Chapter XXI
When at last I saw the green leaves unfolding on the trees, the green grass springing up in every meadow and the orchards bursting into flower, my hopes and fears of the year before were revived. Daily I watched for the Ibandru's return; daily I was divided between expectation and dread. How be sure that they would come back at all? How be certain that, even if they did reappear, Yasma would be among them?
But my fears were not to be realized. There came an April day when I rejoiced to see Karem and a fellow tribesman emerging from the southern woods; there came a day when I was reunited to one dearer to me than Karem. From the first men to return I had received vague tidings of Yasma, being told that she was well and would be back soon; but my anxiety did not cease until I had actually seen her.
Our second reunion was similar in most ways to our first. Awakening at dawn when the first pale light was flowing in through the open window, I was enchanted to hear the trill of a bird-song, tremulous and ethereally sweet, the love-call of some unknown melodist to its mate. Somewhere, I remembered, I had been charmed by such a song before, for it had a quality all its own, a richness and plaintiveness that made it unforgettable. At first I could not recall when I had heard that sound, if in my own country or here in Sobul; then, as I lay listening in a pleasant revery, recognition came to me. It was precisely such a song that had captivated me a year ago just before Yasma's return!
As I made this discovery, the song suddenly ended. Hopefully I staggered up from my couch; for a moment I stood peering through the window in a trance. Then there came a light tapping at the door. My heart gave a flutter; I was scarcely able to cry out, "Come in!"
Slowly the door began to turn inward, creaking and groaning with its reluctant motion. But I ran to it and wrenched it wide open, and there Yasma stood, staring me in the face!
She seemed as much overjoyed as was I, and our greeting was such as only sundered lovers can know.
Several minutes passed before I could look at her closely. Then, freeing myself from her embrace, I observed that she was unchanged—the same vivid, buoyant creature as always! Her eyes could still dance merrily, her cheeks were still aglow with health; even her clothes were unaltered, for she wore the same crimson and blue garments as when she left, and they appeared hardly the worse for wear.
But, even as last year, she noticed a change in me.
"You look thinner and more worn, my beloved," she remarked, sadly, as she stood scrutinizing me with tender concern. "You look like one who has been ill. Have you actually been unwell?"
I replied that I had not been unwell—why tell her that my one affliction had been her absence?
But now that she was back, I was willing to cast aside all bleak remembrances. I was as one awakened from a nightmare; I was so thankful that I could have leapt and shouted like a schoolboy. All that day, I could scarcely trust myself out of sight of her, so fearful was I that I might find her vanished; and she would scarcely trust herself out of sight of me, so delighted was she at having returned. I am afraid that we both behaved a little like children; but if our conduct was a trifle foolish, it was at least very pleasant.
Nevertheless, a shadow hovered all the while beside us. Most of the time, it was not visible, but it swung across our path whenever I mentioned Yasma's winter absence or sought to discover where she had been hiding. As always before, she was sphinx-like on this subject; and since I had no desire to ruin our first day's happiness, I was cautious to bring up the matter only casually. Yet I assured myself that I should have no such question to ask next spring.
During the following days, as the Ibandru gradually returned and the village began to take on an inhabited appearance, I tried to forget the mystery that still brooded about us, and cheerfully resumed my last year's activities, almost as if there had been no interruption. More days than not I worked in the fields with the other men; occasionally Yasma and her kindred accompanied me on the mountain trails, exploring many a splintered ridge and deeply sunken gorge; in the evening I would sit with the tribesmen around the communal fire, exchanging anecdotes and describing over and over again my far-off, almost dreamy-dim life in my own land.
And once again Yasma and I were happy. The glamour of our first few wedded months was revived; we had almost forgotten that the glow could ever fade, scarcely remembered the old omens and predictions; and if any of the villagers ever muttered their secret fears, they made sure that we were well out of hearing. Yet all the while I realized that we were living in a house of glass, and Yasma must have realized it too; and in bad dreams at times I heard the rumbling of approaching storms, and saw the fragile walls of paradise come clattering about our feet in ruins.
Only one notable event occurred between the return of the Ibandru and the flight of the first birds southward. And that was an event I had awaited for two years, and would once have welcomed fervently. As it happened, it had little immediate effect; but it broke rocket-like upon my tranquillity, awakened long-slumbering desires, and brought me bright and vivid visions of the world I had lost.
It was in mid-July that I took an unexpectedly interesting expedition among the mountains. Yasma accompanied me, as always; Karem and Barkodu and a dozen other natives completed the party. We were to carry copious provisions, were to venture further into the wilderness than I had ever penetrated before, and were not to return in less than three days, for we intended to journey to a snowy western peak where grew a potent herb, "the moleb," which Hamul-Kammesh recommended as a sure cure for all distempers of the mind and body.
No other mountaineering expedition had ever given me so much pleasure. Truly, the "moleb" did have remarkable qualities; even before we had gathered the first spray of this little weed my lungs were filled with the exhilaration of the high mountain air, and all my distempers of the mind and body had been cured. I breathed of the free cool breezes of the peaks, and felt how puny was the life I had once led among brick walls; I stood gazing into the vacancies of dim, deep canyons, and through blue miles to the shoulders of remote cloud-wrapped ranges, and it seemed to me that I was king and master of all this tumultuous expanse of green and brown and azure. The scenery was magnificent; the sharply cloven valleys, the snow-streaked summits and wide dark-green forests stretched before me even as they may have stretched before my paleolithic forebears; and nowhere was there a funnel of smoke, or a hut or shanty, or a devastated woodland to serve as the signature of man.
Yet amid these very solitudes, where all things human appeared as remote as some other planet, I was to find my first hint of the way back to civilized lands. It was afternoon of the second day, and we had gathered a supply of the "moleb" and were returning to Sobul, when I beheld a sight that made me stare as if in a daze. Far, far beneath us, slowly threading their way toward the top of the rocky ridge we were descending, were half a dozen steadily moving black dots!
In swift excitement, I turned to Karem and Barkodu, and asked who these men might be. But my companions appeared unconcerned; they remarked that the strangers were doubtless natives of these regions; and they advised that we allow them to pass without seeing us, for the country was infested with brigands.
But brigands or no brigands, I was determined to talk with the newcomers. All the pleas of Yasma and the arguments of Karem were powerless to move me. I had a dim hope that the strangers might be of my own race; and a stronger hope that they could give me welcome news. At all events, they were the first human beings other than the Ibandru that I had seen for two years, and the opportunity was not one to scorn.
As there was only one trail up the steep, narrow slope, the unknowns would have to pass us unless we hid. And since I would not hide and my companions would not desert me, it was not long before the strangers had hailed us. Up and up they plodded in long snaky curves, now lost from view beyond a ledge, now reappearing from behind some great crag; while gradually they became more clearly outlined. It was not long before we had made out that their garments were of a gray unlike anything worn in Sobul; and at about the same time we began to distinguish something of their faces, which were covered with black beards.
As yet my companions had not overcome the suspicion that we were thrusting ourselves into the hands of bandits. But when we came close we found that the strangers, while stern-browed and flashing-eyed, and not of the type that one would carelessly antagonize, were amiably disposed. At a glance, I recognized their kinship to those guides who, two years before, had led our geological party into this country. Their bearing was resolute, almost martial; their well formed features were markedly aquiline; their hair, after the fashion of the land, was shaved off to the top of the head, and at the sides it fell in long curls that reached the shoulders.
Gravely they greeted us in the Pushtu tongue; and gravely we returned their salutation. But their accent was not that of the Ibandru; often my comrades and I had difficulty in making out their phrases; while they in turn were puzzled at much that we said. None the less, we managed to get along tolerably well.
They came from a town a day's travel to westward, they announced; and had been visiting some friends in the valley beneath, only a quarter of a day's journey to the southeast. They were surprised to see us, since travelers were not often encountered among these mountains; but their delight equalled their surprise, for they should like to call us their friends, and perhaps, if our homes were not too far-off, they should sometime visit us.
It was obvious that they had never seen any of our kind before, nor any blue and red costumes like ours. But I was not pleased to find myself the particular object of attention. From the first, the strangers were staring at me curiously, somewhat as one stares at a peculiar new animal.
As long as I could, I endured their scrutiny; then, when it seemed as if they would never withdraw their gaze, my annoyance found words.
"Maybe you wouldn't mind telling me," I asked, "why you all keep looking at me so oddly? Do you find anything unusual about me?"
None of the strangers seemed surprised at the question. "No, I wouldn't mind telling you," declared one who appeared to be their leader. "We do find something unusual about you. You are wearing the same sort of clothes as your friends, who were surely born in the mountains; but it is clear that you were not born here. Your stride is not of the same length as theirs; your bearing is not quite so firm; you do not speak the language like one who learned it on his mother's knee, and the words have a different sound in your mouth. Besides, your companions all have dark skin and eyes, while your skin is light, your eyes blue, your beard a medium brown. We have seen men like you before, but none of them lived among these mountains."
"What!" I demanded, starting forward with more than a trace of excitement. "You have seen men like me before? Where? When?"
"Oh, every now and then," he stated, in matter-of-fact tones. "Yes, every now and then they come to our village."
My head had begun to spin. I took another step forward, and clutched my informer about the shoulders.
"Tell me more about them!" I gasped. "What do they come for? Who are they?"
"Who knows who they are, or what they come for?" he returned, with a shrug. "They hunt and fish; they explore the country; they like to climb the mountains. Also, they always barter for the little trinkets that we sell."
"Come, come, tell me still more! Where are they from? How do they get to your village?"
"A road, which we call the Magic Cord, runs through our town. Not an easy road to travel, but more than a trail. They say it leads to wonderful far-off lands. But that I do not know; I have never followed it far enough. That is all I can tell you."
"But you must tell me more! Come! You must! Is it hard to reach your town? Just how do you get there?"
"It is not hard at all. This trail—the one we are on—leads all the way. You cross the first range into the next valley, then skirt the southern shore of a long blue lake, then cross another range, then wind through a wooded canyon; and in the further valley, by a stream at the canyon's end, you will find our village."
I made careful mental note of these directions, and had them repeated with sundry more details.
"Once having started, you cannot lose your way," I was assured. "Just remember this: we live in the village of Marhab, and our tribe is the Marhabi."
I thanked the speaker, and we bade a friendly farewell. A few minutes later, the six strangers were no more than specks retreating along the vast rocky slopes.
But to them personally I scarcely gave another thought. Almost in a moment, my life-prospects had been transformed. I could now find my way back to my own land—yes, I could find my way if Yasma would only go with me! Enthusiastically I turned to her, told of the discovery, and asked if she would not accompany me to America. In my impetuous eagerness, I scarcely gave her a chance to reply, but went on and on, describing wildly the prospects before us, the splendors of civilized lands, the silks and velvets in which I should clothe her, the magnificent sights to be seen in countries beyond the mountains.
I think that, beneath the shock of the discovery, I was under a stupefying spell. So wrapped up was I in the great new knowledge that I scarcely noted how, while I was speaking, Yasma walked with head averted. But when, after some minutes, my enthusiasm slackened and I turned to seek her response, I met with a surprise that was like ice water in the face—I found that she was weeping!
"Yasma," I murmured, in dismay. "Yasma—what has come over you?"
Her reply was such a passionate outburst that I was thankful the others were hundreds of yards ahead.
"Oh, my beloved," she cried, while her little fists, fiercely clenched, were waved tragically in air, "you should never have married me! Never, never! It wasn't fair to you! It wasn't right! Oh, why did you make me marry you? For now see what you have done! You have locked yourself up in Sobul, and can't go back to your own land, no, you can't—never again—not unless—unless without me!"
The last words were uttered with a drooping of the head and a gesture of utmost renunciation.
"You know I would never go back without you, Yasma," I assured her.
"But you can never go with me! I must remain in Sobul—I must! I've told you so before, and I cannot—cannot be anything but what I am!"
"No one would ask you to be anything but what you are. But think, Yasma, might it not really be wiser to go away? Remember how long we have been parted even in Sobul. And would it not be better, better for both of us, if we could leave this land and be together always?"
"We could not be together always!" she denied, with finality. "And it would not be better, not better for me! I must be in Sobul each year when the birds fly south! Or I too might go the way of the birds, and never be able to fly back!"
It was an instant before I had grasped the significance of her words. "But you cannot mean that, Yasma!" I protested, with a return of my old, half-buried forebodings. "No, no, you cannot—"
"I do mean it!"—In her tones there was an unfathomable sadness, and the humility of one who bows to inexorable forces.—"I do mean it! I know that it is so! Oh, if you love me, if you care to have me with you, do not speak of this again! Do not ask me to go away from Sobul, and never, never return!"
As she uttered these words, her eyes held such pleading, such piteous pleading and sorrow and regret, that I could only take her into my arms, and promise never to distress her so again.
Yet even as I felt her arms about me and her convulsive form huddled against my breast, I could not help reflecting how strange was the prison that circumstance and my own will had built about me; and my glimpse of the doorway out had only made me realize how unyielding were the bolts and bars.