Chapter XV
Had I been the man that I was before my arrival in Sobul, I should not have thought twice about Abthar's warnings. I should have laughed at them as the wild imaginings of a primitive folk, and should have gone my way regardless of his beliefs. But I was no longer the same man as upon my arrival. My years of civilization were overcast and obscured; so much of the seemingly miraculous had occurred that I was in a mood to expect miracles. And so, when Abthar informed me of the prophecies and the peril of marrying Yasma, it was not my full heart and soul that rose up in revolt; my intellect did indeed protest, but not with the courage of utter conviction; for an insinuating voice kept whispering sly doubts and suspicions. What if some dismal fortune should actually await me if I scorned Abthar's advice? What if I should endanger my beloved? What if the tribe's disapproval, or the tribe's superstition, or some sort of social ostracism, should pave the way for tragedy? Or what if Yasma's own fears, or her passionate religious scruples, or her peculiar training and habits of thought, should precipitate disaster?
Such were my thoughts as I sadly wandered back to my cabin after the interview with Abthar. I was at the bleakest point of my reveries when I heard a familiar voice hailing me cheerfully, and looked up to find a brawny hand slapping me companionably on the shoulder and two glittering black eyes staring inquiringly into mine.
"Tell me, what's wrong with the world today?" exclaimed Karem, gaily, as he fell in at my side. "You looked so sad I thought you might be needing a friend."
"I certainly am needing a friend," I acknowledged. And, eager for sympathy, I told of my interview with his father, laying particular stress on what had been said of Hamul-Kammesh and his prophecies.
Karem followed me attentively, but the sparkle never left his eyes.
"Yes, I've heard all about Hamul-Kammesh," he declared, quietly, when I had finished. "Especially about his prophecies, which have given him great fame. But I would not take them too seriously, if I were you."
"Your father seems to take them very seriously."
"Yes, of course, father would," remarked Karem, pointedly. "All the more so, since he wants to keep you from my sister."
"So you don't think there's anything in them?"
"Oh, I would not say that. There is just as much in them as you want to see—and just as little. The old folks would chop off their hands if Hamul-Kammesh told them to, but we younger Ibandru—well, we younger Ibandru sometimes have our doubts."
"I see," said I, glad to know that youth could be skeptical even in Sobul. "But your father tells me that Hamul-Kammesh's prophecies always come true."
Karem looked across at me with an ingenuous smile.
"So they will all tell you. But that too depends upon what you want to believe. Naturally, Hamul-Kammesh had to make a prediction when Yasma was born; he's expected to make a prediction at the time of every birth. So as to be sure of himself, he foretold something that was not to happen for seventeen years, when everyone would have forgotten just what he said. Then, again, he said a stranger was coming to Sobul, and there too he was safe, because if no man had appeared there would certainly have been some male babe born during the year; and then Hamul-Kammesh would have said that that babe was the man he meant in his prophecy, but we should have to wait twenty years more until the man was grown up and the prediction could come true. Of course, when you unexpectedly arrived, he recognized his opportunity, and claimed to have foreseen your coming seventeen years before."
"Nevertheless," I contended, doubtfully, "itisa strange coincidence, is it not?"
"If it were not for coincidences, Prescott, soothsayers would have to pass their days tilling the soil like the rest of us!"
Thereupon Karem made an eloquent gesture toward the unplanted fields, where a score of men were bent low with spades and shovels. And, telling me that he had been idle too long already, he left me to my ruminations.
But the effect of our conversation had been to lift me out of my dejection. I could no longer trouble myself about the old medicine-man and his predictions; could no longer believe that some dire fate hovered over us; could no longer feel my union with Yasma to be impossible. Whatever the obstacles, they were of a calculable and natural character; and whatever the dangers, they were not too great to confront and overcome. Reconsidering my problems in the light of Karem's wisdom, I determined to face the prospect of marriage with Yasma just as I might have faced a similar prospect with a girl of my own race; I resolved to go to her at once, to put the entire question before her, to reason with her, to plead with her, to overwhelm her objections, to wrest a promise from her, and so to fight my way to the speedy and triumphant consummation of our love.
The crucial moment was not long in coming. The next morning I went to see Yasma at her father's cabin; and finding her preparing to set out all alone for the woods, I invited myself to join her. Soberly we started out together while I chatted about trifles, as if unaware of the all-important turning point just ahead.—But could it be that the next few hours would mark the climax of both our lives?
We had strolled perhaps two or three miles when we paused in a little wildflower glade beside a sunlit brook. With a cry of delight at the deep blue of the skies and the delicate immature green of the encircling foliage, Yasma threw herself down in the grass; and, not awaiting her invitation, I seated myself at her side.
For several minutes neither of us spoke. The rivulet trickled along its way; bird called merrily to bird from unseen fastnesses in the treetops; the first butterfly of the season went flapping past on wings of white and yellow. And bird and butterfly and stream might have been the sole subjects of our thoughts.
Yet all the while my mind was busy—and busy not with dreams of blue skies or growing leaves or ripening blossoms.
"Do you know, Yasma," I finally began, while she sat wistfully gazing toward the woods, "I was speaking to your father yesterday."
"Yes?" she murmured, in barely audible tones. To judge by the faint-heartedness of her response, she might not have been interested; yet I noticed that she gave a slight start and bent her head away from me, while her fingers absently fondled the grass.
"Yes; I was speaking to your father," I repeated, my eyes intently upon her. "Remember, you advised me to. I am glad that I did, for now everything seems clearer."
"Clearer?" she asked, doubtfully, as she turned her gaze full upon me. "What is clearer?"
For an instant I flinched before that steady, questioning glance.
"It is clearer, how we two should act. Let us not blind ourselves with doubts, Yasma, nor throw our lives away over childish fancies. I have considered everything; I have thought and thought, and cannot see any objections great enough to stand in the way of our love. Let us pay no heed to what anyone may say; we shall be married, you and I; yes, we shall—"
Yasma had sprung to her feet; with a furious exclamation, she interrupted me. "No, no, no! It cannot be!"
In quivering agitation, she started pacing about the glade; and I had to go to her, and take her hands, and lead her back to her deserted grassy seat.
"Now we must talk things over calmly, Yasma," I urged. "Your father and I have talked them over calmly. And we have agreed quite well."
"But he didn't agree to let you marry me?" she demanded, almost fiercely. "He didn't agree to that?"
"He gave me his advice, and said everything was in our own hands."
"What advice did he give?" she flashed at me, not to be put off by equivocations. And her dark eyes shone with such distress that I would gladly have ended all arguments in a swift embrace.
But I understood the need to state the facts unemotionally. As simply as I could, I reported the general drift of my conversation with Abthar.
"You see!" she flung forth, when I had finished. "You see! It cannot be!" And again she arose; and wringing her hands like one who has suffered vile misfortune, she retreated to the further end of the glade.
And again I had to go to her and lead her gently back to her seat by the rivulet's brink.
"Let us be calm, Yasma," I pleaded once more. "There is no reason why we cannot have everything we wish. We shall yet be happy together, you and I."
"Happy? How can we be?" she lamented as her moist eyes stared at me with unfathomable sadness. "You are not as I—you cannot go with me each year when the birds fly south."
For a moment I did not reply. I had the curious impression of being like the hero of some old fairy tale, a man wedded to a swallow or a wild duck in human form.
"If I could not go with you," I entreated, though I felt the hopelessness of my own words, "why could you not stay here? Surely, if we were married, you might remain."
"Oh, I would if I could," she cried, clasping her hands together fervently, and peering in despair toward the remote figure of Yulada. "I would if I could!" And she bent her head low, and her clenched fists hid her eyes, and her whole slender form shuddered.
"Yasma!" I murmured, with an echo of her own emotion, as I took her into my arms.
But she broke away from me savagely. "No, no, you must not!" she protested, her eyes gleaming and angry, her flushed cheeks newly wet.
"But why not? Why—"
"Because you and I are not the same! You do not know, you do not know what it is to hear the call of Yulada, to feel the fire burning, thundering in your veins, forcing you away when the leaves turn red, forcing you away, over the mountains, far, far away!"
"I do not know, Yasma, but could I not learn?"
"You could not learn! Once I hoped so, but I do not now! Can the bird raised in a cage learn to travel in the skies? You could not learn! It is too late! Each year I must go away, but always you must stay here!"
"Even so, Yasma, let us not be sad. I would have you six months each year, and that would be far, far better than not to have you at all."
"So you say," she murmured, looking up at me with wide, yearning eyes. "So you say now. But when the time came for me to leave, would you be contented? Rather, would you not be the most miserable man in the world?"
"But why should I be miserable? Would I not know you were coming back? Is it so terrible there where you go in the winter?"
"No, it is not terrible. It is beautiful."
"Then for your sake, I would reconcile myself. If you were happy, why should I not be?"
"Because you are not made that way! No, you could not be happy, my friend," she continued, staring at me with a melancholy smile. "And perfectly dreadful things might happen."
Long, long afterwards, when it was too late for anything but memories, I was to recall those words. But at the moment I brushed them aside, for there in those peaceful woods, with the birds singing in the treetops and the clear warm skies above, I did not believe that anything dreadful could happen to Yasma or myself.
"If I am willing to endure your absence," I appealed, "then what should be your objections? If those are your only reasons, let us prepare for the wedding!"
"You know those are not my only reasons," she denied, almost reproachfully. "You know there are a hundred other reasons! Now that you have heard of the prophecies—"
"The prophecies mean nothing!" I asserted, emboldened by my talk with Karem. "They are mere guesses! They will not come true!"
"What!" she flung back, horrified at this blasphemy. "You say Hamul-Kammesh's prophecies will not come true?"
"No, Yasma, they are only meant to frighten us. Let us not be misled by fairy tales."
"Fairy tales, you call them?"—Her attitude had become almost defiant.—"You do not know much of Hamul-Kammesh, or you would not speak so foolishly."
"All that I know," I acknowledged, letting just a trace of irony creep into my words, "is that he is supposed to be the earthly agent of Yulada."
"He is more than that. He is her seer, her prophet, her law-giver, her tool of vengeance! Her will is his will! When he speaks, it is she that addresses us! Why, you do not know of the wonders, the wonders he has done, the wise things he has said!"
"No, I do not know."
"You have not heard how once he predicted disaster, and twenty people were smitten with the plague! And, again, how he foretold a rich season, and our harvests were the most bountiful we had ever known! And how he prayed in time of drought, and the rain came; and how he spoke to the waters when we feared a spring flood, and the waters shrank back! No, you know nothing of Hamul-Kammesh! You cannot appreciate his miracles! You are not to be blamed for scorning him, since you have had no chance to learn!"
"I wish no chance to learn! His prophecies are against all reason!"
"Against all reason or not," she maintained, in the tone of one who proclaims incontrovertible truth, "I know he does not predict falsely. I am sure, oh, I am sure nothing good could come if we two—"
"All things good would come," I pleaded, "if you could forget him and remember only our love." And, drawing close and letting my arms glide about her, I repeated, "Remember only our love. For its sake, would you not take any risk?"
"But not this, not this!" she cried, like one fighting a battle with herself, as she withdrew hastily from my embrace. "Oh, not this! I cannot risk ruining your life and mine! I cannot risk father's anger—the anger of the village, the hatred of Hamul-Kammesh! No, I cannot make you suffer as you would have to do! I cannot bring down the wrath of Yulada! I cannot! There is no more to say! This is final!"
"Final?" I demanded, reeling as if beneath a blow, as I peered into those eyes moist with suffering yet fiery with a new resolution.
"Yes, final!" she affirmed, in the manner of one who forces down a bitter draught. "Final! There can be no other way!"
"Very well, then!" I burst forth, springing to my feet with all the fury of my outraged feelings and balked desires. "Final, let us say that this is final! Final that you will be ruled by a whim! Final that you won't have the courage to fight for your own happiness, or care how my happiness is dragged down! Very well then, let that be! I accept your decision—let this be the final word between us! But I cannot live without you! Tomorrow I leave your valley—yes, leave it not knowing where I go; it does not matter where! I may be lost in the mountains and starve, or stumble over a precipice, or be torn to death by wild beasts—it does not matter! Nothing matters, nothing but you! Good-bye, Yasma!"
Turning my back upon her, I started toward the village.
For a moment all was silent behind me. Then the stillness of the woods was broken by a sob. Startled, I wheeled about; then strode back, and in an instant had my arms about the yielding, convulsive form of Yasma.
"Oh, do not go away!" she wailed. "Do not go away from me, ever, ever! You are everything to me, everything! Oh, what does anything else matter? Let them warn me, forbid me, predict horrible things—I do not care! Nothing could be more horrible than to have you go away! Oh, if I knew I would be smitten dead for it tomorrow, I would still want you here today!"
Again she broke into a passion of tears, which I soothed away as best I could, though I too was near to weeping. But after her emotion had subsided and she could talk calmly again, we sat side by side in the glade for hours, discussing in whispers that which brought happy smiles to our faces and sent a wistful light into her eyes, and also a light of hope.