Part 11

A great fear came to him and swept with a cold wind over his immensity of joy. Would she suddenly close her mind again to his flaming love, now that he had at last aroused her sleeping soul?

"Oh, my love, my love!" he cried. "It is I, it is I, who have come over the distant seas, who have travelled through sun and shade, through storm and calm, who have passed through the Shadow of Death to reach the heaven of thy face; look at me with thy awakening eyes, and tell me that life is sweet."

"Life!" said the girl, her two hands still tightly clutching at her pulsing heart.

"Life, what is Life?"

"Life," cried Eric, "is contained in this one hour of perfect attainment. Life is the great promise of love fulfilled. Life is the sacred moment when my arms may clasp thee to my thirsting soul!

"Come, my beloved, for I have waited so cruelly long, so tirelessly have I searched and yearned!"

Stella, moved by some unknown, mysterious force, timidly drew near to this stranger man, whose face was as fair as the angels with whom in her visions she had always dwelt.

But what was this waking joy--this tumultuous tide of intensest bliss? Something too strong, too strong, something that no living mortal could bear.... And yet now she lay within his passionate arms, her head hidden against his throbbing straining heart.

In an agony of delight no words can describe, his lips, his warm living lips, were drinking her very soul away--drawing by slow degrees her sweet hardly-dawning life to mix with his boundless need.

He knew that this was the ultimate limit of his soul's desire, a moment of such incommensurable joy, that body and soul flowed together into a sunrise of dazzling triumph. All that had been, was as if it had never existed. Past, present, and future were caught up and welded together into a blaze of unearthly rapture.

He felt that he was being carried by the eternal wings of creation into the very heart of the throbbing world; he was one with Nature, he was one with God, one with his whole being's most sacred longing. And thus, closely locked in each other's arms, these two mortals of perfect beauty lived an hour that lies as a pulsing memory, deeply hidden within the dark lap of the ever-wakeful Mother Earth, and from which it rose like a song of undying, eternal perfection to the vastness of the sky above: a song that now floats in never-ending echoes on every passing cloud, on every ray of the sun. It was an hour when Nature stood still to listen to the accomplishment of one of her dearest dreams--when all life seemed concentrated within the happiness of those two frail human beings....

A cold streak of dawn was slowly advancing with pale furtiveness out of the cover of night, when Eric bent once again to press his lips upon the perfect mouth; as he did so Stella looked up into his face with those eyes that had for so long been a living part of his most hidden self.

Oh! was ever any earthly thing so marvellous, so wonderful, as those two grey stars of light! and a sweet whisper rose stealing into every drop of his blood:

"I love thee, I love thee, as never have I loved a single one of my heavenly dreams; I have learnt in this hour the most limitless boundaries of human bliss. Lay now thy dear lips upon these eyes thou hast found at last, so that no other sight than thy fond face may ever trouble my inner vision.

"Oh, see the day dawns; give me once more all thy bounding soul in the blessing of thy kiss."

Eric lifted the beloved woman and pressed her in a frenzy of joy to his heart; then very gently laid his mouth upon her eyes, closing the delicate lids, shutting away within her starry orbs the visage she loved more than all else.

Long did he remain thus holding her sweet face beneath his tender caress, whilst a heavenly smile parted her gentle lips.

And it seemed to Eric that at that moment his life and hers were flowing quietly together in one great tide towards the shores of Eternity....

But when old Zorka came at the break of day to see how her dear ones fared, she stood strangling a cry that rose in the air; then, throwing herself upon the ground, she hid her grey head in the dust.

There sat Eric with wandering gaze, his eyes wide open, full of frantic misery, looking down upon a corpse he held pressed closely to his beating heart. And through the gold of his shining locks, soft silver threads were scattered like finely spun moonbeams entwined with the rays of the sun.

Zorka lifted her haggard face and stared in awe at the ghost-like pallor of the girl. A wonderful light rested on her waxen features as she lay full of peace and rest, white and motionless in the arms of her lover.

Her eyes were closed as one who has shut her tired lids over a joy too great for words, the vastness of which had burst asunder her human heart.

XXV

And thy first night of death Belongs to our first sorrow.... What knowledge now is thine? A deeper one than ours.

BARD OF THE DÂMBOVITZA.

All day the dark men of the tribe had been building a coffin into which the beautiful maiden was to be laid to rest.

One and all were bowed with sorrow; this death was to them a horrible unreality their simple minds could not grasp. Why was this creature of light cut down in her sweetest prime?

What would their lives now be without the glamour and mystery with which she had filled their wandering day?

The morning was bleak, and the rain fell in occasional showers that the wind swept, with moaning sighs, over the naked waste. The canvas of the tents flapped and creaked, straining against the poles and cords that held them in place.

A heavy gloom brooded over the wretched camp, so that even the squabbling children spoke with bated breath.

Within Stella's silent tent sat Eric of the golden locks, staring without tears upon the face of the dead. The eyes of his dream looked upon him no more; he had shut them for ever with the passion of his kiss. Beneath his living lips she had breathed her last, dying like a fading flower, scorched by the flame of his love!

He had not known when she had passed away--only the growing chill he had felt beneath his cheek had pierced his soul with a sudden fear, and when he had called on her beloved name no answer had come in response. But we shall draw a veil over that hour of morn when he realized what was to be his fate. There are times of darkness and bottomless grief wherein the eye of a stranger must never descend. This was the end--the end! Hope was dead, life was a waste, and all had been but a passionate dream that ended with a kiss!

The wind swept over the humble tent, but upon her lowly couch Stella still smiled the wise smile that removes the dead so far beyond the reach of those who weep.

Not far off sat Zorka, the witch, her head bent down upon her trembling knees, whilst the storm played amongst the frosted wisps of her hair. From all sides weird chants rose into the wintry air where the old women, sitting round their blazing fire, were singing dirges for the dead.

And now came the moment when the black-eyed, black-haired sons of the wild came to carry Stella to her last narrow bed.

They had fashioned her a coffin with sides of shining copper the colour of the autumn that had now passed away. Eric had to stand by and see how they lifted the body he loved, and laid it, all rigid and small, within the three sides of the metal box that received in unmoved silence this, his faded dream.

The gypsies had sullenly refused to let him carry her himself; they jealously desired to have at least her inert body within their arms, they who had never dared touch a single hair of her head.

They did not know that she had died beneath the kiss of his lips, but they somehow guessed that at the end he had awakened her sleeping soul; and although they had dearly loved his beautiful face, Eric had always been an alien in their midst, all shining and fair, a being of light amongst their sombre race.

Now she was dead--Stella was dead--the Luck of their tribe lay white and cold in her last resting-place. Now she was theirs, and this son of another clime must relinquish his right, and leave her pure perfection between their dusky hands.

So while they were carrying her from out her tent Eric wandered with dragging feet into the forest where he had so often sat, painting her lovely face.

Now all the gold had fallen to the ground, the trees stood gaunt and bare. Over his cruelly bowed head the branches stretched naked and grey; from every twig large dropping tears fell splashing on the carpet of faded leaves.

Nowhere could he find the smallest plant or flower out of which to wind her a final wreath the same as those she had always worn. In vain he searched each sheltered corner; wherever he peered, all was dark and dead, killed by the frost of the night.

When he came back to where she lay, pale and still, all that he had to bring to the woman he loved was a crown of thorns. These he pressed on her snowy brow where they rested, sharp and hard, amongst her silky tresses, so that verily she resembled a martyred queen upon the bier of a beggar.

In a circle around her coffin the gypsies had lighted blazing fires, and now that their work was done they left the stranger standing in lonely communion with that silent shape that never again would look upon the light of day.

As he knelt beside her lowly bed, his face hidden on the heart that beat no more, a sound of wings came wafted upon the wind, and there, fluttering above the lifeless maiden, was his trusted companion the milk-white hawk, holding in its sharpened beak the chain with the moon-coloured diamond.

As Eric looked up with hopeless eyes, he saw how the beautiful creature swooped down quite close, covering the lovely vision with its large soft wings; and when it rose again, like foam against the darkening sky, Gundian espied upon the heart of the maiden the magic diamond, shining as if all her love were a last time bursting from her breast in mystic rays of enchantment.

Night came down and still Eric knelt beside his shattered happiness. All about him the fires burned and crackled, and the dismal chants of the gypsies rose like curses to the heavens.

The wondrous face of the sleeper lived again in the glowing shine, but Eric did not see this illusive light of life; when he looked up the fires had burnt out; the gypsies had gone to rest.

The night had laid its darkness over the frowning solitude; no star shone in the sky; the only spot of brightness was the twinkling diamond that glowed there on Stella's bosom, where Eric had awakened her soul with his first burning kiss of love!

XXVI

The grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps. Dust on her breast, dust on her eyes, The grey wind weeps.

FIONA MACLEOD.

Next day her grave was dug, there, upon that endless plain of silence. Eric had strewn the gaping hole with a lining of withered leaves, gathered from the weeping forest.

Before they hid her marvellous face out of sight he had passionately covered its mask of beauty with desperate burning kisses. Zorka had stood close by, guarding him from hostile glances, so that this heartbroken lover might be for a last time alone with what had been the dream of his life.

Then from his shoulders he took the torn black cloak he had worn during all his wanderings and draped it round those rigid limbs that froze his blood with their icy coldness.

"Mother, dear old mother," he cried, "I want to keep her warm; the night before last she glowed in the arms of my passion, and now I must leave her to the chill mercy of the frozen ground. How can I bear such torture?"

Zorka laid her withered hand upon his shoulder.

"Son, my son, I feel that no ice can harm her more--she looked upon the flames of Love, and died whilst they were folded round her; she closed her eyes upon the vision of thy burning worship, and that wonderful sweetness was the last thing she saw; now she is for ever happy."

So Eric wound her from head to foot in the dark folds of his mantle; he hid away her white hands and her tiny feet. Then he pressed the wreath of thorns over the dusky drapery, placing the gleaming gem in the centre of her forehead. He fetched her dear violin and laid it so that her toes just touched its polished wood.

Over the shabby black tissue of the weather-beaten vestment he spread the faded wreaths that once had rested upon her rippling hair. And after one long look of farewell he allowed the heavy lid to be shut down on his hard-won happiness.

The damp earth was thrown with a hollow thud over the lid of the coffin, the ground was beaten down smooth and flat on every side, so that no wandering stranger should ever disturb her deep dark grave beneath its covering of sombre soil.

The gypsies folded their tents with hasty rapidity, longing to steal away from a place where silence brooded amongst the whispering winds.

Old Zorka came and stood upon the spot where her darling had been hidden for ever away, and there she murmured all the prayers she could call back to her flagging memory, whilst her streaming tears mixed with the mould that lay over that past dream of beauty.

But no persuasion nor entreaty could make Eric move from that dark mound in the barren lonely wild; he meant to remain there that first night when she had been confided to the indifferent shadows that closed in around her.

He promised Zorka he would follow next day, but this night he must lie on Stella's cold grave, to protect it from the biting frost.

When all had gone and he was alone on that dreary vastness, he drew from its sheath his treasured sword and planted it like a cross, there where her eyes must be hidden away, never more to look upon the rising sun.

Dreary blasts of wind blew over the gloomy desert; darkness came down and Eric stretched himself upon the frozen ground, his lips pressed upon the spot where, far beneath the heavy covering of soil, her beautiful mouth must have been.

There he lay, forsaken, the only breathing being in that cruel night of sorrow. But not far off, amongst the dim shadows of the forest, the snowy falcon was faithfully watching, though the glinting light no longer shone on his breast, watching till day should mercifully break.

Through the heavy hours Eric never moved; he was fighting alone a dreary battle against life and his God. Nor did he know, as his face lay hidden in his clenched hands, that the magic hilt of the sword was glowing like a shining promise far over the sleeping world. There it stood, a cross of flame, burning with sacred light, watching over this desperate mortal who longed to cast his life away.

The wind howled with voices of terror and storm; the dust was whirled in clouds from the frozen waste, sweeping over the cross-shaped light and over the weeping man, trying to blot them out of sight.

But deep down in eternal night, under the protecting arms of her lover, rested Stella in stony quiet, bedded in the lap of old Mother Earth.

Beneath her closed lids her starry eyes were for ever guarding the last dear vision her waking brain had looked upon.

XXVII

And in her two white hands like swans on a frozen lake, Hath she not my heart, that I have hidden there for dear love's sake.

FIONA MACLEOD.

Morning dawned, and Eric rose from the ground, half-frozen from his long night's vigil, his eyes hollow, staring with a desperate look.

The wan daylight was gradually spreading over the wilderness, on which he stood like a wounded soldier whom his comrades had forsaken, imagining he was dead. No, he was not dead, poor youth, he was alive, crying, with broken heart and thirsting soul, for what could be no more. He had lived his dream and shattered it all in one. Zorka had been right, some flowers must not be plucked; and now his hands were empty--empty. He himself had made the sweet petals fall, and no earthly power could give them back their bloom.

Down there under the dark cold sod she lay, his dream of dreams, crushed by his passion and love. He had held his soul's desire pressed against his wildly beating heart, and she had left him in their hour of rapture; had died beneath the fire of his kiss.

Once more he threw himself down upon the merciless earth that covered her sacred beauty. He pressed his mouth upon the dust of the ground, tracing the sign of the Cross with his lips, there where he guessed that her snowy brow, her silent heart, and closed eyes lay hidden for ever out of sight.

Then kneeling before the cross-shaped sword, Eric prayed in words of glowing entreaty to the great Father above, that her sleep should be sweet and the earth soft to that body he loved, that the weight of the dark mould that wrapped her round should not be heavy to her delicate limbs.

He cried to that silent brooding sky to be merciful towards that creature of light and soon to call her from the damp dark grave to a sunrise of glory and joy.

"God! my God! it cannot be that Thou lettest her slumber for ever in that cold solitude and I not knowing if her sleep be sweet. She who was like a ray from the sun--she who carried within her orbs the whole glory of the summer skies, the entire mystery of the starry nights. She whose music was the most exquisite rendering of the beauty of life; she whose perfection was the gladness of each awakening day, whose soul and body were like the spotless snow of mountain heights where no human foot has ever passed. O God! O God! how can I leave her grave?" And again he lay there, stretched upon the relentless soil, groaning and shedding tears of blood, whilst the brooding silence of the naked wild lay over all, hostile and unheeding, with Nature's stony indifference to the sorrow and anguish of the human race.

Then at last he tore himself away, feeling how useless were his grief and misery before those eternal laws of creation which for ever are, and for ever shall be.

Now he was fleeing that silent wilderness, bending his head against the driving wind and rain, against the storm of dust and sand that the wild gusts were throwing in his face.

Several times he turned in hopeless yearning towards that lonesome spot where his precious sword stood a lonely guardian of his lost happiness; then, covering his face in an agony too deep for tears, on he rushed as one who tries to escape from a sight he cannot bear.

His faithful friend the hawk flew beside him, occasionally caressing his tear-stained face with the velvet touch of its wings.

For several hours he had thus fought his desperate way, when, on raising his head, he saw a small cloud coming towards him out of the distance, growing in size the nearer it came.

He stood still, vaguely wondering what it might be, when out of the midst of the moving dust a young boy emerged, driven along by the storm that strove to carry him off his feet.

The first thing Eric discerned was a high fur cap, a shaggy coat of skins, into the wide sleeves of which the youth's hands had been deeply thrust, whilst a thick staff was pressed in the hollow of his arm. Behind this advancing figure came the pattering feet of innumerable sheep, raising beneath their steps the thick cloud Eric had first of all descried.

Suddenly, with a glad cry, both youths ran towards each other with joyful recognition, for this was none other than Radu, the shepherd, who was leading his flocks home from the mountains, driven thence by the coming winter.

For a moment both remained speechless, hands clasped, staring into each other's face that were wet and shining from the drizzling rain which had not yet been able to turn into mud the thick coating of dust that lay like powder on the roads. The one who spoke first was Radu, and it was anxiously to ask:

"Where hast thou left thy cloak? Thou art quite wet; and thy sword, thy beautiful sword, where hast thou left thy sword?"

Eric did not answer; he simply lifted both his hands, showing that they were empty; then he let them fall again at his sides with the hopeless gesture of one who has given everything up for ever more. Then only did Radu come quite near and peer with frightened eyes more closely into his face.

"What is it?" he cried. "What is it? What hast thou seen?"

"Heaven and Hell," answered Eric. "I have been in both!"

"And thy dream--didst thou find thy dream?" whispered the peasant.

"I found it and I lost it," was the answer he got. "It was mine for a short hour of bliss--mine; but again God beat me down with my face to the earth.

"I have been a dreamer of dreams, and it is not to be given to me to keep what I clasp. God allowed me visions to lead me ever on; they brought me to this land of promise.

"It was summer then; now thou seest what colour is over the earth. But I touched my dream; I held it within my human arms; but as sayeth the poet: 'How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may touch,' so I killed my flower, killed it with my kiss."

"Can one kill with a kiss?" cried Radu, awe in his voice.

"One can kill with more things than with a sword. I found the face of my vision, I followed it step by step. I hunted it down with sighs and tears till at last it was mine. I held it one short moment in my arms, a moment within which I lived the ultimate triumph of my desire. Then it was gone. I myself destroyed it, consumed it, with the thirst of my soul!"

"But was she happy?" queried Radu, with tears in his eyes.

"Was she happy! Good God! was she happy!" cried Eric, clenching his fists towards the skies. "Yes, I believe she was happy! If I did not believe that I could not live. She said to me to kiss her eyes so that for ever she could keep the picture of what she had loved best in this world! At that moment she died! My warm touch of love was death! Canst grasp that frightful truth?... was death! My lips, my lover's lips closed her eyes for ever!... for ever ... over the vision of my face!

"Before they laid her in the ground I wrapped her in my cloak; that is why it is gone. I would not leave her thus thinly clad within the cold shadow of her grave; and upon the spot where she lies I planted my sword. There, where the eyes I followed so far are for ever closed, I left my sword."

"Oh," sobbed Radu, "and now I shall never see that face!"

"Yes, thou shalt," answered his friend. "Come with me and thou shalt see the fairest being God ever made!"

"Where?" asked the astonished peasant, "where?"

"Follow me and thou shalt know!"

"But my sheep,--they are tired; and see how tame are my dogs, exhausted by the length of the way."

"It is not far from here--there thou canst rest; thou art not in a hurry, and I would thou shouldst know the eyes of my dream."

Again Eric hid his face in his clasped hands, whilst a harsh dry sob rose to his throat.

"Come, come! I, too, thirst for the sight of her face."

Towards the evening the two lads arrived at the gypsies' camp.

Along the dreary roadside several tall wooden crosses had been erected, tall and gaunt, with curious shapes, decorated with archaic saints in crudest colours.

These weird crosses stood in a line like silent spectres, some bending sideways, as if tired of their vigil.

It was here that old Zorka had told Eric he would find their halting-place. The fires had already been lit, the dark men and women sat about in groups. The tents stood out, dismal shadows, against the Western Bar.

Eric holding Radu by the hand led him to where Zorka was cooking her evening meal in a blackened pot.

Radu's flock had followed pitter-patter in their wake, hardly discernible in the dusk, their way-stained wool the colour of the ground they trod.

When she saw her favourite the old seer ran forward and clasped him to her breast, anxiously scanning his haggard face, but saying never a word for fear of awakening his surging grief.

"Mother Zorka," he said, "here is a friend who has come to look upon her face!"