickering log blaze, confiding my diary to the notebook I had picked up in our old camp beyond the mountain. For the purposes of this diary, I had but one pencil, which gradually dwindled to a stub that I could hardly hold between two fingers—and with the end of the pencil, late in the winter, the diary also came to a close.
Although this record was written merely as a means of whiling away the hours and was not intended for other eyes, I find upon opening it again that it describes my plight more vividly than would be possible for me after the passage of years; and I am tempted to quote a typical memorandum.
As I peer at that curiously cramped and tortured handwriting, my eyes pause at the following:
"Monday, December 29th. Or it may be Tuesday the 30th, for I fear I have forgotten to mark one of the daily notches on the cabin walls, by which I keep track of the dates. All day I was forced to remain in my cabin, for the season's worst storm was raging. Only once did I leave shelter, and that was to get water. But the stream was frozen almost solid, and it was a task to pound my way through the ice with one of the crude native axes. Meanwhile the gale beat me in the face till my cheeks were raw; the snow came down in a mist of pellets that half blinded me; and a chill crept through my clothes till my very skin seemed bared to the ice-blast. I was fifteen minutes in thawing after I had crept back to the cabin. But even within the cabin there seemed no way to keep warm, for the wind rushed in through cracks that I could not quite fill; and the fire, though I heaped it with fuel, was feeble against the elemental fury outside."But the cold would be easier to bear than the loneliness. There is little to do, almost nothing to do; and I sit brooding on the cabin floor, or stand brooding near the fire; and life seems without aim or benefit. Strange thoughts keep creeping through my mind—visions of a limp form dangling on a rope from log rafters; or of a half-buried form that the snow has numbed to forgetfulness. But always there are other visions to chide and reproach; I remember a merry day in the woods, when two brown eyes laughed at me from beneath auburn curls; and I hear voices that call as if from the future, and see hands that take mine gently and restrain them from violence. Perhaps I am growing weak of mind and will, for my emotions flow like a child's; I would be ashamed to admit—though I confess it freely enough to the heedless paper—that more than once, in the long afternoon and the slow dismal twilight, the tears rolled down from my eyes."As I write these words, it is evening—only seven o'clock, my watch tells me, though I might believe it to be midnight. The blazes still flare in the fireplace, and I am stretched full-length on the floor, trying to see by the meager light. The storm has almost died down; only by fits and starts it mutters now, like a beast whose frenzy has spent itself. But other, more ominous sounds fill the air. From time to time I hear the barking of a jackal, now near, now far; while louder and more long-drawn and mournful, there comes at intervals the fierce deep wailing of a wolf, answered from the remote woods by other wolves, till all the world seems to resound with a demoniac chorus. Of all noises I have ever heard, this is to me the most terrorizing; and though safe within pine walls, I tremble where I lie by the fire, even as the cave-man may have done at that same soul-racking sound. I know, of course, how absurd this is; yet I have pictures of sly slinking feet that pad silently through the snow, and keen hairy muzzles that trail my footsteps even to this door, and long gleaming jaws that open. Only by forcing myself to write can I keep my mind from such thoughts; but, even so, I shudder whenever that dismal call comes howling, howling from the dark, as if with all the concentrated horror and ferocity in the universe!"
"Monday, December 29th. Or it may be Tuesday the 30th, for I fear I have forgotten to mark one of the daily notches on the cabin walls, by which I keep track of the dates. All day I was forced to remain in my cabin, for the season's worst storm was raging. Only once did I leave shelter, and that was to get water. But the stream was frozen almost solid, and it was a task to pound my way through the ice with one of the crude native axes. Meanwhile the gale beat me in the face till my cheeks were raw; the snow came down in a mist of pellets that half blinded me; and a chill crept through my clothes till my very skin seemed bared to the ice-blast. I was fifteen minutes in thawing after I had crept back to the cabin. But even within the cabin there seemed no way to keep warm, for the wind rushed in through cracks that I could not quite fill; and the fire, though I heaped it with fuel, was feeble against the elemental fury outside.
"But the cold would be easier to bear than the loneliness. There is little to do, almost nothing to do; and I sit brooding on the cabin floor, or stand brooding near the fire; and life seems without aim or benefit. Strange thoughts keep creeping through my mind—visions of a limp form dangling on a rope from log rafters; or of a half-buried form that the snow has numbed to forgetfulness. But always there are other visions to chide and reproach; I remember a merry day in the woods, when two brown eyes laughed at me from beneath auburn curls; and I hear voices that call as if from the future, and see hands that take mine gently and restrain them from violence. Perhaps I am growing weak of mind and will, for my emotions flow like a child's; I would be ashamed to admit—though I confess it freely enough to the heedless paper—that more than once, in the long afternoon and the slow dismal twilight, the tears rolled down from my eyes.
"As I write these words, it is evening—only seven o'clock, my watch tells me, though I might believe it to be midnight. The blazes still flare in the fireplace, and I am stretched full-length on the floor, trying to see by the meager light. The storm has almost died down; only by fits and starts it mutters now, like a beast whose frenzy has spent itself. But other, more ominous sounds fill the air. From time to time I hear the barking of a jackal, now near, now far; while louder and more long-drawn and mournful, there comes at intervals the fierce deep wailing of a wolf, answered from the remote woods by other wolves, till all the world seems to resound with a demoniac chorus. Of all noises I have ever heard, this is to me the most terrorizing; and though safe within pine walls, I tremble where I lie by the fire, even as the cave-man may have done at that same soul-racking sound. I know, of course, how absurd this is; yet I have pictures of sly slinking feet that pad silently through the snow, and keen hairy muzzles that trail my footsteps even to this door, and long gleaming jaws that open. Only by forcing myself to write can I keep my mind from such thoughts; but, even so, I shudder whenever that dismal call comes howling, howling from the dark, as if with all the concentrated horror and ferocity in the universe!"