Chapter XXIV
Again it was winter in Sobul. The snow lay deep in the deserted fields, and in the woods it wove strange arabesques about the limbs of leafless trees; the mountains were white with vast majestic new draperies. At times the blizzards came moaning out of the northwest, with driving flakes and gales; at times the sky was icy clear and scarcely a breeze stirred amid the charmed silences. But whether the day was bright or tempest-blurred could matter little now, for all days alike were desolate in this saddest of winters.
Not long after the last birds had flown south, I began to repent of my madness in detaining Yasma. Once that fierce culminating revolt had collapsed, she did not flame forth any more in rebellion or protest; but I would have welcomed a return of the old impetuous spirit. She was gentle now, exceedingly kindly and gentle; she would hover by me fondly, and her words would be soft-spoken and affectionate; but she was no longer her old self. Something had gone out of her that had made her spirit like fire; and something with the touch of frost had taken its place. The dreary mood of the autumn, with its mute and morbid musing, had not left her even now; but with it another mood was mingled, a chilling mood, a mood as of one dazed and frightened. But of what she was frightened she would not say; she was afraid of the outdoors, and would never go forth except in my company, and then never far; and she liked best of all to linger amid the shadows of the cabin, gazing into the golden log blaze or merely staring at the blank walls and brooding.
And always she appeared to be cold, both mentally and physically cold. An abnormal apathy, almost a lethargy, had drained all her interest in life; she seemed to have few ideas except those which I suggested to her; and blue days and gray days were all as one to her. When I spoke, she would answer, but usually only in monosyllables; she would agree to every statement as though the world held nothing worth disputing; she had the manner of one whose visible form occupies this earth, but whose spirit dwells far-off.
Yet scarcely less disturbing than her mental inertia was the actual bodily cold she felt. She was always shivering, and not seldom when I took the little hands in mine I found them icy. The heavy goatskin robes, which I stripped from my own back and piled about her, seemed without effect; she still shivered, as though the very blood in her veins were chilled. And she hardly seemed to care whether or not she was cold, and, except for my little attentions, might have suffered perpetually. Reluctantly I told myself that she was leading a life for which nature had not fitted her; that she would have done better to join her tribesmen in their migration.
And there came a time when, ironically, I began to wish that she could follow her tribesmen. Alarm was springing up full-fledged in my heart, and I wondered whether her absence could be half so sad as the change that had come over her; whether it would not be far better to lose her for half the year and receive her back, buoyant and happy, along with the first spring flowers. For days I pondered, in dreadful agony of mind; and at last, seeing her growing even more melancholy and more detached, I decided to advise the very step I had once forbidden.
Shall I ever forget the time when I mentioned this most painful subject? ... forget the hurt look in her eyes, the mute reproach? It was on a December evening, when dusk had already engulfed the world, and the wind went soughing by with a distressing monotone, and the wolves on unseen mountain slopes matched the gale in the monody of their wailing. All afternoon I had been noticing how like a languishing flower Yasma looked, with her pale cheeks and drooping eyes; and terror had come upon me, the terror of things I dared not express. Even now I could not suggest Yasma's departure without the pangs of self-sacrifice; but when I saw her huddled in a corner, a pitiable figure that scarcely took note of the leaping firelight and that responded in silence to my caresses, I felt that I had no longer any choice, and hesitatingly proposed the solution that betokened my defeat.
"Yasma," said I, gently, coming to her and taking her hand, "what are you so sad about? Are you still sorry I would not let you go away?"
She turned about slowly, and looked at me with big eyes full of sorrow. "Why do you ask?" she questioned, with none of her old animation. "Why do you ask what you already know?"
"I do not know," I said, quite truthfully, "why you should be so unhappy, Yasma. But it is certain that you are unhappy, and that is all that counts. It hurts me deeply to see you so, and I think that I have been very, very wrong. I cannot adapt your nature to my own, and it was foolish to try. So I want you to forget everything I said before; I am willing for you to go away if you like, and join your kinsmen until the green leaves are once more on the trees."
For a moment she stared at me as if she did not quite comprehend. Then a wistful light came into her eyes, to smolder away in a sad glow, as of one who knows she desires in vain. But there was just a trace of the old energy in her voice as she replied, with words that burned like a rebuke, "Why do you tell me this now? Why did you not tell me before, when the red leaves were still on the trees and the birds were still flying south?"
"I should have told you before," I pleaded, abjectly. "I should have told you. Forgive me, my darling, I did not understand. But is there not time even now? Think, it will be whole long months yet before the spring breezes blow!"
"It is too late!" she sighed. "Too late! I could not go now. It is too cold. I would not know the way. The last bird has flown south. It is too late!"
In her tones there was such finality that I knew it would be futile to protest.
For minutes I stood there before her in silence, burdened with a sadness that equalled her own, face to face with a certainty I had never contemplated before. Perhaps, in that first moment of realization, I did not sufficiently conceal my forebodings, for in the end I felt a gentle hand tugging at mine, and looked down to see a wanly smiling face peering at me with pathetic kindliness and sympathy. And for a moment I enveloped Yasma's frail figure in an embrace of such fury as I had seldom bestowed.
But her form, at first rigid, quickly grew limp in my clasp; and, with renewed apprehensions, I released her.
For a few seconds she turned from me to stare into the dwindling fire; then her whole body was shaken by a spasmodic twinge, like an electric shock. And facing me again, she murmured, sorrowfully, "It is too late, my beloved, too late. But do not be sad. It is no one's fault. You could not be different if you wished, and I could not be. And one of us must suffer the cost."
"Do not say that, Yasma!" I protested, in rising alarm. "What cost can there be?"
"Yulada alone can answer," she returned, calmly but in tones of certainty. "But better that it should be I—"
"No, no!" I interrupted, furiously. "It is I that should suffer—I—"
But my sentence was never finished. Yasma had again turned aside, her whole form suddenly convulsive. It was long before I could comfort her; and late into that dismal night, while the wind clamored even more frantically without and the fire within sank untended to a smoky glow, I hovered despairingly at her side, warming the chilly hands, coaxing and caressing and pleading, murmuring reassuring words I could not feel, and all the while disconsolate because she seemed beyond the power of my consolation.
Eventually, after what may have been hours, the tumult ebbed away, and she lay impassive in my arms, like one meekly resigned when there is no longer any purpose in struggling. Her eyes had grown listless and weary; her whole frame seemed without energy; it was as though she had expended her last reserves of emotion. And in the end sleep came, impartial sleep that could never have been more welcome; and she lay huddled in my arms, unconscious of my long dreary vigil, her breath rising and falling so faintly that at times I scarcely heard it at all and listened in alarm for the feeble, reassuring beating of her heart.
But if her present state was disturbing, she was to give me double cause for concern as the days went by. Her languid and indifferent mood persisted; she showed no more passionate flashes, no more upsurgings of revolt; she had the sad submissiveness of a nun who has taken the last irrevocable vows. And, all the while, a disquieting physical change was coming over her. The color was being drained from her cheeks, which were assuming a waxen hue; the blue veins were standing out on her forehead; her face was growing drawn and thin, with a forlorn, almost ghostly beauty; her hands were seemingly without strength, and hollows began to appear about the palms and wrists. Only her vivid dark eyes remained unchanged, her dark eyes and her auburn ringlets.
I would have been less than human had I not fought with all my strength against the cruel transformation. Yet what, after all, could I do? I would spend hours in tending her simplest physical needs, in building fires, in keeping her warmly clothed, in fetching water and preparing food; but it seemed as if she were above all mere physical attentions. She would scarcely put forth an effort to safeguard herself; she would expose herself recklessly or unthinkingly to the cold; and would hardly touch the morsels I made ready for her with hopeful care. To argue with her, to coax her, to entreat her, was but a waste of time; she remained immune to the power of my persuasion and of my love; and I had the unhappy fate of watching her sinking and fading while I was unable to reach out a succoring hand.
After the days had begun to grow longer and December storms had made way for January blizzards, a still more distressing change took place. Until now Yasma had been able to go occasionally into the open, leaning upon my arm and breathing a few breaths of the refreshing breeze when the day was not too cold; but even this privilege was to be taken from her. There came a morning when, perhaps incautiously, we ventured out into the clear tingling air following a snow-storm; but we had not gone twenty paces when I felt Yasma's form sagging; and I thrust my arms about her just in time to save her from sinking into the snow. To bear the fainting girl back to the cabin and revive her was a matter of a few minutes; but she came out of this new trial weaker than ever, and was filled with such dread of the open that she would no longer leave shelter. She did not now hover brooding in a corner; she lay almost motionless on her couch of straw, covered with goatskin robes, uncomplaining, and speaking but little. And now came the real ordeal for us both. Fear, always muffled before by reason and hope, was rising unrelieved within me; I passed my days in a nightmare, tormented by my own thoughts, tortured by sight of her, and by remorse at my folly in bringing Yasma to this plight. But it was useless to waste time condemning myself, useless to let terror paralyze me. Whatever there was that I could do, that I did almost with passion; I would stir the fire into a blaze as eagerly as though the flames might fan Yasma's flagging spirits; I would prepare some poor broth of dried beans or peas as zealously as though it might put fresh strength into her drooping limbs. Yet all the while I realized that I was waging a hopeless fight. What she needed was the most skillful medical aid, the most tender nursing and carefully selected food—and how provide these here in this wilderness, alone among the crags and the snow?
But, to judge from her own state of mind, no means at the disposal of science would have been of much use. She bore the aspect of one waiting, waiting for the imminent and the inevitable; and she seemed to feel as if by instinct that her fate was foreordained. Sometimes she would call me to her, and in feeble tones confide that she loved me, and that I should not worry; sometimes she would merely take my hand, and speak by a silence more moving than words. Of our few brief conversations there is only an occasional phrase that I can recall: how once a bright light came into her eyes, and she murmured that she had been happy, very happy with me; how one moment she would say that she was tired, and the next moment that she was cold, but always that I was very good to her; how at times her wan face would be seamed with sorrow, and she would sigh that she did not wish to leave me alone. But most distinctly of all I remember the occasion when she sat up halfway on her couch, and her countenance was transfused with a radiance that brought reminders of her old self, and she held out a pleading hand to me and whispered that I should not be sad no matter what happened; that she would not be sad, but would be marvelously happy. And in her eyes I noticed a beautiful glitter that might have been the brilliance of delirium, and might have been the exaltation of one who sees that which is hidden from most men.
Of course, I would always try to reassure her; would tell her that there was nothing to be sad about, and that all would again be as it had been. But in my heart I knew that this was not so. And my eyes showed me signs that were far from hopeful. Gradually she was growing thinner still; her cheeks, ashen before, were brightening with a hectic glow. And when I placed my hand on her forehead, I realized that she was burning with fever. Just how severe that fever was, I could not tell; but my one consolation was that she did not appear to suffer.
And now my hours were passed in continual dread. I scarcely dared leave the cabin even to obtain water from the creek a stone's throw away; I was reluctant to desert my post for brief sleep at night. Perhaps I too was growing emaciated and weak, but could that matter when my whole world was withering away before my eyes?
At last the long-protracted January days were over, and February was ushered in by the songs of a demon wind. And with February a faint hope, remote and candle-dim, came flickering into my heart, for now the return of spring and the revival of the universe seemed not quite so distant. But that hope was to be snuffed out almost at birth.
The month was still young when the shattering day arrived. The sun had come out bright and clear over the fields and slopes of snow; and toward noon a few clouds had gathered, lazy and slow-drifting and scarcely disturbing the serene blue. Responsive to the tranquility of earth and sky, my mood was more placid than for weeks; and Yasma too seemed to feel the charmed peace, for her face showed a calm as of utter content, and the fever had apparently receded and left her cheeks almost their normal rose-hue. She did not speak much, but it seemed to me that her eyes had more alertness than for many days; and when she did break silence with a whisper, it was to assure me of her love in tones unforgettably tender.
How often I was to remember those words in later days, to treasure them, to repeat them over and over to myself like some old tune whose magic never fails! But at the time I did not foresee how precious these few hours were to be. Even when evening was approaching and Yasma's eyes began to glitter as with some secret ecstasy, I did not realize that the present moment might dominate all other moments in my life; and when sunset was setting fire to the west and the stray clouds wore vermilion and purple, I was still unprepared for what the night had in store.
Dusk was falling over the world and in our cabin a lively blaze was beaming, when I was surprised to see Yasma draw herself up to a sitting posture and throw out her hands as though invoking some unseen power. In her face there was a light as of one who gazes at some ravishing beauty; she seemed utterly overmastered and borne out of herself.
"Yasma," I murmured, myself overawed at her fierce transport. "Yasma, what is it?"
She turned to me with eyes that burned and sparkled as in the first ardor of our love. Her features were transfigured and glorified; it was as though she were yearning, straining upward toward something unspeakably lovely.
"I see the birds!" she cried, with a passion she had not shown for months. "I see the wild birds! They are calling, calling! Oh, I must join them! I must go where the flowers are! I must go, my beloved, I must go!"
"What are you saying, Yasma?" I burst forth, in a frenzy of terror. "Are you out of your senses? There are no birds near us now!"
She bent upon me a gaze in which her ecstasy seemed to be crossed by a fugitive tenderness. "Yes, there are, there are! I hear them! They call to me! But do not be sorry, my beloved. I will be happier, oh, so happy! The birds are calling me—I must follow them, follow them south—only"—here she hesitated just the fraction of a second—"only, this time I shall not return!"
"Oh, do not speak so strangely, Yasma!" I pleaded, half beside myself.
But she was already beyond reach of my appeals. "I see the birds! I see the wild birds!" she repeated, rising to a crescendo of exaltation. "I will fly with them, fly south, fly south! I will go where the sun always shines! I will go where all things are green and fair! Oh, I am going, I am going!"
Once more she turned passionately toward me; but her voice faltered, and a note of something wistful and gentle softened her fervid outburst. "Good-bye, my beloved—good-bye! I am going! It is the will—the will—of Yulada!"
At mention of that dread name, all power seemingly left her. Her thin form crumpled up and slumped down upon the disordered straw; for a moment a muffled gurgling filled her throat, and then she lay motionless where the firelight cast fantastic shadows.
With the fury of one scarcely conscious what he does, I bent down and lifted the silent figure in my arms. But she hung limp and unresponsive, and the open lips gave forth no sound, and the pulse no longer fluttered.
Then when the first terror of realization came upon me and my shoulders shook and heaved and the tears flooded down, I thought that I heard a strange sound without. Even in the unutterable depths of my agony, a rhythm as of whirring wings seemed to reach me; and some will not my own took hold of me, and brought me to the cabin door, and made me fling it wide before me. Not a dozen yards above, a great bird was poised in air; and at my approach it retreated into the twilight, speeding with swift-flapping wings upward and southward; and against the last red flare of day it was dimly visible for a moment, and then became a shadow, and then less than a shadow against the spectral peaks. And the western radiance paled and faded; and the stars came out one by one in the vague solitudes, and a faint glow to the east presaged the moon-rise; and I returned to the waning firelight, and to my grief that already was merged in a flaming remembrance.
Blue skies shone above me when I paid my last tribute to the Valley of Sobul. In the white breast of the new-fallen snow, a deep brown furrow had been riven; and into this aperture, with hands that trembled and threatened to give way, I lifted the rough-hewn oaken chest that contained the sole earthly remains of her who had loved me. Very carefully I had smoothed out the flowing auburn locks; very tenderly I had sheared off a tress, which even now is with me; then, with a tearless regret bitterer than words shall ever describe, I had looked my last at that silent, tranquil face, had slipped a scented pine twig impulsively against the unmoving form, and slowly had drawn the oaken lid into place.... And now, beneath the bright beams of the sun, under the circle of the inexorable peaks, I felt my eyes flooded with a passion that at the same time brought relief; and as the first clod slipped above the casket, it seemed to me (or perhaps it was but my disordered fancy speaking) that I heard a bird singing, singing faintly a thin elfin song, a strange, trilling song such as I had heard long before when Yasma had come to me after the bleak winter....
But no bird was to be seen, although I looked for one wistfully. And no bird was to be seen, although I fancied I heard one, at that later time when I stood bent beneath my pack on the flank of a western mountain, gazing back at the solitary valley and the white-draped figure of Yulada, aloof and invincible as ever. Before me was the trail that led toward the natives I had chanced upon last summer; before me, after months of waiting, would be the open road to my own land and civilization; before me would be the beginning of a new life, and new interests that would bring consolation, and work that would bring forgetfulness; but here in this secluded vale, with its lonely woods and encompassing peaks, I had left that which not all the golden cities of the earth could ever give me back again.
THE END