When the birds fly south

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Title: When the birds fly south
Author: Coblentz, Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur)
Language: English
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Copyright Status: Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook. See comments about copyright issues at end of book.

*** Start of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "When the birds fly south" ***

When the Birds Fly South

By STANTON A. COBLENTZ

THE WINGS PRESS
MILL VALLEY, CALIF.
NEW YORK, N. Y.

_First Printing, 1945_
_Reprinted, 1951_

TYPOGRAPHY BY JOSEPH A. WENNRICH
_Printed in the United States of America_

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

To
F. B. C.
whose eyes
have followed with mine
the flight
of the birds southward

_Contents_

_PART I DRIFTING LEAVES_

I THE MOUNTAIN OF VANISHED MEN

II THE VERGE OF THE PRECIPICE

III WELCOME TO SOBUL

IV THE WEAVING OF THE SPELL

V YULADA

VI FORESHADOWINGS

VII YASMA

VIII THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH

IX IN THE REDDENING WOODS

X THE IBANDRU TAKE WING

_PART II BLOSSOM AND SEED_

XI THE PRISONER

XII THE MISTRESS OF THE PEAK

XIII THE BIRDS FLY NORTH

XIV THE WARNING

XV CRUCIAL MOMENTS

XVI HAMUL-KAMMESH ORDAINS

XVII AT THE TIME OF THE FULL MOON

XVIII THE SECOND FLIGHT BEGINS

XIX THE CYCLE IS COMPLETED

_PART III THE WILL OF YULADA_

XX THE SECOND WINTER

XXI "THE MOLEB"

XXII THE TURNING POINT APPROACHES

XXIII THE LAST FLIGHT

XXIV THE WILL OF YULADA

_Drifting Leaves_

CHAPTER I

_THE MOUNTAIN OF VANISHED MEN_

High among the snow-tipped ranges of Afghanistan, there is a peak
notable for its peculiar rocky crown. Unlike its lordly neighbors, it
is dominated not by crags and glaciers, but by a projection which seems
almost to bear the impress of human hands. From the southern valley,
five thousand feet beneath, the traveler will observe a gigantic
steel-gray figure carved in the image of a woman; and he will notice
that the woman's hands are uplifted in an attitude of prayer, and that
she stands with one foot slanted behind her and one foot slightly
upraised, as though prepared to step into the abyss. How this lifelike
form came to be perched on that desolate eminence is a mystery to the
observer; but he assumes that it is a product of some prank of nature,
for it is far too large to have been made by man. Yet he must be
unimaginative indeed not to be awe-stricken at thought of the forces
which gave that colossus birth.

I, for one, shall never forget my first glimpse of the stone Titan. As
a member of an American geological expedition studying the mountain
strata of Northern India, Afghanistan and Tibet, I had been tramping
for hours through a winding rock-defile in company with nine scientific
colleagues and the native guides. Suddenly, coming out through a break
in the canyon, I looked down into a deep basin densely mantled in
deodar and pine. Beyond this valley, to the north, a succession of
jagged peaks shot skyward, their lower slopes dark-green with foliage,
their upper altitudes bare and brown, and streaked here and there with
white. Almost precisely in their center, as though in the acknowledged
place of honor, one summit loomed slightly higher and less precipitous
than the others, and on its tip the singular statue-like image.

My first impression was that it was an illusion. Never had I or any of
my companions heard of such a figure; we were hardly less startled than
if we had journeyed to the North Pole, there to gaze at a skyscraper.
Eagerly we questioned our Afghan guides, but at first their stolid,
swarthy faces simulated indifference, though they cast furtive and even
frightened glances at one another. Then, pressed to speak, they assured
us that the stone image was the work of devils; and finally they stated
that the figure had been created by the "Ibandru," a race of mountain
folk with wings like birds and the power of making themselves invisible.

Naturally, my friends and I laughed at such a naïve superstition.
Yet when I proposed that we climb the mountain and seek the home of
the "Ibandru," our guides repeated their warning that these people
were powerful and evil-minded enchanters. And when, not to be daunted
by fairy tales, I insisted on investigating the mountain top, the
natives betrayed their alarm by their rolling dark eyes and eloquent
gestures, and swore that if we ever began the climb we should be unable
to return. Scores of their countrymen had been bewitched and lost in
seeking the peak, which was known as "The Mountain of Vanished Men";
and for their own part, they would sooner wrestle with tigers than lead
us up the slopes.

There was no arguing the point--they were beyond reason. Nevertheless,
in the face of common sense, I could not be contented. From the
beginning, that womanlike image had taken hold of my imagination; and,
far from discouraging me, the fears and protestations of the natives
had only whetted my curiosity. Should opportunity offer, I would scale
the mountain and discover for myself if there was any excuse for that
terror which the stone figure aroused in the Afghans.

The opportunity, unfortunately, was not long in coming. That evening
we pitched camp among the pines at the base of "The Mountain of
Vanished Men." Since the site was ideally located at the brink of a
clear-bubbling rivulet, and since several of us were exhausted from
our strenuous traveling, we decided to remain for a day or two before
continuing toward the northern gorges.

Next morning I urged that, whether with guides or without, several of
the men join me in a climb to the stone image. The ascent, I pointed
out, promised to be easy enough, for the mountain showed a long even
grade that rarely approached the perpendicular; and, in the absence of
undetected glaciers or ravines, there would be nothing to keep us from
the peak. I was even so confident as to assert that, starting shortly
after dawn, we would set foot on the summit and be back in camp by
evening.

Most of my comrades were not convinced. They swore that it would be
foolhardy to entrust ourselves to this unknown wilderness; they painted
in gruesome terms the danger of being lost, and the still greater
danger from wild beasts, rock slides, and crevasses in the snow and
ice; and they scoffed when I vowed that I would go alone if no one
would accompany me.

Yet among our party there was one who, either through lack of foresight
or an insensitiveness to fear, was ready to risk any hazards. That
man, Jasper Damon, was one of those persons with a passion for getting
into trouble,--a sure instinct for upsetting canoes in deep water, or
invading hollow tree trunks infested with rattlesnakes. All through
this expedition he had been my especial companion; and now, while the
others sat by with loud guffaws and mocking grimaces, he rushed to
my rescue. Springing from his seat just when I most needed an ally,
he shook my hand and assured me that a little jaunt to the top of the
mountain was the very thing he desired.

Even today I do not know why he joined me. Perhaps the figure on the
peak exercised a mysterious compulsion upon him, as upon me; or perhaps
he was merely moved by good fellowship. But, whatever his motives, he
displayed real zest in his preparations. His black eyes fairly crackled
in his long, stubbled face; his lean, lanky figure, with the spidery
legs, bustled about in noisy animation. In less time than it took me
to make the proposal, he had secured food and firearms and a knapsack
containing ropes and climbing equipment; and, scornful of the warnings
of our companions and the oaths and mutterings of the natives, he
started with me on the long ascent before the sun had lifted its head
halfway above the east-ridges.

* * * * *

For more than an hour we plodded along a vague little trail beneath
the dark foliage. Many a day must have passed since the last man had
followed this track; the occasional small five-clawed footprints showed
who the recent passers-by had been. But we were not depressed by
thought of the frightful solitudes, nor by fear of the unseen creatures
occasionally rustling in the brush; and even when we had literally to
dig our way through the thickets, we did not let discouragement mar our
spirits. Although the slopes were moderately steep, they were not hard
to scale; and we felt sure that early afternoon would see us on the
summit.

This hope found support when, before the morning was half over, we
reached a more sparsely timbered area, and shortly afterwards came out
into a region of straggling shrubs. The rocky ribs of the mountain
now stretched bare and gigantic before us, the dismal gray slopes
inclining at an angle of from twenty to fifty degrees. Far above,
perched on a little cone not unlike the tip of a volcano, that curious
statue-like formation loomed encouragingly larger; and a wisp of cloud
dangled playfully about the summit and beckoned us to be of good cheer
and make haste.

But it was not easy to make haste along those unsheltered ridges under
the glaring mid-July sun. More than once, as Damon and I sweltered
upward, we glanced regretfully back at the green valley; and more than
once we observed that the peak, like the fruit of Tantalus, seemed only
to retreat as we toiled to approach it.

The higher we mounted, the less likely did it appear that we could
gain the summit and return by evening. We encountered no impassable
obstacles, and never had to use the climbing tackle; yet in places we
literally had to crawl, relying upon our arms as much as upon our legs,
and consequently were so delayed that when the sun stood in mid-heaven
the peak still beckoned from the remote blue.

Had any trace of our wits remained, we would now have recognized that
we sought the unattainable. But that inscrutable figure above had woven
a charm about us; upward, still upward we trudged, pausing only for an
occasional drink from an icy little stream. Our eyes were so fascinated
by the peak, and by its amazing woman-shaped crown, that we did not
notice signs which could hardly have escaped us in a more cautious
mood. Not until too late did we observe the increasing murkiness of the
atmosphere, the gradual formation of bands of mist that gathered as if
from nowhere, the merging of those bands into clouds that obscured the
further ranges and approached us with silent and deceptive velocity.

I was just speculating as to the distance still before us, when an
exclamation from Damon startled me back to reality. And suddenly I was
aware of the menace.

The skies were no longer blue, but gray with vapor; the slopes below us
were disappearing in fog, and even the peak was being blotted from view!

"Back! Let's go back!" I muttered, thoroughly frightened.

Without a word, Damon joined me in frantic retreat.

But we had delayed too long. Before we had returned many hundred yards,
the fog was all about us. Like some evil unearthly thing, it blocked
our pathway with intangible streamers, and reared a gray wall before us
and to every side, and stretched a gray roof just overhead; and it drew
closer, insidiously closer, until we could see not ten feet beyond, and
the wild panorama of the mountains had given way to a hazy cell the
size of a small room.

A cautious man, no doubt, would have proposed remaining where we
were. But neither of us relished the prospect of camping possibly for
twenty-four hours in this solitary spot; and both of us vaguely felt
that, after descending a little, we would come out into the daylight
beneath the clouds. Besides--and this was most unreasonable, and
most unlike me--I was agitated by a dim, superstitious fear, I could
scarcely say what of, as if by some sixth sense I knew of shadowy
horrors that lurked unseen and unheard in the gloom.

Yet we had to advance with the timidity of tight-rope walkers; at any
instant, we might find ourselves dangling at the edge of a precipice.
In the first moments of that unequal contest we had hopelessly lost our
way; we had been unable to follow the trail, since we could not see far
enough to recognize the landmarks; while, as we descended at random
among the rocks, we realized that, even should we escape from the fog,
we might find it far from easy to make our way back to camp.

I do not know how long we continued groping through the mist. It may
have been half an hour, or an hour; certainly, it seemed the better
part of a day. But as Damon and I picked our path between the boulders
among the enfolding vapors, despair was gradually settling over us
both, and we felt as if some malign spirit had walled us off from the
world.

Even so, I cannot explain how we opened the door for the greatest
horror of all. Perhaps it was only that Damon was displaying his
usual recklessness; perhaps that the fog had driven us in too much
upon ourselves. All I know is that, looking up after an absent-minded
revery, I received a bewildering shock--the mist was hemming me in
almost at arm's length, and Damon was not to be seen!

For a moment I was too dazed to cry out. My mind was filled with the
fantastic ideas that come to a man at such a crisis. Had my companion
stepped over a precipice? Had he been crushed by a dislodged boulder?
Had some prowling beast fallen upon him?

As these questions shot over me, I was startled to hear my name shouted
in a familiar voice. But the words seemed to issue from far away, and I
had only the vaguest idea of their direction.

"Damon! Damon!" I shouted back, in mingled hope and dismay. "Where are
you?"

"Here! Here, Prescott! Here!" came the voice, after a second or two.
But I was still mystified as to the direction.

Yet, in my excitement, I cried, "I'm coming!" and started off on what I
imagined to be the proper course.

At intervals the calling continued. Damon's voice did not seem to draw
nearer, but did not seem to grow more remote; and several times, by way
of desperate experiment, I changed my direction--which only increased
my confusion. Now I would be sure that the voice cried from my right,
and now that it shrilled from my left; at first I thought that it came
from beneath me, but before long I felt that its source was above.

And as I went fumbling through the fog, anxiety gave way to panicky
impatience, and the slim remnants of my wits deserted me. The climax
came when, after forcing my way through a cluster of jagged rocks
that bruised my arms and legs and tore my clothes, I found myself
at the base of a cliff that shot upward abruptly out of sight. From
somewhere above, I felt sure, I heard Damon's voice calling, hoarse
from overstraining and plaintive with fear. And at the thought that an
unscalable wall divided us, I behaved like a trapped animal; heedless
of the abysses beneath, I started hastily along the base of the cliff
in what I supposed to be Damon's direction.

But again I had miscalculated. When I next heard my friend's voice, it
was much fainter ... growing ghostly faint and remote; and continued to
grow fainter still, until it was no more than a murmur borne across far
distances. And now, when I screamed his name in a cracked and broken
way, the only answer was in the echoes that reverberated along the
mountainside, with thin and hollow notes like the mockery of fiends.

In despair, I told myself that I had lost track of Damon completely.
But all at once a resounding report broke the stillness of the
mountains. Shocked, I stood as if frozen--and instantly the report was
repeated. Was Damon battling some foe, four-footed or human? Or was he
merely signaling with his revolver?

Then, while I stood quivering there beneath the precipice, the pistol
rang forth again, and again; and the echoes pealed and dinned with
unearthly snarls and rattlings.

So unnerved was I that I did not think of replying with my own
revolver. But, seized with a frenzy to rejoin Damon at all costs, I
started through the fog almost with the madness of a stampeding steer.

And now at last my recklessness betrayed me. Whether my foot slipped,
or whether I had dared an impossible grade, I do not know; but with
breathless suddenness, I was plunging down a terrifying slope. To stop
myself was beyond my power; with a sprinter's speed I went racing down
the mist-dimmed mountainside. For an instant I had visions of gigantic
spaces beneath me, of prodigious chasms, jutting rocks--then all things
grew blurred, my mind whirled round and came to a stop ... and the
darkness that ensued was for me as the end of the world.

CHAPTER II

_THE VERGE OF THE PRECIPICE_

Hours must have passed while I lay without movement or consciousness.
For when at length I came to a confused awareness of myself, the scene
had changed alarmingly. The fog must still have been about me; but all
that met my eyes was a black blank, an opaqueness so absolute that for
the moment I imagined I had lost my sight. It was a minute before I
dimly recollected what had happened, and knew that I was somewhere on
the mountainside, and that it was now night.

But it was long before I realized the full horror of my predicament.
My head was feeling dull and dazed; my throat was parched; I was by
turns shivering and burning, and my limbs were all aching and sore.
I was lying sprawled head down on a couch of rock, and a rock-wall
to my left formed my support and pillow; but when I tried to change
position, a staggering pain in my right arm warned me to go slowly, and
I understood that the limb was hanging limp and useless.

It did not occur to me then to wonder what had happened to Damon,
nor how long I should have to remain here, nor how I should escape.
My thoughts were blurred and half delirious, and I think that
unconsciousness came to me again in snatches. More often than not I
was as one in a dream; visions of white peaks beset me continually,
and always on those peaks I saw a gigantic woman with hands outspread
and beatifically smiling face; and that woman seemed at times to call
to me, and at times to mock; and now she would take me to her in great
warm arms, and now would vanish like vapor in my clasp....

It was after one such nightmare that I opened my eyes and found the
darkness less intense. A pale gray light seeped wanly through the
mist; and in that dreary dawn I came gradually to understand my own
helplessness. While everything above was clouded, the fog had unrolled
from below--and my gaze traveled to panoramas that bewildered and
appalled me. Then, as by degrees the fumes cleared from my mind, I was
able to realize just what had happened--and shuddered to think what
might have happened. I was resting on a narrow ledge; above me the
rocky grade leaned at an angle halfway to the vertical, and beside me
was a blood-spattered boulder. It was this obstruction that had saved
my life--directly at my feet, a precipice slanted down to the dim
depths.

And yet, as I lay there groaning, I wondered if I would not have been
better off to have plunged into the chasm. I was so bruised that I
could hardly move a limb; my legs were too feeble to support me when
I strove to rise; internally I was so shaken that I could not be
certain of my equilibrium; and my right arm, acutely painful, dangled
helplessly at my side. Clearly, escape would be impossible....

And if at first I imagined that there was just a chance of rescue--just
a chance that a searching party from camp would find me--my hopes gave
place to a dull, settled despair as the hours wore endlessly away. The
fog, after lifting for a while, slowly re-formed; and with its return I
felt that my death-sentence had been passed. I could not now be seen at
more than twenty yards--and who could come near enough to discover me
on this detached shelf?

There followed an interval in which I must have sunk into delirium.
Then, after a series of grotesque imaginings or dreams in which I was
always trying to drink from streams that vanished at my touch, I was
roused from a half-conscious lethargy by the sound of voices. Could it
be that I was still dreaming? As eagerly as was now possible, I stared
into the wilderness of crags. The fog had vanished; but the only moving
thing was a great bird circling in the blue.

Cruelly disappointed, I again closed my eyes. But once more I thought I
heard voices calling. This time there could be no doubt--the sound had
been clear-cut, reminding me of men joyously shouting.

And as that sound was renewed, I opened my eyes again, and peered
searchingly into the abyss. Still all was bare and motionless. Yet,
even as I wondered, I heard those mysterious voices anew, nearer now
than ever; and for the first time I recognized that they came not from
beneath me but from above! Eagerly I gazed up at the rocky heights--but
there was no sign that they had ever been disturbed by human presence.

I was half convinced that my fever had been playing me tricks, when
a slender little moving shape far above caught my attention. After
an instant, it disappeared behind a ledge, but after another instant
emerged; and close behind it trailed other specks--slowly jogging
specks with upright forms!

In that first dumbfounded moment, I did not ask myself who they might
be. Enough that they were human--and almost within hail! Quivering
uncontrollably, I strove vainly to lift myself to a sitting posture.
Then, with what scanty lung power remained to me, I attempted to shout;
but my dry throat gave forth scarcely a feeble mumbling, the mere ghost
of a voice.

And directly following that first sharp relief, still sharper terror
seized me. Must I remain here unseen? At that thought, I was racked
with a dry crackling laugh, more like a cough than an expression of
mirth; and I lifted my left hand and frantically waved my red-bordered
handkerchief, while cackling and gibbering to myself like an insane old
man.

By bending my neck and straining my eyes, I could still follow the
figures. Had my enfeebled voice permitted, I would have shouted out
curses, would have laden them with all the imprecations of hell, when
they passed directly above and glided on their way around a bend in
the mountain. There were at least half a dozen of them, and they could
not have been from the camp, for they were clad in blue and red not at
all like the khaki we wore; and their voices had some quality quite
unlike anything I had heard before. There even seemed to be a note of
excitement in their calls, a tone of surprise, though of that I could
not be sure.

* * * * *

Some time later I opened my eyes once more, and saw three turbaned men
descending almost within arm's reach.

Whether they had been friends or head-hunting savages, their first
effect upon me would have been the same. In my weakened state, I was
unprepared for the shock; my senses forsook me, and unconsciousness
returned.

But when at length I came to myself, I seemed to be in another world.
The first thing I realized was that I was sitting with head propped up
against the boulder; and at the same time I was aware of the sound of
voices, voices that were pleasant although unfamiliar. And as I opened
my eyes, my surprise increased; not three strangers but six stood
before me, two of them women!

Even in my half-dazed condition, I observed something peculiar about
these persons. A single glance told me that they belonged to no race I
had ever seen or heard of; they were manifestly mountaineers, yet did
not wear the usual Afghan garb. Men and women alike were attired in
stout loose-fitting dark-blue garments of some material reminding me
of canvas, with red stripes and dots, and bizarre yet not unattractive
designs. In person they were clean-cut and prepossessing; the men tall
and well-built, with long full beards, swarthy countenances and proud
flashing black eyes; while the women were among the most attractive I
had ever seen.

So, at least, it seemed to me when the younger, scarcely more than a
child, lifted a small leather flask to my mouth and motioned me to
drink. With an effort, I moistened my lips; then, frantic as a drug
addict deprived of his drug, I swallowed a long draught, draining the
entire contents.

And as, half revived, I lay against the boulder, I observed that the
strangers were all peering at me with curiosity and wonder. But equal
wonder and curiosity, I am sure, stared from my own eyes; while my
glance may have already been too partial to her who had ministered
to my thirst. For I could see how strikingly she differed from her
companions; her complexion was lighter than theirs, and she had an airy
grace and beauty which set her apart.

Peering at her closely, I thought that she might be about sixteen
or seventeen. Her clear white skin had the stainlessness of perfect
health; her hair, which hung in unbound curls and ringlets about her
slender neck, was of a rich auburn; her eyes, in startling contrast to
that auburn, were dark like the eyes of her kindred, and in the deep
brown of the iris live fires glowed and smoldered; her features were
modelled with exquisite daintiness, the forehead of medium height and
rounded like a half moon, the nose small and gracefully pointed, the
gently curving chin tapering to a firm little knob. Her lips, tiny and
thin, had at times a creasing of merriment about the corners that
gave her almost a puckish appearance. Although slimly built and not
much over five feet in height, she did not lack at all in robustness;
she flitted from place to place with great agility; and her rude
unhampering garments fitted her ideally for mountain climbing.

After the exhaustion of our first few minutes together, I was again
close to unconsciousness. But now I felt strong hands lifting me; and
opened my eyes to find two men smiling upon me encouragingly. At the
same time, something pungent and aromatic was thrust between my lips;
the girl was extending a handful of dried herbs, which she motioned me
to consume with a genial dimpling smile that I had no power to resist.

After swallowing the food, I felt considerably better. Having finished
the entire handful and washed it down with a draught from a second
leather flask, I had revived sufficiently to try to sit up unaided; and
simultaneously I realized how ravenously hungry I was, and felt a fresh
desire to live flaming up within me.

Being eager for a word with my benefactors, I muttered something in
English without thinking exactly what I was saying. But the surprised
answering stares cut me short in sharp realization. What could these
mountain folk know of English?

There was a short, awkward pause; then, after a few words among
themselves, they addressed me in their native tongue. At the first
syllable, I realized that theirs was not the cultivated Persian of the
Afghan court, but rather a variety of Pushtu, the speech in most common
use among the people. From my wanderings of the past few months and
especially from contact with the native guides, I had gathered a few
words of this language, enough to enable me to recognize its peculiar
intonation, although I could express none but the simplest ideas.

After a second handful of the dried herbs, and another draught of
water, I felt well enough to try to stagger to my feet. But the effort
was too much for me; my limbs threatened to collapse beneath me; and
two of the men had to bolster me up.

But once I had arisen, they would not let me return to my rock-couch.
Grimly they motioned toward the snow-streaked northern peak, as if to
indicate that we must pass beyond it; at the same time, one of them
pointed to the stone image on the summit; while the others, as if
observing a religious rite, extended their arms solemnly and almost
imploringly toward that strange womanly figure.

At the moment, it did not occur to me that their attitude was one
of prayer; but later I was to remember this fact. For the time, my
thoughts took a more personal turn; for when I saw my new acquaintances
preparing to lead me across the mountains, I was profoundly alarmed.
Although still too stunned to take in the full reality, I knew that I
was on the threshold of unpredictable adventures, and that many a day
might pass before I could rejoin my fellow geologists.

But when the ascent actually began, I was not at all certain that I
should survive. We seemed to be undertaking the impossible; I had,
literally, to be lifted off my feet and carried; my legs were useful
only on the short stretches of comparatively level ground. In the
humiliation of being an invalid, I felt a deep sense of inferiority to
these brawny men that tugged and strained to bear me up the mountain;
while, with increasing admiration, I noted the capable way in which
they carried me along the brink of canyons, or over grades that I
should have had to make on my hands and knees. But greatest of all
was my admiration for the young girl who had offered me the dried
herbs. She seemed agile as a leopard and sure-footed as a mountain
sheep, leaping from boulder to boulder and from crag to crag with the
swiftness and abandon of a joyous wild thing....

Hours--how many I cannot estimate--must have been consumed in the
ascent. Fortunately, I am not a large man, being but five feet six
in height and considerably under the average weight; but, even so,
I proved more than an ordinary burden. Though my rescuers worked in
shifts and each seemed powerful enough to carry me single-handed, yet
before long the exertion began to tell upon them all. Occasionally,
after completing some precipitous ascent, they would pause to mop their
brows and rest; or else their bulging eyes and panting frames would
testify to the ordeal they were undergoing.

Higher and higher we mounted, while they showed no thought of
abandoning their efforts. In joy not unmixed with a half-superstitious
dread, I saw the statuesque figure on the peak slowly approaching; saw
its outlines expand until it seemed but a mile away, clad in a somber
gray and beckoning like some idol superbly carved by a race of Titans.
But while I was asking myself whether we were to climb to the very foot
of this image, I observed that we were following a little trail which
no longer ascended but wound sinuously about the mountainside. For what
seemed time unending we plodded along this path, while in my weakness I
was more than once close to fainting.

But, as we jogged ahead, the scenery was gradually changing; from time
to time I caught glimpses of far-off snowy peaks and a deep basin north
of "The Mountain of Vanished Men." It was long before this valley
stretched before us in an unbroken panorama; but when I saw it entire
it was enough to make me forget my sufferings.

Certainly, it was unlike any other valley in the world. A colossal
cavity had been scooped out in the heart of the wilderness; on every
side the mountain walls shot downward abruptly for thousands of feet,
forming a circle dominated at all points by jagged and steepled
snow-tipped peaks. Dense woods mantled the lower slopes, and the
valley's entire floor was forested except for relatively small patches
of grass lands. The whole depression might have been five miles across,
or might have been fifteen; but it was deep and round as the crater of
some gigantic extinct volcano; and there seemed to be scarcely a pass
that gave exit or ingress. I particularly noticed how the shadows,
creeping blackly from the western mountain rim as the afternoon sun
declined, shed an uncanny, ghost-like effect; while remote waterfalls,
leaping soundlessly from the high cliffs with slender streamers of
white, served only to enhance the impression of a spectral and unreal
beauty.

It was with sudden joy that I saw my new-found acquaintances turn
toward this valley, and realized that this was the home to which they
were leading me.

CHAPTER III

_WELCOME TO SOBUL_

How we accomplished the descent is one of the mysteries that will
always be associated in my mind with the Valley of Sobul. Even for the
unhampered traveler, as I was to learn, the grades were perilous; but
for climbers impeded with the weight of a disabled man, they must have
been well-nigh impossible. Unfortunately, I have little recollection of
what happened on the way down; I believe that I was half delirious from
hunger and pain; I have indistinct memories of muttering and screaming
strange things, and at best I can recall that we trailed as in a dream
along endless spiral paths by the brink of bottomless chasms.

It was late twilight when I was aroused to a dim awareness of myself.
Evidently our party had halted, for I was lying on the ground; on all
sides of me, unfamiliar voices were chattering. Although still too
listless to care much what happened, I opened my eyes and observed a
crowd of dusky forms moving shadow-like through the gloom. In their
midst, perhaps a hundred paces to my right, a great golden bonfire
was blazing, casting a fantastic wavy illumination as it glared and
crackled; and by its light I thought I could distinguish a score or
more of little cabin-like structures.

In my feverish state of mind, I had the impression that I had been
captured by savages; tales of cannibals and cannibal feasts, in a
nightmarish sequence, streamed across my memory. Perhaps I cried
out in a half-witted way; or perhaps it was merely that I groaned
unconsciously at my wounds, for suddenly I found myself the focus of
attention for the dusky figures; a dozen pairs of eyes were peering at
me curiously. Among them were two which, even in the dimness, I thought
I could recognize: while the multitude were mumbling unintelligibly,
a feminine form bent over me, and a feminine voice murmured so gently
that I was reassured even though I did not understand the words.

And again I felt myself lifted by strong hands; and, after a minute, I
was borne through a doorway into the vagueness of some rude dwelling.
The room was a small one, I judged; in the sputtering candlelight
it appeared to me that my outspread arms could have reached halfway
across. Yet I took no note of details as the unseen hands placed me on
a mass of some stringy, yielding substance. So exhausted was I that I
quickly lost track of my surroundings in much needed sleep.

It may have been hours before I awoke, greatly refreshed, yet with
a sensation of terror. All about me was darkness; the silence was
complete. For an instant I had an impression of being back on the
mountain in the fog; then, as recollection came flashing upon me, I
understood that I was safe among friends. But all the rest of that
night I was tormented by dreams of lonely crags and mantling mists; and
when again I awoke it was abruptly and after a nightmare fall over a
precipice whose bottom I never reached....

To my joy, it was once more twilight. By the illumination of an open,
glassless window, I could distinguish the details of the room--and
singular details they were! The walls were of logs, great rough-hewn
pine logs standing erect and parallel, with the bark still clinging;
slenderer logs formed the flat low ceiling; and timbers crudely
smoothed and levelled constituted what passed for a floor. Scattered
masses of straw did duty as a carpet, while straw likewise composed
my couch; and I was lying so low that I could have rolled to the
floor without injury. I noted that the room had neither ornament nor
furniture; that the wide, open fireplace, filled with cold ashes,
seemed almost the only convenience; and that the door, while as
massively built as the walls, was apparently without lock or bolt.

But as the light gradually increased, it was not the room itself that
held my attention, but rather the view from the window. No painting I
had ever observed was so exquisite as that vision of a green and white
eastern mountain, rounded like a great head and aureoled with rose and
silver where the rays of sunrise fought their way fitfully through
serried bands of cloud.

The last faint flush had not yet faded from above the peak when the
cabin door creaked and slowly opened, and I caught a glimpse of auburn
hair, and saw two brown eyes peering in at me curiously. A strange joy
swept over me; and as the fair stranger stood hesitating like a bashful
child in the doorway, my only fear was that she would be too timid to
enter.

But after a minute she overcame her shyness; gently and on tiptoe she
stepped in, closing the door carefully behind her. I observed that she
had not come empty-handed; she carried not only a water-jug but several
odd little straw-colored objects. Approaching slowly, still with just
a hint of hesitation, she murmured pleasantly in the native tongue;
then, having seated herself cross-legged on the floor within touching
distance, she offered me the water, which was crystal-clear and cool.
The eagerness with which I drank sent a happy smile rippling across her
face; and the daintiest of dimples budded on both her cheeks.

After I had satisfied my thirst, she held out one of the straw-colored
objects invitingly. I found it to be hard and gritty of texture, like
some new kind of wood; but while I was examining it, turning it round
and round like a child with a new toy, my visitor was pointing to her
open lips, and at the same time revolved her gleaming white teeth as
though chewing some invisible food. I would have been dull indeed not
to understand.

A single bite told me that the object was a form of native bread. The
flavor of whole wheat was unmistakable; and, to my famished senses, it
was the flavor of ambrosia. Only by exercising unusual will power could
I refrain from swallowing the loaf almost at a gulp.

My greedy disposal of the food was evidently reward enough for my
hostess, who beamed upon me as if well pleased with herself. I even
thought--and was it but imagination?--that her shy glances were not
purely impersonal. Certainly, there was nothing impersonal in the
stares with which I followed her every motion--or in my disappointment
when after a time the great log door swung inward again to admit a
second caller.

Yet I did my best to greet my new visitor with signs of pleasure; for
I recognized him as one of my rescuers. He entered as silently and
cautiously as though on his best sick-room behavior; and after peering
at me curiously and returning my nod of welcome, he murmured a few
words to the girl, and as silently and cautiously took his leave.

Thenceforth, I was to receive visitors in a stream. The moments that
day were to be few when three or four natives were not whispering
in a corner of the room. A census of my callers would have been a
census of the village; no one able to stand on his own legs missed the
opportunity to inspect me. Children of all ages and sizes appeared in
groups; gaped at me as if I had been a giraffe in a menagerie; and were
bustled out by their elders, to be followed by other children, by men
in their prime, women with babes in arm, and tottering grayheads. But
most of my hosts showed that they were moved by warmer motives than
curiosity; many bore offerings of food and drink, fruit and berries,
cakes and cereals, bread and cheese and goats' milk, which they thrust
before me with such generosity that I could consume but a small
fraction.

While they swarmed about the cabin, I observed them as closely as my
condition permitted. Their actions and garb made it plain that they
were peasants; all, like yesterday's acquaintances, were dressed
in rude garments of red and blue, with colored turbans and striped
trousers and leggings, the feminine apparel differing from the
masculine chiefly in being more brilliant-hued. And all, men and women
alike, were robustly built and attractive. The majority had handsome,
well modelled faces, with swarthy skins and candid, expressive eyes,
at the sight of which I felt reassured; for here in the mountains of
Afghanistan, among some of the fiercest and most treacherous tribes on
earth, I might easily have fallen into less kindly hands.

During the day I was visited by two men who took a particular interest
in me. The first, who came early in the morning, was evidently the
local equivalent of a physician, for he examined me from head to foot
with a solemn and knowing air and caused me much annoyance by feeling
my limbs as if to see that they were whole. Of course, he did not
overlook my right arm; and I passed a miserable half hour while he
adjusted a crude splint and bound and bandaged the broken member with
stout vegetable fibres.

My second visitor performed less of a service. He was an old man, still
erect and sparkling-eyed, although he must have passed the traditional
three score years and ten; and his long white beard, drooping untended
as far as his waistline, gave him a Rip Van Winkle appearance. Upon
his entrance, the others made way with little bows of awe; and as he
sedately approached the straw where I was lying, five or six men and
women gathered to my rear, whispering in half-suppressed agitation.
These were quickly joined by others from without; and soon my visitors
were massed layers deep against all the walls, and the air became fetid
and hot with overcrowded humanity.

Meanwhile I felt like a sacrificial victim awaiting the priestly knife.
Had my hosts spared me only so that I might serve as an offering to
some pagan god? So I wondered as I watched the white-bearded one
gravely bending over me; watched him rubbing his hands solemnly
together as though in pursuance of a religious rite. And when, after
several minutes, he turned from me to smear a brown ointment on his
palms, my apprehension mounted to terror, which was not soothed when
he stooped down and dampened my forehead with the ointment, meanwhile
mumbling unintelligibly to himself. His next step, which I awaited in
the trembling helplessness of a vivisected animal, was to reach toward
my clothes and examine them fold by fold; after which he drew from his
pocket a sparkling object, a prism of glass, which he held up in the
sunlight of the window, shedding the rainbow reflection on the opposite
wall, and staring at it as though it were the key to some transcendent
truth.

Much to my relief, the ordeal was apparently over now; the old man
turned his back upon me as though I had ceased to matter, and began
sonorously to address his people. Not understanding a word, I could
not be much interested; but I did observe how reverentially his
audience stood regarding him, with staring dark eyes and gestures of
self-abasement, while hanging on his every syllable as if it embodied
divine wisdom.

His first remarks were evidently cheerful or even jocular; for they
evoked smiles and occasionally laughter. But soon, apparently, he
turned to graver subjects; and his listeners became serious and
thoughtful, as though spellbound by his eloquence. How long they
remained thus I do not know; my watch having run down, I had no way of
reckoning time; but it seemed to me that the speaker held forth for at
least an hour. And long before he had finished, my mind had drifted to
more interesting matters.

I was asking myself what had happened to Damon, and whether my fellow
geologists were searching the mountains for my corpse, when the old
man wheeled about abruptly, and with fiery eyes pointed at me as if in
accusation.

In high-pitched, staccato tones, almost like a cry of agony, he uttered
three sharp monosyllables, then became silent.

At the same time, suppressed cries burst from the spectators. It may
have been only imagination, but I thought they were eyeing me in alarm
and reproach, and that they were edging away from me; and I know that,
in a moment, those to the rear had crowded through the door. Soon only
three or four remained, and I was left to wonder whether my rescuers
were after all not the kindly mountaineers I had taken them to be, but
merely superstitious savages.

CHAPTER IV

_THE WEAVING OF THE SPELL_

For more than five weeks I lay on my sick-bed, at first close to death,
then slowly convalescing. After my rescue and temporary revival, a
raging fever had attacked me; and I have little recollection of what
followed, except that it was a nightmare of blurred impressions.
Among my jumbled memories of those days when I lay balanced on the
borderline, there is only one image that stands forth distinctly: the
picture of a great pair of smoldering brown eyes surmounted by auburn
curls and ringlets. Curiously enough, that picture became associated in
my mind with visions of paradise. At times, for rare brief snatches, it
seemed as if I were surrounded by that heaven in which I had long lost
faith, and as if the possessor of the brown eyes were a ministering
angel. Around her there seemed to be a light, as of some celestial
presence; and when she went away she left only darkness and vacancy.
Other forms there were, of course, other forms ceaselessly coming and
going, coming and going, moving on tiptoe, silent or whispering like
conspirators. But these were mere shadows in a void, grotesque or
cloudy thin or unreal, the monstrous creatures of a world I had almost
ceased to inhabit.

Perhaps it would have been well if I had indeed ceased to inhabit this
world. Certainly, it would have been well for one whose tragic eyes
come before me even now, haunting me like a ghost and looking reproach
at every line I write. But that is to anticipate; destiny works in
circuitous ways; and I, the stranger in the Vale of Sobul, could not
have known that my arrival was to weave a fatal spell over her whom of
all the world I should least have wished to injure.

But no such gloomy thoughts obsessed me as by degrees my fever subsided
and the clouds lifted from across my mind. Even in my feebleness and
dependence upon strangers, I could see cause for thanksgiving; once
more I felt that the world was a bright place, and life worth living.
Perhaps I would have thought otherwise had it not been that every day,
in the early dawn and then again at sunset-time, an auburn-haired
visitor came to attend me. Always she would bear some offering,
sometimes merely a flask of spring water, sometimes some dainty morsel
of food, more often a spray of wildflowers with which she would
decorate the cabin walls. Although many of her tribesmen visited me
frequently, supplying me with all physical necessities, her arrival was
the one event of importance; and the long waking hours became tolerable
and even pleasant through the thought of her.

Our relations, fortunately, were not long confined to the stares and
gestures of our first acquaintanceship. Realizing that I desired to
speak with her, and encouraged by finding that I already knew a few
words of Pushtu, she set about to teach me her language; and every day,
for half an hour or more, she transformed herself from the smiling
friend into the solemn instructress, first teaching me the local
term for every visible object, and then linking the words together
to form simple sentences. As her tutorship was ably furthered by her
tribesmen, it was not long before I had mastered a vocabulary of all
the more common words; and since I amused myself during my spare hours
by repeating these words mentally and combining them into phrases, not
many days had passed before I could speak Pushtu at least as well as a
five-year-old.

And what a joy when at last I could converse! Merely to exchange the
simplest ideas with my friend was delight enough! But all the while
there had been questions that I had been burning to ask, and now one by
one I could ask them! No longer would that lovely creature be nameless
to me--she confided with a blush that she was called Yasma, and was the
daughter of Abthar, the vine-grower. As for her people--they were the
Ibandru, a tribe which from the beginning of time had inhabited the
Valley of Sobul, tilling the land for its rich harvests but finding
their chief joy in roving the mountainsides. But who her people were
and whence they were descended Yasma could not tell me; she could
only say that they possessed the valley undisputed, and had little
intercourse with other tribes; and she related for me an ancient legend
that the first of her people had been born of the nuptials of the south
wind and the spring flowers, so that the spirit of the flowers and of
the wind must breathe through the tribe forever.

Naturally, I was less interested in such myths than in facts touching
upon my own predicament. I was curious as to all that had occurred
since my rescue from the mountain ledge; and was particularly anxious
to know the meaning of that strange scene with the white-bearded seer
on my first day in Sobul. And to most of my questions I received an
answer, although not always one that satisfied me. My rescue was
explained simply enough: the Ibandru habitually roamed the mountains
for miles around their valley, and a party of six had been going in
search of a little blue stone which one of their sages had declared
to exist upon the higher slopes, and the possession of which would
mean happiness. With their trained eyes accustomed to scanning the
far distances, they had observed what they at first took to be some
peculiar animal crawling along a ledge; and, drawn closer by curiosity,
had discovered that the supposed animal was human, and was in distress.
Common humanity dictated that they come to the rescue, bear me to
safety, and house me in an unoccupied cabin whose owner (to use the
native phrase) had gone "beyond those mountains that no man crosses
twice."

Thus far I saw no reason to doubt the explanation; but when I mentioned
the white-bearded tribesman I could see that I trod upon questionable
ground. It was not only that Yasma hesitated before answering; it was
that she replied with a nervous, uneasy air. She informed me--and
this much was certainly true--that the old man was Hamul-Kammesh, the
soothsayer, whose wisdom was held in high esteem; and she stated that,
immediately following my arrival, he had been called upon to judge of
the signs and omens. But what had he said? She refused to tell me. Or,
rather, she told me with transparent dissimulation. She declared that
he had prognosticated something of good, and something of evil; and
her reluctant manner testified that the evil tipped the balance of the
scales. But just what evil did he imagine my coming might do? And to
whom would the damage be done? No matter how I pleaded and questioned,
Yasma shook her head sadly, and refused to reply.

Could it be that the prophecy concerned me in some vital way? that
it would endanger me, or make my lot harder to bear? Yasma was still
sphinx-like. "I cannot answer," she maintained, in response to all
my entreaties. "I cannot." And biting her underlip, she remained
resolutely silent.

But I could not accept her refusal. "Why cannot you answer?" I
insisted. "Surely, there is nothing to fear."

"That you cannot know," she sighed, her lips compressed as though in
suffering, and an unexplained sadness shining from her eyes.

Then, seeing that I was about to return to the assault, she disarmed
me by murmuring, resignedly, "Well, if I must tell you, I must. You
see, it is not this prophecy alone. This only confirms another--another
prophecy made years and years ago. And that first prediction was dark
as a night-cloud."

"Dark--as a night-cloud?" I asked, noting that her beautiful rounded
cheeks were becoming drawn and blanched, while a light of fear and
agony, a light as of a hunted creature, was shining in her eyes.

"Yes, dark as a night-cloud," she muttered, mournfully. "But more
than that I cannot say." And then, as if afraid that she would say
more despite herself, she flitted to the door, and with a whispered
"Good-bye!" was gone, leaving me amazed and angry and yet just a little
overawed, as if in defiance of reason I recognized that my coming had
cast a shadow over the homes of my hosts.

CHAPTER V

_YULADA_

It was indeed a happy day when I regained the use of my legs and
staggered out of my log prison.

Now for the first time I saw the village of Sobul. It was composed
of several scores of cabins like that in which I had been confined;
and these were sprawled over a broad clearing, separated from one
another by considerable spaces. Beyond the furthest houses the open
fields stretched on all sides for half a mile or more, some of them
tawny brown with the ripening wheat, or green with flourishing herbs
in long tilled rows; while herds of half-wild goats browsed among the
meadows, and gnarled old orchard trees stood in small groves varied by
grapevines scrambling over mounds of earth.

Further still, at the ragged rim of the fields, the forest encroached
with its dense-packed legions; and I observed where in the background
the woods began to rise, first gently, then with a determined ascent,
until they clung to the precipitous and beetling mountain walls. And
higher yet there were no trees, but only bare rock, crags like steeples
or obelisks or giant pointing hands, and crowded peaks with fantastic
white neckbands. It was with awe that I discovered how completely
these summits hedged me in, confining me at the base of the colossal
cup-like depression. And it was with something more than awe--with
amazement mingled with an indefinable shuddery feeling--that I noted a
familiar figure perched on a dominating southern peak. It was that same
womanlike stone image which had lured me almost to death: with hands
uplifted, and one foot upraised, she stood as when I had seen her from
the other side of the mountain. If there was any difference in her
aspect it was scarcely noticeable, except that she now seemed a little
more elevated and remote.

What was the meaning of the statue-like form? I would inquire at the
first opportunity; and that very day, accordingly, I spoke my mind
to Yasma. But again she was to fail me. Like the Afghan guides, she
was reluctant to discuss the subject; her lips wrinkled with a faint
displeasure, and her eloquent dark eyes were averted. Only upon being
urgently pressed would she answer at all; and then, from her hasty
attempts to change the subject, I judged that she knew more than she
wished to admit; I suspected that she was just a little shocked and
frightened, almost like a pious lady tempted into a profane discussion.

But her resistance merely whetted my curiosity. And at length I coaxed
her into a partial explanation.

"There is a story among our people," she said, while her eyes took on
an unusual gravity, "that five thousand years ago the gods placed that
stone image on the peak to watch over us and guide us. Yulada we call
her, a name given by the early seers of our tribe. So long as we obey
Yulada's wishes, she will bless us and bring us happiness; but if we
forget her commands, she will scourge us with earthquake and lightning."

Upon uttering these words, Yasma startled me by stooping toward the
floor, bending her neck low as if in supplication, and mumbling a
series of apparently meaningless phrases.

"Then the stone image is some sort of god?" I questioned.

Yasma continued muttering to herself.

And as I stood watching in perplexity, I was enticed once more by that
same rash idea which had almost cost my life. "Sometime I'm going up
to Yulada," I vowed, my curiosity piqued to the utmost. "Then I'll find
out for myself what's she's like."

An expression of alarm, almost of horror, distorted the clear, mobile
features.

"Oh, you must not!" she cried, interrupting the ceremonies, and
resuming an erect attitude. "You must not ever, ever go up to Yulada!"

"Why not?"

"None of our people," she explained, hurriedly, and still with that
look of fright, "must ever go within five stones' throws of Yulada. It
would be terrible, terrible to go too close!"

"But why?"

She hesitated, in pitiable uncertainty; then hastily narrated, "Long,
long ago our soothsayers foretold that great sorrow would come to
whoever climbed within touching distance of the stone woman. And so,
in fact, it has proved to be. Only three men, within living memory,
have ever defied the warning; and all have learned the way of bitter
wisdom. One fell to his death in a crevasse of the mountain, and one
was bitten by a serpent and perished in agony, and one lost his wife
and first-born son, and passed the rest of his days in loneliness and
despair."

Yasma paused again, sadly as though brooding on some personal grief;
then passionately demanded, "Promise me, promise that whatever happens,
you will never, never go up to Yulada!"

In her voice there was such pleading, and in her face such pain, that
I had to make the promise. Yet I am ashamed to say that, even at the
time, I suspected that I should not abide by my word.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the mystery of Yulada was not the only shadow that had
thrust itself across my mind. As I gradually regained the use of my
limbs, I began to be troubled by thoughts of the future; I recognized
how great was my debt to the natives; and was ashamed at thought
of accepting their hospitality without making any return. Yet the
prospects were that I should remain with them for more than a few days
or weeks. My fellow geologists had doubtless given me up long ago as
lost; and there was no telling how many months would pass before I
could find my way out of this wilderness. To attempt to wander unguided
among the mountain labyrinths would be suicidal; and I not only had no
way of knowing how far it was to the nearest civilized settlement or
trade route, but could obtain no information from my hosts. Reluctantly
I admitted to myself that I was marooned.

And although the spell of Sobul was already upon me, I was not so
captivated that I did not dream of escape. True, it would have caused
me a pang to leave the kindly mountain folk, and particularly Yasma,
but what could this count against my life-work, the remembrance of my
friends in America, and all the arts and allurements of civilization?

Yet what could I do to escape? After long reflection, only one project
had occurred to me--and that unpromising enough. Though the other
geologists had certainly gone long ago, might they not have left some
message for me in the hope that I was yet alive? Yes, even a message
instructing me how to escape? Meager as the chances were, would it not
at least be worth while to revisit the site of our former camp?

Somewhat doubtfully, I consulted the natives. But they regarded my
suggestion as quite natural, and several volunteered to accompany me
across the mountains as soon as I was strong enough.

It was early September, more than seven weeks after my arrival in
Sobul, when at last I was ready for the expedition.

Accompanied by three of the Ibandru, I started out along a slender
trail that ran straight toward the jutting northern slope of "The
Mountain of Vanished Men." But these three were quickly increased to
four; we had hardly started when an auburn-haired girl came tripping
behind us, joining us in defiance of the scowls of the men. For my own
part, I was far from displeased at her presence; with her gleaming eyes
to encourage me, I found it just a little easier to accomplish the
abrupt and perilous climb. And both perilous and abrupt it was, for
when we were not crawling on hands and knees up gigantic broken natural
stairways of rock, we were winding single-file in long horseshoe curves
between a precipice and a cliff, or skirting the treacherous verge of a
glacier.

Straight up and up we went, for hours and hours, until we stood but
a few hundred yards below the great stone image, which loomed mighty
as a hill, like some old Egyptian colossus magnified many times and
miraculously transported to the mountain top. When we had approached
our nearest to it, we came to a halt and the natives dropped to the
ground and swayed their arms toward it as though entreating a favor.
Then, mumbling solemnly, they continued on their way around the
mountain, and the stone figure gradually dwindled and retreated.

Now from time to time we caught glimpses of the southern valley,
another bowl-like hollow scooped out in the core of the mountains. It
was with mixed emotions that I observed this spot where I had bidden
my friends farewell--farewell for how long? And it was with the return
of an unreasoning horror that I surveyed those very slopes where I
had been imprisoned in the fog. Yet I was eager to descend, so eager
that several times I forgot caution in my impatience; once one of the
men jerked me back violently as I set foot on a stone which gave way
beneath me and went hurtling down a thousand feet; and once Yasma
caught my arm as something long and shiny unwound itself from beneath
my feet and disappeared hissing among the rocks.

But though I drew upon every particle of my energy, I was so slow that
frequently the others had to pause and wait for me along the steep,
narrow trails; while occasionally they helped me over a difficult
slope. Because I was the weakest of the party, it was I that set the
pace; and consequently our expedition was protracted hours beyond their
reckoning. Even though we had set out at dawn and stopped but a few
minutes to consume some fruit and small native cakes, sunset found us
only at the timber line of the second valley.

Here we had to make camp; and here we dined sparingly from the
provisions carried by my guides, quenched our thirst from a clear,
swift-running stream, built a campfire, and prepared for our night on
the open ground. Shortly after dark I noted that Yasma was no longer
among us; but when I questioned the men they appeared unconcerned,
replying that she knew how to take care of herself.

This statement proved true enough; the first thing I was aware of,
after a chilly and restless night, was the sound of Yasma's voice. She
had come with the earliest birds to awaken us; and, herself like a bird
in the lithe grace with which she tripped and fluttered about, she
urged us to be up and starting almost before the last golden embers had
turned ashen above the eastern semi-circle of peaks.

My whole being was in a tumult as we set forth, for it seemed to me
that today was to decide my fate. Should I receive some word from my
friends, some clue to guide me back to civilization? Or should I find
myself abandoned in the wilderness? An hour or two more should tell the
tale, since already we had discovered the winding little path Damon and
I had followed on our fateful expedition.

But as we glided silently in single file along the trail, I felt hope
dying within me. All things about us seemed deserted; scarcely a
living creature could be heard amid the dense brush; scarcely a dead
leaf stirred, scarcely a bird chirped or twittered. It was as if I had
invaded a realm of the dead, a realm of specters and shadows.... By the
time we had reached a remembered pine-grove beside a clear-bubbling
rivulet, I was almost in a despondent mood, which was only accentuated
when I observed that the grove was forsaken. Yet how well I recalled
the enthusiasm with which Damon and I had set forth from this very spot!

While Yasma and the men waited cross-legged on the ground, I began
carefully to explore the grove. Actually, I expected to find nothing,
and at first I found what I expected. Then one by one I came across
various relics, insignificant in themselves, which pained me like the
opening of old wounds. First it was merely a bent and rusting tin;
then the ashes of a campfire, a scrap of old newspaper, the stub of a
cigarette, or a broken penknife clinging to the bark of a tree; and,
finally, a half-used and forgotten notebook and pencil, which I picked
up and bore away for possible future needs.

But was this to be all? In my dejection, I was almost persuaded so,
when my eye was caught by a pile of stones at one end of the former
camp. It was between two and three feet high, pyramidal in shape, and
clearly of human workmanship. Eagerly I inspected it, at first without
understanding its purpose, but with swiftly growing comprehension.
Carved indistinctly on one of the stones, in small barely legible
letters, were the words, "Look below!"

In a frenzy, I began tearing the stones aside, casting them in all
directions in my haste.

Yet at first I discovered nothing--nothing! It was only after careful
examination that I espied, between two stones in a protected position,
a little scrap of ink-marked paper.

Like one receiving a message from another world, I grasped at the
paper. The scrawled handwriting was that of Jasper Damon!

It was a minute before I could choke down my excitement sufficiently to
read:

"Dear Prescott: I am leaving this note with hardly any hope that you
will find it, or that you are not now beyond the reach of all human
messages. I cannot believe that you have been spared, for after
losing you in the fog and failing to reach you by shouts and pistol
signals, I have discovered no sign that you still live. For my own
part, I had to pass the night between two sheltered rocks on the
mountainside; but, luckily, I was unhurt, and when the fog lifted
for a while the next morning I managed to make my way down below
the mist-belt. Then, after wandering for hours, I fell in with a
searching party from camp. I was alarmed to learn that they had
found no trace of you, and more alarmed when, after searching all
the rest of the day, we were still without any clue. On the
following morning we made a much wider hunt, and bribed and
intimidated the native guides to lead us up the mountain, which
they feared and hated. Still no results! You had vanished as
completely as the very fog that hid you--on the next day, and
still on the next we scoured the mountains, always in vain. For a
week now we have lingered here, until hope has disappeared, and, in
deepest sorrow, we must continue on our way.

"But while reason tells me that you have perished, I cannot keep
back a vague feeling that somehow you escaped. It is merely out of
a whim, and in spite of the smiles of our skeptical friends, that I
am building this mound of stones to draw your attention if ever you
return, and hiding this letter so that if need be it may withstand
the elements for years. It will do you little enough good, but at
least you will have learned that we did not willingly desert you.
How you will be able to struggle out of this wilderness is a
question that heaven itself may not be able to answer--I can only
pray that some fortunate chance may save you as it has saved me.

"Farewell, Dan Prescott!--You cannot know how every day of my life
will be overshadowed by thought of that foolhardy escapade of ours.

"Your wretched friend,

"Jasper Damon."

CHAPTER VI

_FORESHADOWINGS_

It was in a bitter mood that I trudged back to Sobul. Even the mirth
and laughter of Yasma could not dispel my gloom; I was as one who has
seen a black vision, one who has read the handwriting on the wall.
It seemed to me that my life had reached a barricade as formidable
as the mountain bulwarks that hemmed me in; there was no longer a
straw to clutch at; I was irredeemably a prisoner. Only once on the
return trip did I break my silence, and that was to ask, as I had
done a thousand times, what roads led back to trade routes, navigable
rivers, or civilized settlements; and it was no consolation to be
told, as invariably before, that there were no roads; that Sobul held
no intercourse with the world, and that I was the first of my race
ever seen there. I realized, of course, that there were rude trails
leading out, for had not the Afghan guides escorted our geologists to
this vicinity? Yet none of the Ibandru seemed to know anything of such
trails, and how find my way unaided?

Then I must spend the winter with the Ibandru! In a few weeks the
snow would be piling on the high mountain shoulders, and winter would
hermetically seal the Valley of Sobul until the approach of April.

Meanwhile, as I have mentioned, another problem had been troubling me:
that I had been a drone living off the hospitality of the Ibandru,
consuming their hard-earned provisions while making them no return.
Hence I thought of consulting their chieftain, in order to arrive at
some way of earning my board.

On the day after returning to Sobul, accordingly, I asked Yasma who was
the leader of her people.

"Leader? There isn't any exactly," she replied, looking troubled. "That
is, not any regular picked person. We are all free to go our own way,
and if anyone breaks any of our laws or customs his punishment is set
by a council of all the tribe."

"But is there no one whose word has particular authority?"

"Yes, in a way there is," she admitted, thoughtfully. "Whenever the
people want advice, they look first to my father, Abthar. And next,
they turn to the soothsayer, Hamul-Kammesh."

I had seen the soothsayer, and conceived a hearty dislike for him. But
I thought it would be a good idea to meet Yasma's father.

Therefore I made a simple request, which seemed to please the girl.
With a happy smile she led me out among the fields, and into the thick
of vines mounted on trellises or sprawling over mounds of earth, where
a gaunt tawny-browed man was busy plucking the purple clusters of
grapes. I had already seen him several times; more than once he had
visited me when I lay ill, bringing offerings of food and drink; and I
had noted that the other men had greeted him with deference. But I had
not known him then as the father of Yasma. Now, spurred on by my new
information, I scrutinized him as never before: the tall agile form,
unstooped and vigorous although he must have seen sixty summers; the
sagacious lean face, dominated by long black hair crossed by steely
bars, and terminating in a beard of black and gray; the glittering
alert brown eyes, which shone proudly as an eagle's and yet not without
a softness that reminded me of Yasma herself.

At my approach he arose with a cordial smile and reached out both
hands by way of greeting (a salutation peculiar to the Ibandru). In a
few words Yasma mentioned that I had a message for him; and while she
started back to the village, he motioned me to be seated on the ground
beside him.

"What is it that you wish to tell me?" he asked kindly, and sat staring
at me with an intent, inquiring air.

In a fumbling manner, I explained that I could not return to my people
at least until next year, which would force me to continue to accept
his people's hospitality. But I did not wish to impose upon their
kindness; and was anxious to make myself of use in the village.

With an impassive silence that gave no clue to his thoughts, Abthar
heard me to the end; and then answered unhesitatingly and with dignity.

"The views you express, young man, do you great credit. But we Ibandru
desire no return for our hospitality, and still less for what we do out
of simple humanity. Say no more about the matter. You owe us no debt;
we shall be glad to have you remain as long as you wish."

I scarcely knew how to reply, for the old man arose as if to dismiss
the subject. But I would not be turned aside. After thanking him for
his kindness, I reminded him that there was a long winter to come; and
insisted that I did not desire to be a drain upon his people's supplies.

At mention of the winter, a peculiar light came into Abthar's eyes--a
light that I thought just a little ironic, just a little pitying, and
at the same time just a little wistful. I may merely have imagined
this, of course; but in view of what was to come, I am persuaded that
I did not imagine it. And even at the time, though still unacquainted
with the ways of the Ibandru, I wondered if the winter had not some
queer significance for the tribe. For not only was Abthar's expression
extraordinary, but he repeated several times, slowly and as if to
himself, "The winter, yes, the winter--we must remember the winter."

Unfortunately, I did not put the proper interpretation upon Abthar's
words--how possibly interpret them correctly? I assumed that the cold
season in Sobul must be particularly rigorous, or must be invested with
superstitious or religious importance. Hence I failed to ask questions
that might have proved enlightening.

"Then the winter here is a difficult time?" was my only answer to
Abthar's muttered half-reveries.

"You may indeed find it so!" he returned, his big deep-brown eyes
snapping with a peculiar force. And then, after a pause, he continued,
again with that pitying air I could not understand, "I am glad, young
man, that you mentioned the winter. I think you had better make ready
for it, since--who knows?--you may find it hard to bear."

"Well, after all," I argued, "I have been used to cold weather in my
own country."

"It is not only the cold weather," he assured me. "But wait and
learn--you may not even feel the winter. Yes, you too may escape the
barren and frozen days."

"Why should I escape any more than anyone else?"

But he did not reply, and I thought it fruitless to pursue the
discussion. As yet I had had little reason to suspect that the Ibandru
were not as the other tribes huddled among the fastnesses of the Hindu
Kush; and, in my ignorance, I overlooked completely the meaning behind
his meager, succinct phrases. And so, instead of attempting to fathom a
mystery, I turned the conversation into practical channels, and asked
just how to prepare for the winter.

"You can discover that for yourself," said Abthar, picking his way as
if pondering an unfamiliar problem. "First of all, you must fill in
your cabin window with a thick covering of dead boughs, and must cement
all the cracks and empty places with clay, so as to hold out the
blizzards. Then you must make yourself a cloak of goat's hide, and also
must gather firewood, storing as much as possible within your cabin,
and much more just outside. The most important thing, however, will be
to provide food, for the cold months may be long, and you may be unable
to find a crumb to keep you from starving."

Not until long afterwards did I remember that Abthar had spoken as if I
were to lead a hermit's life. At the time, I was too deeply absorbed in
my own thoughts to see beyond his words; the question of how to obtain
sufficient food was occupying me almost to the exclusion of other
subjects, and I contented myself with asking how to earn my winter's
board.

"You need not earn it," asserted Abthar, frowning. "Must I remind you
again that hospitality is not a lost virtue among the Ibandru? Merely
go out into the fields and take what you want--all the grain you can
bear away, apples from our orchards, plums and grapes for drying, nuts
from our groves, beets and pumpkins and whatever vegetables our farms
produce."

Again I thanked Abthar--and again expressed my unwillingness to take so
freely.

"You will be accepting nothing that we need," he insisted. "No matter
how much you require, we will have ample."

And with a nod signifying that the interview was over, Abthar returned
to his work amid the vines.

Hence it came about that, during the following weeks, I was busy
preparing for the winter. Under the warm September skies, flecked with
scarcely a cloud and lying like a serene blue roof between the great
pillars of the peaks, I was providing ceaselessly for the season of
tempests and snow. I equipped my cabin to be snug and relatively
weather-proof; I heaped it with firewood in the shape of the sawed dead
pine-branches which I bore laboriously from the forest; I provisioned
it with lentils, millet, wheat, barley, beans, dried mushrooms, and
"salep" (a paste made from a local tuber), which the people showered
upon me with amazing generosity.

But do not imagine that I found this work distasteful. City-bred
modern though I was, I felt a certain atavistic joy in my return to
the primitive. That joy, I must confess, was all the greater since I
did not always labor alone, for Yasma, like an agile and ingratiating
child, frequently would come running to my assistance. Not only did
she prove a fascinating companion, but she would display remarkable
skill and strength at manual tasks; she would insist on lifting great
chunks of firewood, yet would scarcely appear to feel the strain; she
would pile my provisions in a corner of the cabin with a regularity
and neatness that made me marvel; she would bring me earthenware pots
and pans, jugs and kitchen utensils, and would seem to hear neither my
protestations nor my thanks.

Nevertheless, I was already beginning to observe--and to be puzzled
at--the contradictions in her manner. Although she freely volunteered
to help me, she did not always work wholeheartedly. At times there was
a sadness and constraint about her; and my most determined efforts
could not penetrate behind the veil. Even today I can see her standing
aloof and wistful in the green fields, gazing in a revery toward the
great stone woman on the peak, or merely following with her eyes the
lazily drifting cotton clouds as though she would float with them to
lands beyond the mountains. I do not know why this memory comes back
to haunt and mock me, for then I did not understand, and now that I
understand it is too late; but when I recall how she would remain
staring at the southern summits, it seems to me that her eyes were
like the eyes of fate itself, peering beyond that which is to that
which must be and that which never can be.

But not always was she in so somber a mood. Frequently, like a
nimble-footed child, she would go tripping with me to the forest, where
we would collect the fallen dead branches; and she would flit about
happily as a fairy when we would gather pine-nuts, or pluck grapes or
apples, or search for mushrooms, or dig in the fields for edible roots.
It would be as though for a moment she had cast off a shadow--but for a
moment only, since always the shadow would return.

One sure way of bringing the oppression back was by asking a certain
question that was puzzling me more and more. While I was preparing so
laboriously for the winter, I was amazed to note that I was alone in
my efforts. No one else appeared aware that winter was coming: no one
filled in the gaps in the cabin walls, or made the windows storm-proof;
no one wove heavy clothing, or obtained more than the day's firewood,
or more food than seemed required for the moment's needs. At first I
had muffled my surprise by telling myself that soon the Ibandru would
begin their preparations; but as the days went by, and the unharvested
grain-lands lay tawny and dry, and the forest began to be flecked
with crimson and russet and yellow, a strange uneasiness laid hold
of me, and my growing astonishment was tinged with an unreasoning
fear. Ponder as I might, I could find no explanation of the Ibandru's
seeming negligence, particularly in view of Abthar's advice; and from
the Ibandru themselves I could expect no enlightenment. Always, when
questioned, they would evade the issue; they would tell me to wait and
be assured of an answer from heaven; or they would point mutely and
mysteriously to Yulada, as though that were a self-evident solution.

Even Yasma failed me despite repeated questionings. When I referred
even casually to the winter, she would assume that meditative and
far-away expression which I detested so heartily because it seemed to
make her so remote; a deep melancholy would shine in her eyes, and she
would peer at me with a vague unspoken regret. But she would never
admit why she was melancholy; and would answer me only indirectly, in
meaningless phrases. And at length, one evening in late September,
when I questioned her too persistently, she turned from me in a sudden
torrent of tears.

Reluctantly I had to acknowledge my defeat, and to confess that,
whatever mysteries might lurk behind the mountains of Sobul, I should
have to wait in silence until time should make all things plain.

CHAPTER VII

_YASMA_

Even before I began to succumb to the mysteries of Sobul, the country
was captivating me with a subtle spell. There seemed to be something
magical about the noiseless atmosphere, the untroubled blue skies and
the aloof calm circle of peaks; I came almost to feel as if this were
the world and there were no universe beyond; and my memories of the
years before were becoming remote and clouded as memories of a dream.

But the enchantment of Sobul was not merely the wizardry of its woods
and open spaces, its colors and silences and eagle heights. There
was a more potent sorcery of twinkling eyes and caressing words that
was fettering me in soft, indissoluble bonds--a sorcery that might
have proved powerful in any land on earth. And the priestess of that
sorcery was Yasma. Perhaps she did not realize the fateful part she was
playing, for was not she, as I, swept along by a dark current there
was no resisting? And yet she enacted her role remorselessly as though
assigned the lead in a cosmic drama; and, blinded herself by the unseen
powers, she could not have realized how certainly and how tragically
she was intertwining her fate with mine.

From the first I had been charmed by her open manner and her evident
lack of self-consciousness. She had been free as a child in talking
and laughing and romping with me, and I had tried to think of her
as a child, and little more,--undeniably a fascinating playmate,
but certainly not a serious companion for a thirty-three-year-old
geologist. But if I had imagined that I could dismiss her so easily,
I was merely deluding myself; the time was to come, and to come very
swiftly, when I should realize how much more than a child she was.

Possibly it is that the girls of the Ibandru come early to maturity; or
possibly they do not labor under civilized repressions, and are seldom
other than their natural selves. At all events, Yasma suffered from few
of those inhibitions which would have hampered her western sisters.
Finding something in me to interest her, she was at no pains to conceal
her interest, but would act as unhesitatingly as if she had been the
man and I the woman. At first, during my illness, I had attributed this
to mere kindness; later I had ascribed it to a natural curiosity as to
a stranger from a strange land; but there came a time when I could no
longer believe her motives purely impersonal, and when, while knowing
that she acted without design, I had inklings that she was rushing with
me toward a fire in which we might both be singed.

Why, then, did I not try to forestall our mad dash toward the flames?
Surely I, who was older and more experienced, was also somewhat wiser;
surely I might have prevented complications that she could not even
foresee. Ah, yes!--but love has queer ways, and makes a jest of men's
reason, and tosses their best intentions about like spindrift ... and
I was but subject to the frailties of human-kind. Writing at this late
date, I find it hard to say just why I did what I did (even at the
time, would I have known?); and it is impossible to explain why she
did what she did. But let me recount a few incidents; let me describe
as well as I can the growth of that strange, wild love, which even now
torments me in recollection.

I particularly remember one afternoon when we sallied off into the
woods together, on a sort of frolic that combined work and play, to
gather the wild walnuts that grew abundantly in those parts. It was
Yasma that suggested the expedition, and I had been quick to accept the
proposal, which had brought back memories of boyhood "nutting parties"
among the New Hampshire hills. As we set out through the forest on a
little inconspicuous trail, it was indeed delightful to be together;
and for the moment I was almost ready to bless the fate that had sent
me to Sobul.

What a rare companion she made that day! She would go darting and
tripping ahead of me like a playful wild thing, and then, when I had
lost sight of her amid the underbrush, she would startle me with a
cry and would come running back in loud laughter. Or else she would
enthusiastically point out the various trees crowded together in that
virgin forest--the sedate oaks, the steeple-like deodars and pines,
the alder and the ash, the juniper and wild peach; or, in places where
the undergrowth was dense, she would show me species of wild rose and
honeysuckle, of currants and hawthorn, of gooseberry and rhododendron,
as well as of a score of native herbs whose names I have forgotten.
Or her sharp eyes would spy out the birds' nests in the trees (nests
that my untrained vision would never have detected), or she would call
attention to some gray or blue or red-breasted moving thing, which
would flash into view and slip away like some shy phantom into the
twilight of the vines and shrubbery or amid the light-flecked, latticed
roof of green. Occasionally, when not too busy dancing along the trail
or playing some merry prank or pointing out the shrubs and flowers, she
would sing a snatch of some native song--sing it in an untrained voice
of a peculiar sweetness and power, which affected me strangely with its
note of joy tinged always with an indefinable and haunting melancholy.

At length, after perhaps an hour of this careless adventuring, I
noticed that the ground was beginning to rise sharply, and judged
that we were not far from the valley wall. And it was then that Yasma
paused, clapping her hands in delight and pointing to a cluster of
big, gracefully rounded trees, whose nature I recognized immediately,
although their pinnate leaves were broader than those of the black or
American walnut and their trunks were smoother and not so intensely
brown.

Beneath the trees, which were already tinged with the buff and yellow
of autumn, I drew forth two large fibrous bags supplied by Yasma, and
began to collect the nuts that lay scattered on the ground. But she,
with a disapproving gesture, halted me. Almost before I could guess
her intentions, she had sprung cat-like up one of the trees, and sat
perched acrobatically among the middle branches. Then, while I stood
gaping at her in amazement, I became aware of a storm amid the foliage.
The boughs began to shake as if in a tempest, and dead and half-dead
leaves drifted down to the accompaniment of a shower of little missiles.

Half an hour later, after Yasma had raided a second tree and I had
collected all the nuts I could carry, we sat side by side with our
backs against a tree-trunk, recovering from our exertions. I cannot say
why, but, in contrast to our previous exuberance, a silence had fallen
over us; we each seemed wrapped up in our own thoughts, almost like
strangers who have never been introduced. What was passing through her
mind I shall never know; but, for my own part, I was noticing as never
before what an extraordinarily fascinating girl Yasma was; how utterly
unspoiled, with a wild blossoming beauty that would have made most
fair women of my acquaintance seem paper roses by comparison. A warm,
romantic desire was taking possession of me, a desire such as I had not
known for years and believed I had outgrown--a desire to take Yasma in
my arms, and hold her close, and whisper tender, meaningless things.
And while I was repressing that longing and telling myself what a fool
I was, an insidious question wormed its way into my mind: what if I
were to marry this girl, and take her away with me to civilized lands,
and surround her with the graces and refinements she could never have
among these remote mountains? As one dreams of paradise and rejects
the dream, so I thought of linking Yasma's life with mine, and thrust
the idea aside. Imagine trying to civilize this wild creature, this
creature with the ways of the deer and the dove!

In the midst of my reveries, I was startled by hearing Yasma's voice.
"Strange," she was saying, in low thoughtful tones, "strange, isn't it,
how you came here to us?"

"Yes, it is strange."

"And stranger still," she continued, as much to herself as to me, "how
little we know of you now that you are here. Or, for that matter, how
little you know of us."

Then, turning to me with a sudden passionate force, she demanded, "Tell
me, tell me more about yourself! I want to know more--to know more
about you!"

Often before she had asked such a question; but never with quite the
same eagerness. On the former occasions I had replied briefly, with a
vagueness half forced upon me by my poor knowledge of the language; but
now I saw that I must answer in detail. It would not do to state, as
previously, that I came from a land beyond the wide waters, where the
cities were high as hills and the people many as flies in autumn; and
it would not suffice to explain that I had passed my days in acquiring
dark knowledge, knowledge of the rocks and of things that had happened
on earth before man came. From her earnest, almost vehement manner, it
was clear that Yasma would not be put off with generalities, but wished
to know of intimate and personal things.

Picking my way cautiously, I answered as well as I knew how. I told of
my boyhood in New England; of how I had wandered among the stony hills,
interested even then in the rocks; of how my father and mother had sent
me to a great university, where I had studied the earth's unwritten
story; of how I had been a teacher in that same university, and later a
member of the scientific staff of a famous museum, by which I had been
sent on expeditions into the far places of the world. These and similar
facts I reported to the best of my ability, finding it difficult if
not impossible to express my meaning in the simple Pushtu vocabulary.
But while Yasma listened as well as she was able, she did not appear
satisfied. I might almost say she did not even appear interested, for
often her face expressed a total lack of comprehension.

It may have been after ten or fifteen minutes that she broke in
impatiently, "That's all very well, what you are saying--all very well.
But you are not telling me about yourself--this might all be true of a
thousand men. What is there that's true only of you? What are you like
deep down? What do you think? What do you feel? Oh, I know you cannot
explain outright--but do say something to show what you are like!"

"You put a hard question," I objected, just a little embarrassed. "I
simply don't know how to answer."

And then, as a pleasant means of shifting the burden, I suggested,
"But maybe you'll show me how, Yasma. Maybe you'll show me by telling
something about yourself."

"Do you really want to know?"

"There is nothing that interests me more."

"Very well," she assented, after an instant's hesitation. "I will tell
you from the beginning."

And, with a reflective smile, she related, "I was born here in the
Valley of Sobul, seventeen summers ago. I have two brothers and three
sisters--but I won't say anything about them, because you're going to
meet them some day. When I was born, a strange prophecy was made by the
soothsayer, Hamul-Kammesh"--here she paused, and the trace of a frown
came over her face--"but I won't say anything about that, either."

At this point, of course, I interrupted and insisted on knowing about
the prophecy, which, I suspected, was connected with the prediction she
had already mentioned. But she would neither confirm my surmise nor
deny it.

"When I was five summers old," she went on, "I suffered a great
misfortune. My mother, whom I remember only as a kind spirit who came
to me long ago in a dream, was taken away by the genii of the wind and
snowstorms, and went to live with the blessed ones on the highest peak
of that range which meets the stars. Ever since that time, I have been
lonely. I have often stood looking up above our tallest mountains, up
above Yulada to the mountains of the clouds, and wondered if she might
be there, gazing down and hearing the prayers I spoke to her in my
heart. But she never seemed to see me, and never seemed to hear. And as
I grew up, my brothers and sisters would go off playing by themselves,
and I would be left to myself--but I would not always care, for I
loved to be alone with the mountains and trees. I would go chasing
butterflies all afternoon; or I would scramble up the mountainside,
picking wild fruits and berries and laughing to see the little
squirrels go jumping out of my path; or I would watch the clouds riding
through the sky, and imagine that they were fairy boats bearing me away
to strange and wonderful lands. But sometimes I would be frightened,
when I heard some big beast rustle in the bushes; and once I saw the
face of a great staring black bear, and ran down the mountain so fast
I nearly fell over a cliff; and once I almost trod on a coiling snake,
but the good spirits of the mountain were with me, because if it had
bitten me you would not see me now."

Yasma paused, a dreamy glow in her lustrous brown eyes. And before she
could continue I put a question which, I fancied, might shed a ray on
some perplexing problems.

"You are telling me only about the summers. How was it in the
wintertime, when the blizzards shrieked and the snow fell, and you were
cooped up in your log cabin?"

It seemed to me that a curious light, half happy and half melancholy,
came into her eyes as she murmured, "Ah, the winters, the
winters--until now I have never worried about them. They were always
the best time of all."

"Why the best time?"

She merely shook her head. "I cannot tell you," she answered,
regretfully. "You would not understand."

Yes, indeed, there was much that I did not understand! Even to discuss
the matter brought a cloud between us; her manner grew unnatural and
constrained, as if she had something to conceal and was anxious to
change the subject. To press her would only have ended all conversation
for the day; and so, after vexing myself fruitlessly, I abandoned the
discussion, although with a deepened sense of something sinister and
mysterious about the Ibandru, something somehow connected with the
seasons of the year.

"Come, tell me more about your past," I requested, reverting to our
original topic. "Have you always been so solitary? Have you had no
companions?"

"I have always had companions, but have always been solitary,"
she declared, as though unconscious of the paradox. "Yet what are
companions if you cannot tell them what is in your heart? What are
companions if you stand looking with them at the sunset, and you feel
its loveliness till the tears come, and they feel nothing at all? Or
what are companions if you watch the birds twittering in the treetops,
and are glad they are living and happy, while your friends wish to
mangle them with stones, and laugh at your softness and folly? I would
not have you think that we Ibandru are of the kind that would harm
little birds; only that my kinsmen and I do not have the same thoughts.
I suppose it is my own stupidity and strangeness that makes all the
difference."

"No, your own natural wisdom makes all the difference."

"I wonder," she mused, as she absently toyed with the decaying dead
leaves that coated the rich dank soil. "I have tried to be like the
others, but never could be. I would always speak about things they did
not seem to understand; and they would jest about things that were
sacred to me. I would be interested in the bee and the grasshopper,
the crawling little worm and the bird that flies like the storm-wind;
but they would not care, and would not often join me in my rambles
through the woods, for I might pause too long to make friends with
some new flower, or to watch the ants as they swarmed into one of
their wonderful earthen houses. Oh, they are marvelous, the things I
have seen! But the others have not seen them, and think me queer for
noticing them at all!"

"Never mind, Yasma," I whispered, consolingly. "I do not think you
queer. I think you clever indeed."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her little hands together
happily. "You're the first who ever said that!"

"Come, come now, certainly not the first," I denied. "Surely, some of
the others--say, your father--"

"No, not father! He's very, very good to me, of course, but he's like
all the men--imagines that the great god of the flowering spring, and
the god of the ripening fall, who put women into the world, had only
one use for them. And he thinks I'm growing old enough to--"

Abruptly Yasma halted, as though she feared to tread on unsafe ground.
Her fingers still fumbled among the dead leaves, while her averted
eyes searched the dense, dark masses of foliage as if in pursuit of
something elusive and much desired.

"But I've told you enough about myself," she resumed, hastily, in a
half whisper. "Now it's your turn to speak about yourself."

Though I would have done all I could to please her, I was still at a
loss for a reply. Embarrassed at my own speechlessness after her frank
recital, I wasted much time in telling her that I really had nothing to
tell.

"Oh, yes, you must have," she insisted, almost with a child's
assurance, as she looked up at me with candid great brown eyes. "What
friends had you before you came here? Had you any family? Were you
always alone, as I was? Or were there many people around you?"

"Yes, there were many people," I declared, hesitatingly, "though no one
who was close of kin, and no one who was such a comrade to me as you
have been, Yasma. No, never anyone at all. I did not have any lovely
young girl to help me and be kind to me and go romping into the woods
with me for nuts and berries."

I paused, and noted that Yasma sat with eyes still averted, still
gazing into the shadowy thickets as if she saw there something that
interested her immensely. And as I peered at the delicately modelled
features, the sensitive nostrils and lips and the auburn hair heaped
over the rose-tinged cheeks, I seemed to detect there a wistfulness
I had never noticed before, an indefinable melancholy that made her
appear no longer the dashing, tumultuous daughter of the wilderness,
but rather a small and pathetic creature pitifully in need of comfort
and protection. And at this thought--purely fanciful though it may
have been--my mind was flooded with sentiments such as I had not known
for years. Spontaneously, as though by instinct, my hand reached out
for hers, which did not resist, and yet did not return my pressure;
and my lips phrased sentiments which certainly my reason would have
countermanded if reason had had time to act.

"You don't know what a beautiful girl you are, Yasma," I heard myself
repeating the old commonplace of lovers. "What a rare, beautiful girl!
I have never known anyone--never--"

"Come, let us not talk of such things!" Yasma cut me short. And she
leapt to her feet with a return of her former animation. "See! the
sunset shadows are already deepening! In another hour the woods will be
cold and dark!"

Again the impetuous wild thing, she seized one of the bags of nuts
before I had had time to stop her, and went darting off before me along
the forest track, while I was left to follow slowly in a sober mood.

CHAPTER VIII

_THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH_

It was early in October when the mystery of the Ibandru began to take
pronounced form.

Then it was that I became aware of an undercurrent of excitement in
the village, a suppressed agitation which I could not explain, which
none would explain to me, and which I recorded as much by subconscious
perception as by direct observation. Yet there was sufficient visible
evidence. The youth of the village had apparently lost interest in the
noisy pastimes that had made the summer evenings gay; old and young
alike seemed to have grown restless and uneasy; while occasionally I
saw some man or woman scurrying about madly for no apparent reason. And
meantime all bore the aspect of waiting, of waiting for some imminent
and inevitable event of surpassing importance. Interest in Yulada
was at fever pitch; a dozen times a day some one would point toward
the stone woman with significant gestures; and a dozen times a day I
observed some native prostrating himself in an attitude of prayer, with
face always directed toward the figure on the peak while he mumbled
incoherently to himself.

But the strangest demonstration of all occurred late one afternoon,
when a brisk wind had blown a slaty roof across the heavens, and from
far to the northeast, across the high jutting ridges of rock, a score
of swift-flying black dots became suddenly visible. In an orderly,
triangular formation they approached, gliding on an unwavering course
with the speed of an express train; and in an incredibly brief time
they had passed above us and out of sight beyond Yulada and the
southern peak. After a few minutes they were followed by another band
of migrants, and then by another, and another still, until evening had
blotted the succeeding squadrons from view and their cries rang and
echoed uncannily in the dark.

To me the surprising fact was not the flight of the feathered things;
the surprising fact was the reaction of the Ibandru. It was as if they
had never seen birds on the wing before; or as if the birds were the
most solemn of omens. On the appearance of the first flying flock, one
of the Ibandru, who chanced to observe the birds before the others,
went running about the village with cries of excitement; and at his
shouts the women and children crowded out of the cabins, and all the
men within hearing distance came dashing in from the fields. And all
stood with mouths open, gaping toward the skies as the successive
winged companies sped by; and from that time forth, until twilight had
hidden the last soaring stranger, no one seemed to have any purpose in
life except to stare at the heavens, calling out tumultuously whenever
a new band appeared.

That evening the people held a great celebration. An enormous bonfire
was lighted in an open space between the houses; and around it gathered
all the men and women of the village, lingering until late at night
by a flickering eerie illumination that made the scene appear like
a pageant staged on another planet. In the beginning I did not know
whether the public meeting had any connection with the flight of the
birds; but it was not long before this question was answered.

In their agitation, the people had evidently overlooked me entirely.
For once, they had forgotten politeness; indeed, they scarcely noticed
me when I queried them about their behavior. And it was as an uninvited
stranger, scarcely remembered or observed, that I crept up in the
shadows behind the fire, and lay amid the grass to watch.

In the positions nearest the flames, their faces brilliant in the glow,
were two men whom I immediately recognized. One, sitting cross-legged
on the ground, his features rigid with the dignity of leadership, was
Abthar, the father of Yasma; the other, who stood speaking in sonorous
tones, was Hamul-Kammesh, the soothsayer. Because I sat at some
distance from him and was far from an adept at Pushtu, I missed the
greater part of what he said; but I did not fail to note the tenseness
with which the people followed him; and I did manage to catch an
occasional phrase which, while fragmentary, impressed me as more than
curious.

"Friends," he was saying, "we have reached the season of the great
flight.... The auguries are propitious ... we may take advantage of
them whenever the desire is upon us.... Yulada will help us, and Yulada
commands...." At this point there was much that I could not gather,
since Hamul-Kammesh spoke in lower tones, with his head bowed as though
in prayer.... "The time of yellow leaves and of cold winds is upon
us. Soon the rain will come down in showers from the gray skies; soon
the frost will snap and bite; soon all the land will be desolate and
deserted. Prepare yourselves, my people, prepare!--for now the trees
make ready for winter, now the herbs wither and the earth grows no
longer green, now the bees and butterflies and fair flowers must depart
until the spring--and now _the birds fly south, the birds fly south,
the birds fly south_!"

The last words were intoned fervently and with emphatic slowness,
like a chant or a poem; and it seemed to me that an answering emotion
swept through the audience. But on and on Hamul-Kammesh went, on and
on, speaking almost lyrically, and sometimes driving up to an intense
pitch of feeling. More often than not I could not understand him, but I
divined that his theme was still the same; he still discoursed upon the
advent of autumn, and the imminent and still more portentous advent of
winter....

After Hamul-Kammesh had finished, his audience threw themselves chests
downward on the ground, and remained thus for some minutes, mumbling
unintelligibly to themselves. I observed that they all faced in one
direction, the south; and I felt that this could not be attributed
merely to chance.

Then, as though at a prearranged signal, all the people simultaneously
arose, reminding me of a church-meeting breaking up after the final
prayer. Yet no one made any motion to leave; and I had an impression
that we were nearer the beginning than the end of the ceremonies. This
impression was confirmed when Hamul-Kammesh began to wave his arms
before him with a bird-like rhythm, and when, like an orchestra in
obedience to the band-master, the audience burst into song.

I cannot say that the result pleased me, for there was in it a weird
and barbarous note; yet at the same time there was a certain wild
melody ... so that, as I listened, I came more and more under the
influence of the singing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice
not of individuals but of a people, a people pouring forth its age-old
joys and sorrows, longings and aspirations. But how express in words
the far-away primitive quality of that singing?--It had something
of the madness and abandon of the savage exulting, something of the
loneliness and long-drawn melancholy of the wolf howling from the
midnight hilltop, something of the plaintive and querulous tone of wild
birds calling and calling on their way southward.

After the song had culminated in one deep-voiced crescendo, it was
succeeded by a dance of equal gusto and strangeness. Singly and in
couples and in groups of three and four, the people leapt and swayed in
the wavering light; they flung their legs waist-high, they coiled their
arms snake-like about their bodies, they whirled around like tops; they
darted forward and darted back again, sped gracefully in long curves
and spirals, tripped from side to side, or reared and vaulted like
athletes; and all the while they seemed to preserve a certain fantastic
pattern, seemed to move to the beat of some inaudible rhythm, seemed
to be actors in a pageant whose nature I could only vaguely surmise.
As they flitted shadow-like in the shadowy background or glided with
radiant faces into the light and then back into the gloom, they seemed
not so much like sportive and pirouetting humans as like dancing gods;
and the sense came over me that I was beholding not a mere ceremony
of men and women, but rather a festival of wraiths, of phantoms, of
cloudy, elfin creatures who might flash away into the mist or the
firelight.

Nor did I lose this odd impression when at intervals the dance relaxed
and the dancers lay on the ground recovering from their exertions,
while one of them would stand in the blazing light chanting some native
song or ballad. If anything, it was during these intermissions that I
was most acutely aware of something uncanny. It may, of course, have
been only my imagination, for the recitations were all of a weird
nature; one poem would tell of men and maidens that vanished in the
mists about Yulada and were seen no more; another would describe a
country to which the south wind blew, and where it was always April,
while many would picture the wanderings of migrant birds, or speak of
bodiless spirits that floated along the air like smoke, screaming from
the winter gales but gently murmuring in the breezes of spring and
summer.

For some reason that I cannot explain, these legends and folk-tales
not only filled my mind with eerie fancies but made me think of one who
was quite human and real. I began to wonder about Yasma--where was she
now? What part was she taking in the celebration? And as my thoughts
turned to her, an irrational fear crept into my mind--what if, like
the maidens described in the poems, she had taken wing? Smiling at my
own imaginings, I arose quietly from my couch of grass, and slowly and
cautiously began to move about the edge of the crowd, while scanning
the nearer forms and faces. In the pale light I could scarcely be
distinguished from a native; and, being careful to keep to the shadows,
I was apparently not noticed. And I had almost circled the clearing
before I had any reason to pause.

All this time I had seen no sign of Yasma. I had almost given up hope
of finding her when my attention was attracted to a solitary little
figure hunched against a cabin wall in the dimness at the edge of the
clearing. Even in the near-dark I could not fail to recognize her; and,
heedless of the dancers surging and eddying through the open spaces, I
made toward her in a straight line.

I will admit that I had some idea of the unwisdom of speaking to her
tonight; but my impatience had gotten the better of my tongue.

"I am glad to see you here," I began, without the formality of a
greeting. "You are not taking part in the dance, Yasma."

Yasma gave a start, and looked at me like one just awakened from deep
sleep. At first her eyes showed no recognition; then it struck me there
was just a spark of anger and even of hostility in her gaze.

"No, I am not taking part in the dance," she responded, listlessly.
And then, after an interval, while I stood above her in embarrassed
silence, "But why come to me now?... Why disturb me tonight of all
nights?"

"I do not want to disturb you, Yasma," I apologized. "I just happened
to see you here, and thought--"

My sentence was never finished. Suddenly I became aware that there
was only vacancy where Yasma had been. And dimly I was conscious of a
shadow-form slipping from me into the multitude of shadows.

In vain I attempted to follow her. She had vanished as completely as
though she had been one of the ghostly women of the poems. No more
that evening did I see her small graceful shape; but all the rest of
the night, until the bonfire had smoldered to red embers and the crowd
had dispersed, I wandered about disconsolately, myself like a ghost as
I furtively surveyed the dancing figures. A deep, sinking uneasiness
obsessed me; and my dejection darkened into despair as it became
plainer that my quest was unavailing, and that Yasma had really turned
against me.

CHAPTER IX

_IN THE REDDENING WOODS_

During the weeks before the firelight celebration, I had gradually
made friends with the various natives. This was not difficult, for the
people were as curious regarding me as I would have been regarding a
Martian. At the same time, they were kindly disposed, and would never
hesitate to do me any little favor, such as to help me in laying up my
winter's supplies, or to advise me how to make a coat of goat's hide,
or to tell me where the rarest herbs and berries were to be found, or
to bring me liberal portions of any choice viand they chanced to be
preparing.

I was particularly interested in Yasma's brothers and sisters, all of
whom I met in quick succession. They were all older than she, and all
had something of her naïvety and vivaciousness without her own peculiar
charm. Her three sisters had found husbands among the men of the tribe,
and two were already the mothers of vigorous toddling little sons and
daughters; while her brothers, Karem and Barkodu, were tall, proud, and
dignified of demeanor like their father.

With Karem, the elder, I struck up a friendship that was to prove
my closest masculine attachment in Sobul. I well remember our first
meeting; it was just after my convalescence from my long illness. One
morning, in defiance of Yasma's warning, I had slipped off by myself
into the woods, intending to go but a few hundred yards. But the joyous
green of the foliage, the chirruping birds and the warm crystalline
air had misled me; and, happy merely to be alive and free, I wandered
on and on, scarcely noticing how I was overtaxing my strength. Then
suddenly I became aware of an overwhelming faintness; all things
swam around me; and I sank down upon a boulder, near to losing
consciousness.... After a moment, I attempted to rise; but the effort
was too much; I have a recollection of staggering like a drunken man,
or reeling, of pitching toward the rocks....

Happily, I did not complete my fall. Saving me from the shattering
stones, two strong arms clutched me about the shoulders, and wrenched
me back to a standing posture.

In a daze, I looked up ... aware of the red and blue costume of a
tribesman of Sobul ... aware of the two large black eyes that peered
down at me half in amusement, half in sympathy. Those eyes were but the
most striking features of a striking countenance; I remembered having
already seen that high, rounded forehead, that long, slender, swarthy
face with the aquiline nose, that untrimmed luxuriant full black beard.

"Come, come, I do not like your way of walking," the man declared, with
a smile. And seeing that I was still too weak to reply, he continued,
cheerfully, with a gesture toward a thicket to our rear, "If I had not
been there gathering berries, this day might have ended sadly for you.
Shall I not take you home?"

Leaning heavily upon him while with the gentlest care he led me along
the trail, I found my way slowly back to the village.

And thus I made the acquaintance of Karem, brother of Yasma. At
the time I did not know of the relationship; but between Karem and
myself a friendship quickly developed. Even as he wound with me along
the woodland track to the village, I felt strangely drawn toward
this genial, self-possessed man; and possibly he felt a reciprocal
attraction, for he came often thereafter to inquire how I was doing;
and occasionally we had long talks, as intimate as my foreign birth
and my knowledge of Pushtu would permit. I found him not at all
unintelligent, and the possessor of knowledge that his sophisticated
brothers might have envied. He told me more than I had ever known
before about the habits of wood creatures, of wolves and squirrels,
jackals, snakes and bears; he could describe where each species
of birds had their nests, and the size and color of the eggs; he
instructed me in the lore of bees, ants and beetles, and in the ways of
the fishes in the swift-flowing streams. Later, when I had recovered my
strength, he would accompany me on day-long climbs among the mountains,
showing me the best trails and the easiest ascents--and so supplying me
with knowledge that was to prove most valuable in time to come.

It was to Karem that I turned for an answer to the riddles of Sobul
after Yasma had failed me. But in this respect he was not very helpful.
He would smile indulgently whenever I hinted that I suspected a
mystery; and would make some jovial reply, as if seeking to brush the
matter aside with a gesture. This was especially the case on the day
after the firelight festivities, when we went on a fishing expedition
to a little lake on the further side of the valley. Although in a
rare good humor, he was cleverly evasive when I asked anything of
importance. What had been the purpose of the celebration? It was simply
an annual ceremony held by his people, the ceremony of the autumn
season. Why had Hamul-Kammesh attached so much significance to the
flight of the birds? That was mere poetic symbolism; the birds had
been taken as typical of the time of year. Then what reason for the
excitement of the people?--and what had Yulada to do with the affair?
Of course, Yulada had nothing to do with it at all; but the people
thought she had ordered the ceremonies, and they had been swayed by a
religious mania, which Hamul-Kammesh, after the manner of soothsayers,
had encouraged for the sake of his own influence.

Such were Karem's common-sense explanations. On the surface they were
convincing; and yet, somehow, I was not convinced. For the moment I
would be persuaded; but thinking over the facts at my leisure, I would
feel sure that Karem had left much unstated.

My dissatisfaction with his replies was most acute when I touched upon
the matter closest to my heart. I described Yasma's conduct during
the celebration; confided how surprised I had been, and how pained;
and confessed my fear that I had committed the unpardonable sin by
intruding during an important rite.

To all that I said Karem listened with an attentive smile.

"Why, Prescott," he returned (I had taught him to call me by my last
name), "you surprise me! Come, come, do not be so serious! Who can
account for a woman's whims? Certainly, not I! When you are married
like me, and have little tots running about your house ready to crawl
up your knee whenever you come in, you'll know better than to try to
explain what the gods never intended to be explained by any man!" And
Karem burst into laughter, and slapped me on the back good-naturedly,
as though thus to dispose of the matter.

However, I was not to be sidetracked so easily. I did not join in
Karem's laughter; I even felt a little angry. "But this wasn't just an
ordinary whim," I argued. "There was something deeper in it. There was
some reason I don't understand, and can't get at no matter how I try."

"Then why not save trouble, and quit trying?" suggested Karem, still
good-natured despite my sullenness. "Come, it's a splendid day; let's
enjoy it while we can!"

And he pointed ahead to a thin patch of blue, vaguely visible through
a break in the trees. "See, there's the lake already! I expect fishing
will be good today!"

* * * * *

If I had required further proof that my wits had surrendered to Yasma's
charms, I might have found evidence enough during the days that
followed the tribal celebration. Though smarting from her avoidance of
me, I desired nothing more fervently than to be with her again; and I
passed half my waking hours in vainly searching for her. Day after day
I would inquire for her at her father's cabin, would haunt the paths
to the dwelling, would search the fields and vineyards in the hope of
surprising her. Where had she gone, she who had always come running
to greet me? Had she flown south like the wild birds? At this fancy I
could only smile; yet always, with a lover's irrational broodings, I
was obsessed by the fear that she was gone never to return. This dread
might have risen to terror had the villagers not always been bringing
me tidings of her: either they had just spoken with her, or had seen
someone who had just spoken with her, or had observed her tripping by
toward the meadows. Yet she was still elusive as though able to make
herself invisible.

Nevertheless, after about a week my vigilance was rewarded. Stepping
out into the chill gray of a mid-October dawn, I saw a slender little
figure slipping along the edge of the village and across the fields
toward the woods. My heart gave a great thump; without hesitation, I
started in pursuit, not daring to call out lest I arouse the village,
but determined not to lose sight of that slim flitting form. She did
not glance behind, and could not have known that I was following, yet
for some reason quickened her pace, so that I had to make an effort to
match her speed.

Once out of earshot of the village, I paused to regain my breath, then
at the top of my voice shouted, "Yasma! Yasma!"

Could it be that she had not heard me? On and on she continued,
straight toward the dark fringe of the woods.

Dismayed and incredulous, I repeated my call, using my hands as a
megaphone. This time it seemed to me that she halted momentarily; but
she did not look back; and her pause could not have filled the space
between two heart beats. In amazement, I observed her almost racing
toward the woods!

But if she could run, so could I! With rising anger, yet scarcely
crediting the report of my eyes, I started across the fields at a
sprint. In a moment I should overtake Yasma--and then what excuse would
she have to offer?

But ill fortune was still with me. In my heedless haste I stumbled
over a large stone; and when, bruised and confused, I arose to my feet
with an oath, it was to behold a slender form disappearing beyond the
shadowy forest margin.

Although sure that I had again lost track of her, I continued the
pursuit in a sort of dogged rage. There was but one narrow trail
amid the densely matted undergrowth; and along this trail I dashed,
encouraged by the sight of small fresh-made footprints amid the damp
earth. But the maker of those footprints must have been in a great
hurry, for although I pressed on until my breath came hard and my
forehead was moist with perspiration, I could catch no glimpse of her,
nor even hear any stirring or rustling ahead.

At length I had lost all trace of her. The minute footprints came to
an end, as though their creator had vanished bird-like; and I stood in
bewilderment in the mournful twilight of the forest, gazing up at the
lugubrious green of pine and juniper and at the long twisted branches
of oak and ash and wild peach, red-flecked and yellow and already half
leafless.

How long I remained standing there I do not know. It was useless to go
on, equally useless to retrace my footsteps. The minutes went by, and
nothing happened. A bird chirped and twittered from some unseen twig
above; a squirrel came rustling toward me, and with big frightened eyes
hopped to the further side of a tree-trunk; now and then an insect
buzzed past, with a dismal drone that seemed the epitome of all woe.
But that was all--and of Yasma there was still no sign.

Then, when I thought of her and remembered her loveliness, and how she
had been my playmate and comrade, I was overcome with the sorrow of
losing her, and a teardrop dampened my cheek, and I heaved a long-drawn
sigh.

And as if in response to that sigh, the bushes began to shake and
quiver. And a sob broke the stillness of the forest, and I was as if
transfixed by the sound of a familiar voice.

And out of the tangle of weeds and shrubs a slender figure arose, with
shoulders heaving spasmodically; and with a cry I started forward and
received into my arms the shuddering, speechless, clinging form of
Yasma.

It was minutes before either of us could talk. Meanwhile I held the
weeping girl closely to me, soothing her as I might have done a child.
So natural did this seem that I quite forgot the strangeness of the
situation. My mind was filled with sympathy, sympathy for her distress,
and wonder at her odd ways; and I had no desire except to comfort her.

"Tell me just what has happened, Yasma," I said, when her sobbing had
died down to a rhythmic murmuring. "What has happened--to make you so
sad?"

To my surprise, she broke away, and stood staring at me at arm's
length. Her eyes were moist with an inexpressible melancholy; there was
something so pitiful about her that I could have taken her back into my
arms forthwith.

"Oh, my friend," she cried, with a vehemence I could not understand,
"why do you waste time over me? Have nothing to do with me! I am not
worth it!" And she turned as if to flee again into the forest; but I
seized her hand and drew her slowly back to me.

"Yasma! Yasma!" I remonstrated, peering down into those wistful brown
eyes that burned with some dark-smoldering fire. "What has made you
behave so queerly? Tell me, do you no longer care for me? Do you
not--do you not love me?"

At these words, the graceful head sagged low upon the quivering
shoulders. A crimson flush mounted the slender neck, and suffused the
soft, well rounded cheeks; the averted eyes told the story they were
meant to conceal.

Then, without further hesitation, my arms closed once more about her.
And again she clung close, this time not with the unconscious eagerness
of a child craving protection, but with all the fury and force of her
impetuous nature.

A few minutes later, a surprising change had come over her. We had
left the woods, and she was sitting at my side in a little glade by a
brooklet. The tears had been dried from her eyes, which were still red
and swollen; but in her face there was a happy glow, and I thought she
had never looked quite so beautiful before.

For a while we sat gazing in silence at the tattered and yet majestic
line of the forest, a phantom pageant whose draperies of russet and
cinnamon and fiery crimson and dusty gold were lovely almost beyond
belief. A strange enchantment had come over us; and we were reluctant
to break the charm.

Yet there were questions that kept stirring in my mind; questions to
which finally I was forced to give words.

"Tell me, Yasma," I asked, suddenly, "why have you been behaving so
queerly? Why were you running away from me? Is there something about me
that frightened you?"

It was as if my words had brought back the evil spell. Her features
contracted into a frown; the darkness returned to her eyes, which again
burned with some unspoken sorrow; a look of fear, almost like that of a
haunted creature, flitted across her face.

"Oh, you must never ask that!" she protested, in such dismay that I
pitied her even while I wondered. "You must never ask--never, never!"

"Why not?" I questioned. "What mystery can there be to hide?"

"There is no mystery," she declared. And then, with quick
inconsistency, "But even if there were, you should not ask!"

"But why?" I demanded. "Now, Yasma, you mustn't treat me like a
five-year-old. What have I done to offend you? Tell me, what have I
done?"

"It is nothing that you have done," she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.

"Then is it something someone else has done? Come, let me know just
what is wrong!"

"I cannot tell you! I cannot!" she cried, with passion. And, rising
abruptly and turning to me with eyes aflame, "Oh, why must you insist
on knowing? Haven't I done everything to protect you from knowing? Do
you think it has been easy--easy for me to treat you like this? But it
is wrong to love you! wrong even to encourage you! Only evil can come
of it! Oh, why did you ever, ever have to come among our tribe?"

Having delivered herself of this outburst, Yasma paced back and forth,
back and forth amid the dense grass, with fists clenched and head
upraised to the heavens, like one in an extremity of distress.

But I quickly arose and went to her, and in a moment she was again in
my arms.

Truly, as Karem had declared, the ways of women are not to be
explained! But I felt that there was more meaning than I had discovered
in her behavior; I was sure that she had not acted altogether without
reason, and, remembering all that had puzzled me, I was determined to
probe if possible to the roots of her seeming caprice.

"You have never been the same to me since the firelight celebration,"
I said, when her emotion had spent itself and we once more sat quietly
side by side in the grass. "Maybe something happened then to make you
despise me."

"No, not to make me despise you!" she denied, emphatically. "It was not
your fault at all!"

"Then what was it?" I urged.

"Nothing. Only that Hamul--Hamul--"

In manifest confusion, she checked herself.

"Hamul-Kammesh?" I finished for her, convinced that here was a clue.

But she refused to answer me or to mention the soothsayer again; and,
lest the too-ready tears flow once more, I had to abandon the topic.
None the less, I had not forgotten her references to Hamul-Kammesh and
his prophecies.

But I still attached no importance to the predictions--was I to be
dismayed by mere superstition? I was conscious only that I felt an
overwhelming tenderness toward Yasma, and that she was supremely
adorable; and it seemed to me that her love was the sole thing that
mattered. At her first kiss, my reason had abdicated; I was agitated
no longer by scruples, doubts or hesitancies; my former objects in
life appeared pallid and dull by contrast with this warm, breathing,
emotional girl. For her sake I would have forsworn my chosen work,
forsworn the friends I had known, forsworn name and country--yes, even
doomed myself to lasting exile in this green, world-excluding valley!

In as few words as possible I explained the nature of my feelings. I
was able to give but pale expression to the radiance of my emotions;
but I am sure that she understood. "I do not know what it is that holds
you from me, Yasma," I finished. "Surely, you realize that you are
dearer to me than my own breath. You made me very happy a little while
ago when you came into my arms--why not make me happy for life? You
could live with me here in a cabin in Sobul, or maybe I could take you
with me to see the world I come from, and you would then know where the
clouds go, and see strange cities with houses as tall as precipices and
people many as the leaves of a tree. What do you say, Yasma? Don't you
want to make us both happy?"

Yasma stared at me with wide-lidded eyes in which I seemed to read
infinite longing.

"You know I would!" she cried. "You know I would--if I could! But ours
is a strange people, and our ways are not your ways. There is so much
you do not understand, so much which even I do not understand! It all
makes me afraid, oh, terribly afraid!"

"Do not be afraid, Yasma dear," I murmured, slipping my arm about her
shoulders. "I will protect you."

"You cannot protect me!" she lamented, withdrawing. "You cannot even
protect yourself! There is so much, so much from which none can protect
themselves!"

Not realizing what she meant, I let this warning slip past.

"All that I know," I swore, passionately, "is that I want you with
me--want you with me always! Let happen what may, I want you--and have
never wanted anything so much before!"

"Oh, do not speak of that now!" she burst forth, in a tone almost of
command. "Do not speak of that now! First there are things you must
know--things I cannot explain!" And she sat with eyes averted, gazing
toward the scarlet and vermilion dishevelled trees, whose branches
waved like ghostly danger signals in the rising wind.

"What things must I know?"

"You will have to wait and find out. Maybe, like us, you will feel
them without being told; but maybe time alone will be your teacher.
The traditions of my tribe would stop me from telling you even if I
knew how. But do not be surprised if you learn some very, very strange
things."

"Strange or not strange," I vowed, "all I know is that I love you. All
I care to learn is when--when, Yasma, you will say to me--"

"Not until the spring," she murmured, with such finality that I felt
intuitively the uselessness of argument. "Not until the flowers come
out from their winter hiding, and the birds fly north. Then you will
know more about our tribe."

Without further explanation, she sprang impulsively from her seat
of grass. "Come," she warned me, pointing to a gray mass that was
obscuring the northern peaks. "Come, a storm is on the way! If we
don't hurry, we'll be wet through and through!"

And she flitted before me toward the village with such speed that I
could scarcely get another word with her.

CHAPTER X

_THE IBANDRU TAKE WING_

As October drifted by and November loomed within two weeks' beckoning,
a striking change came over Sobul. The very elements seemed to feel
and to solemnize that change, which was as much in the spirit of
things as in their physical aspect; and the slow-dying autumn seemed
stricken with a bitter foretaste of winter. Cold winds began to blow,
and even in the seclusion of the valley they shrieked and wailed with
demonic fury; torn and scattered clouds scudded like great shadows
over granite skies, and occasionally gave token of their ill will in
frantic outbursts of rain; ominous new white patches were forming about
the peaks, to vanish within a few hours, and appear again and vanish
once more; and daily the dead leaves came drifting down in swarms and
showers of withered brown and saffron and mottled red, while daily the
flocks of winged adventurers went darting and screeching overhead on
their way beyond the mountains.

But the stormy days, with all the wildness and force and passionate
abandon of wind and rain, were less impressive for me than the days
of calm. Then, when the placid sky shone in unbroken blue, all nature
seemed sad with a melancholy I had never felt among my native hills.
There was something tragic about the tranquil, ragged forest vistas,
shot through as with an inner light of deep golden and red, and
standing bared in mute resignation to the stroke of doom. But there was
something more than tragic; there was something spectral about those
long waiting lines of trees, with their foliage that at times appeared
to reflect the sunset, and at times seemed like the painted tapestries
of some colossal dream pageant. More and more, as I gazed in a charmed
revery at the gaudy death-apparel of the woods, I was obsessed with
the sense of some immanent presence, some weird presence that hovered
intangibly behind the smoldering autumn fires, some presence that
I could not think of without a shudder and that filled me with an
unreasonable awe.

Certainly my feelings, uncanny as they were, were to be justified
only too fully by time. Already I had more than a suspicion that the
season of southward-flying birds was a season of mystic meaning for the
Ibandru, but little did I understand just how important it was. Only
by degrees did realization force itself upon me; and then I could only
gape, and rub my eyes, and ask if I were dreaming. Stranger than any
tale I had ever read in the Arabian Nights, stranger than any fancy
my fevered mind had ever beckoned forth, was the reality that set the
Ibandru apart from all other peoples on earth.

As the weeks went by, the agitation I had noted among the natives was
intensified rather than lessened. I was aware of a sense of waiting
which grew until the very atmosphere seemed anxious and strained; and
I observed that the men and women no longer went as usual about their
tasks, but flitted to and fro aimlessly or nervously or excitedly, as
though they had no definite place in the world and were hesitating on
the brink of some fearful decision.

And then, one day when October was a little beyond mid-career, I
thought I detected another change. At first I was not sure, and accused
my imagination of playing pranks; but it was not long before I ceased
to have any doubts. The population of Sobul was dwindling! Not half
so many children as before were romping in the open among the houses,
not half so many women could be seen bustling about the village, or
so many men roaming the fields--the entire place wore a sudden air
of desolation. And in more than one cabin, previously the home of a
riotous family, the doors swung no longer upon their wooden hinges, but
through the open window-places I caught glimpses of bare floors and
dark walls innocent of human occupancy.

When had the people gone? And where? I had not seen anyone leave, nor
been told that anyone was to leave; and I witnessed no ceremonies of
farewell. Could the missing ones be victims of some terror that came
down "like a wolf on the fold" and snatched them away in the night?
Or were they merely visiting some other tribe in some other secluded
valley?

These problems puzzled me incessantly; but when I turned to the Ibandru
for information, their answers were tantalizing. They did not deny that
some of their tribesmen had left, and did not claim that this had been
unexpected or mystifying; but they were either unable or unwilling to
furnish any details; and I was not sure whether they felt that I was
probing impertinently into their affairs, or whether some tribal or
religious mandate sealed their lips.

I particularly remember the answers of Karem and Yasma. The former,
with his usual jovial way of avoiding the issue, advised me to have no
worries; the whole matter was really no concern of mine, and I might be
assured that the missing ones were not badly off or unhappy. By this
time I must have learned that the Ibandru had queer ways, and I must
prepare for things queerer still; but, until I was one with the tribe
at heart, I must not expect to understand.

Yasma's answer, though vague enough, was more definite.

"Our absent friends," she said, while by turns a sad and an exalted
light played across her mobile features, "have gone the way of the
birds that fly south. Yulada has beckoned them, and they have escaped
the winter's loneliness and cold, and have hastened where the bright
flowers are, and the butterflies and bees. See!"--Ecstatically she
pointed to a triangle of swift-moving dots that glided far above
through the cloudless blue.--"They are like the wild geese! They flee
from the biting gales and the frost, and will not return till the warm
days are here again and the leaves come back to the trees. We must all
go like them--all of us, all, all!"

"And I too--must I go?" I asked, never thinking of taking her words
literally.

Yasma hesitated. The light faded from her eyes; an expression of
sorrow, almost of compassion, flooded her face.

"That I cannot say," she returned, sadly. "You must feel the call
within you, feel it as the birds do, drawing you on to lands where
robins sing and the lilac blooms. No one can tell you how to feel it;
it must come from within or not at all, and you yourself must recognize
it. But oh, you cannot help recognizing it! It is so strong, so very
strong!--and it takes your whole body and soul with it, draws you
like a rainbow or a beautiful sunset; and bears you along as the wind
bears a dead leaf. You cannot resist it any more than you can resist a
terrible hunger--you must submit, or it will hurl you under!"

"I do not understand," said I, for despite the ardor of her words, I
had only the dimmest idea of the overmastering force she described.

"Perhaps," she returned, gently, "you cannot know. You may be like
a color-blind man trying to understand color. But oh, I hope not! I
hope--ever and ever so much--that you'll hear the call thundering
within you. Otherwise, you'll have to stay here by yourself the whole
winter, while the snow falls and the wolves howl, and you won't see us
again till spring!"

Her emotion seemed to be overcoming her. Fiercely she wiped a tear from
her cheek; then turned from me, to give way to her misgivings in the
seclusion of her father's cabin.

But I was not without my own misgivings. Her words had revived haunting
premonitions; it was as if some sinister shadow hovered over me, all
the more dread because formless. What unhallowed people were these
Ibandru, to go slinking away like specters in the night? Were they a
tribe of outlaws or brigands, hiding from justice in these impenetrable
fastnesses? Or were they the sole survivors of some ancient race,
endowed with qualities not given to ordinary humans? With new interest
I recalled the stories told me by the Afghan guides before my fateful
adventure: the reports that the Ibandru were a race of devils, winged
like birds and with the power of making themselves invisible. Absurd as
this tale appeared, might there not be the ghost of an excuse for it?

As for Yasma's predictions and warnings--what meaning had there been
in them? Was it indeed possible that I might be left alone all winter
in this desolate place? And was that why Abthar had advised me to
make ready for the cold season while his own people had apparently
done nothing to prepare? But, even so, how could they escape the
winter? Was it not a mere poetic vagary to say, as Yasma had done,
that they went to lands where robins sang and the lilac bloomed--how
cross the interminable mountain reaches to the semi-torrid valleys
of India or the warm Arabian plains? Or was it that, like the bears,
they hibernated in caves? Or, like the wild geese that they watched
so excitedly, were they swayed by some old migratory instinct, some
impulse dormant or dead in most men but preserved for them by a long
succession of nomad ancestors? Although reason scoffed at the idea, I
had visions of them trekking each autumn across four or five hundred
miles of wilderness to the borders of the Arabian Sea, surviving on
provisions they had secreted along the route, and returning with the
spring to their homes in Sobul.

Unlikely as this explanation appeared, nothing more plausible occurred
to me. But as the days went by, my sense of mystery increased. The
people were fleeing almost as though Sobul were plague-ridden--of that
there could be no further doubt! Daily now I missed some familiar face;
first a child who had come to me of evenings to run gay races in the
fields; then an old woman who had sat each morning in the sun before
her cabin; then Yasma's brother, Barkodu, whose tall sturdy form I
had frequently observed in the village. And then one evening when I
inquired for Karem, I was told that he was not to be seen; and the
people's peculiar reserved expression testified that he had gone "the
way of the birds that fly south." And, a day later, when I wished to
see Abthar in the hope that he would relieve my perplexed mind, I found
no one in the cabin except Yasma; and she murmured that her father
would not be back till spring.

But did I make no effort to solve the enigma? Did I not strive to
find out for myself where the absent ones had gone? Yes! I made many
attempts--and with bewildering results. Even today I shudder to think
of the ordeal I underwent; the remembrance of eerie midnights and
strange shadows that flickered and vanished comes back to me after
these many, many months; I feel again the cool, forest-scented breeze
upon my nostrils as I crouch among the deep weeds at the village edge,
or as I glide phantom-like beneath the trees in the cold starlight.
For it was mainly at night that I wrestled with the Unknown; and it was
at night that I received the most persuasive and soul-disturbing proof
of the weirdness of the ways of Sobul.

My plans may not have been well laid, but they were the best I could
conceive. From the fact that I had never seen any of the Ibandru
leaving, and that more than once in the morning I had missed some face
that had greeted me twelve hours before, I concluded that the people
invariably fled by night. Acting on this view, I hid one evening in
a clump of bushes on the outskirts of the village, resolved to wait
if need be until dawn. True, no one might choose tonight for the
migration; but in that case I should lie in hiding tomorrow night, and
if necessary again on the night after.

As I lay sprawled among the bushes, whose dry leaves and twigs pricked
and irritated my skin, I was prey to countless vexations. The night
was cold, and I shivered as the wind cut through my thin garments; the
night was long, and I almost groaned with impatience while the slow
constellations crawled across the heavens; the night was dark, and
fantastic fears flitted through my mind as I gazed through the gloom
toward the ghostly line of the trees and cabins. Every now and then,
when some wild creature called out querulously from the woods, I was
swept by desire to flee; and more than once some harmless small beast,
rustling a few yards off, startled me to alarm. But in the village
nothing stirred, and the aloof, shadowy huts, scattered here and there
like the monsters of a nightmare, seemed to bristle with unspeakable
menace.

Yet nothing menacing became visible as the long reaches of the night
dragged by and the constellations still swung monotonously between the
faint black line of the eastern ranges and the equally faint black
peaks to the west. At length, lulled by the sameness and the silence,
I must have forgotten myself, must have drowsed a bit, for I have a
recollection of coming to myself with a start, bewildered and with half
clouded senses.... The night was as tranquil as before, the trees and
houses as dark; but as I glanced skyward I detected the merest touch
of gray. And, at the same time, I had a singular sense that I was no
longer alone. Intently I gazed into the gloom--still nothing visible.
But all the while that same shuddery feeling persisted, as if unseen
eyes were watching me, unseen ears listening to my every motion.
Again I felt an impulse to flee; my limbs quivered; my heart pounded;
instinctively I crawled deeper into the bushes. And, as I did so, I saw
that which made me catch my breath in horror.

From behind one of the nearer cabins, two long lithe shadows darted,
gliding noiselessly toward me through the darkness. No ghost could
have shown dimmer outlines, or walked on more silent feet, or flooded
my whole being with more uncanny sensations. Straight toward me they
strode, looming gigantic in my tortured imagination; and as they
approached I hugged the bushes more closely, trembling lest the
phantoms discover me. Then suddenly they swerved aside, and passed at
a dozen paces; and through the stillness of the night came the dull
rhythm of sandalled feet.

For a minute I watched in silence. Then, encouraged by the pale
radiance which was swallowing the feebler stars and softening the
blackness above, I choked down my fears and crept stealthily out of the
thicket. Before me the two shadows were still vaguely visible, gliding
rapidly toward the southern woods. Like a detective trailing his prey,
I stumbled among the weeds and rocks in their wake. But, all the time,
I felt that I was pursuing mere wraiths; and, though I walked my
swiftest, I found it impossible to gain upon them. They were several
hundred yards ahead, and several hundred yards ahead they remained,
while I put forth my utmost effort and they appeared to make no effort
at all. And at last, to my dismay, they reached the shaggy boundary of
the woods; merged with it; and were blotted out.

With what poor patience I could still command, I took the only possible
course. While dawn lent gradual color to the skies, I hovered at the
forest edge; and in the first dismal twilight I began to inspect the
ground, hopeful of discovering some telltale evidence.

But no evidence was to be had. I did indeed find the footprints I was
looking for; the trouble was that I found too many footprints. Not two
persons but twenty had passed on this path, which I recognized as a
trail leading toward Yulada. But all the tracks were new-made, and all
equally obscured by the others; and it was impossible to say which were
the freshest, or to follow any in particular.

* * * * *

When I returned to the village, not a person was stirring among the
cabins; an unearthly stillness brooded over the place, and I could have
imagined it to be a town of the dead. Had I not been utterly fatigued
by my night in the open, I might have been struck even more strongly
by the solitude, and have paused to investigate; as it was, I made
straight for my own hut, flung myself down upon my straw couch, and
sank into a sleep from which I did not awaken until well past noon.

After a confused and hideous dream, in which I lay chained to a glacier
while an arctic wind blew through my garments, I opened my eyes with
the impression that the nightmare had been real. A powerful wind _was_
blowing! I could hear it blustering and wailing among the treetops;
through my open window it flickered and sallied with a breath that
seemed straight from the Pole. Leaping to my feet, I hastily closed the
great shutters I had constructed of pine wood; and, at the same time,
I caught glimpses of gray skies with a scudding rack of clouds, and of
little white flakes driving and reeling down.

In my surprise at this change in the weather, I was struck by
premonitions as bleak as the bleak heavens. What of Yasma? How would
she behave in the storm?--she who was apparently unprepared for the
winter! Though I tried to convince myself that there was no cause for
concern, an unreasoning something within me insisted that there was
cause indeed. It was not a minute, therefore, before I was slipping on
my goatskin coat.

But I might have spared my pains. At this instant there came a tapping
from outside, and my heart began to beat fiercely as I shouted, "Come
in!"

The log door moved upon its hinges, and a short slim figure slipped
inside.

"Yasma!" I cried, surprised and delighted, as I forced the door shut
in the face of the blast. But my surprise was swiftly to grow, and
my delight to die; at sight of her wild, sad eyes, I started back in
wonder and dismay. In part they burned with a mute resignation, and
in part with the unutterable pain of one bereaved; yet at the same
time her face was brightened with an indefinable exultation, as though
beneath that vivid countenance some secret ecstasy glowed and smoldered.

"I have come to say good-bye," she murmured, in dreary tones. "I have
come to say good-bye."

"Good-bye!"--It was as though I had heard that word long ago in a
bitter dream. Yet how could I accept the decree? Passion took fire
within me as I seized Yasma and pressed her to me.

"Do not leave me!" I pleaded. "Oh, why must you go away? Where must
you go? Tell me, Yasma, tell me! Why must I stay here alone the whole
winter long? Why can't I go with you? Or why can't you stay with me?
Stay here, Yasma! We could be so happy together, we two!"

Tears came into her eyes at this appeal.

"You make me sad, very sad," she sighed, as she freed herself from my
embrace. "I do not want to leave you here alone--and yet, oh what else
can I do? The cold days have come, and my people call me, and I must go
where the flowers are. Oh, you don't know how gladly I'd have you come
with us; but you don't understand the way, and can't find it, and I
can't show it to you. So I must go now, I must go, I must! for soon the
last bird will have flown south."

Again she held out her hands as for a friendly greeting, and again I
took her into my arms, this time with all the desperation of impending
loss, for I was filled with a sense of certainties against which it was
useless to struggle, and felt as if by instinct that she would leave
despite all I could do or say.

But I did not realize quite how near the moment was. Slipping from my
clasp, she flitted to the door, forcing it slightly open, so that the
moaning and howling of the gale became suddenly accentuated. "Until the
spring!" she cried, in mournful tones that seemed in accord with the
tumult of the elements. "Until the spring!"--And a smile of boundless
yearning and compassion glimmered across her face. Then the door
rattled to a close, and I stood alone in that chilly room.

Blindly, like one bereft of his senses, I plunged out of the cabin,
regardless of the gale, regardless of the snow that came wheeling down
in dizzy flurries. But Yasma was not to be seen. For a moment I stood
staring into the storm; then time after time I called out her name, to
be answered only by the wind that sneered and snorted its derision. And
at length, warmed into furious action, I set out at a sprint for her
cabin, racing along unconscious of the buffeting blast and the beaten
snow that pricked and stung my face.

All in vain! Arriving at Yasma's home, I flung open the great pine
door without ceremony--to be greeted by the emptiness within. For many
minutes I waited; but Yasma did not come, and the tempest shrieked and
chuckled more fiendishly than ever.

At last, when the early twilight was dimming the world, I threaded
a path back along the whitening ground, and among cabins with roofs
like winter. Not a living being greeted me; and through the wide-open
windows of the huts I had glimpses of naked and untenanted logs.

_Blossom and Seed_

CHAPTER XI

_THE PRISONER_

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!"

CHAPTER XII

_THE MISTRESS OF THE PEAK_

During the long months of solitude I let my gaze travel frequently
toward the southern mountains and Yulada. Like the image of sardonic
destiny, she still stood afar on the peak, aloof and imperturbable,
beckoning and unexplained as always.... And again she drew me toward
her with that inexplicable fascination which had been my undoing. As
when I had first seen her from that other valley to the south, I felt
a curious desire to mount to her, to stand at her feet, to inspect her
closely and lay my hands upon her; and against that desire neither
Yasma's warnings nor my own reason had any power. She was for me the
unknown; she represented the mysterious, the alluring, the unattained,
and all that was most youthful and alive within me responded to her
call.

Yet Yulada was a discreet divinity, and did not offer herself too
readily to the worshipper. Was it that she kept herself deliberately
guarded, careful not to encourage the intruder? So I almost thought as
I made attempt after attempt to reach her. It is true, of course, that
I did not choose the most favorable season; likewise, it is true that I
was exceedingly reckless, for solitary mountain climbing in winter is
hardly a sport for the cautious. But, even so, I could not stamp out
the suspicion that more than natural agencies were retarding me.

My first attempt occurred but a week after Yasma's departure. Most
of the recent snow had melted from the mountain slopes, and the
temperature was so mild that I foresaw no exceptional difficulties. I
had just a qualm, I must admit, about breaking my word to Yasma--but
had the promise not been extorted by unfair pleas? So, at least, I
reasoned; and, having equipped myself with my goatskin coat, with a
revolver and matches, and with food enough to last overnight if need
be, I set out early one morning along one of the trails I had followed
with Karem.

For two hours I advanced rapidly enough, reaching the valley's end and
mounting along a winding path amid pine woods. The air was brisk and
invigorating, the sky blue and clear; scarcely a breeze stirred, and
scarcely a cloud drifted above. From time to time, through rifts in the
foliage, I could catch glimpses of my goal, that gigantic steel-gray
womanly form with hands everlastingly pointed toward the clouds and
the stars. She seemed never to draw nearer, though my feet did not lag
in the effort to reach her; but the day was still young, and I was
confident that long before sunset I should meet her face to face.

Then suddenly my difficulties began. The trail became stonier and
steeper, though that did not surprise me; the trail became narrower
and occasionally blocked with snow, though that did not surprise me
either; great boulders loomed in my way, and sometimes I had to crawl
at the brink of a ravine, though that again I had expected. But the
real obstacle was not anticipated. Turning a bend in the wooded trail,
I was confronted with a sheer wall of rock, a granite mass broken at
one end by a sort of natural stairway over which it seemed possible
to climb precariously. I remembered how Karem and I had helped one
another up this very ascent, which was by no means the most difficult
on the mountain; but in the past month or two its aspect had changed
alarmingly. A coating of something white and glistening covered the
rock; in places the frosty crystals had the look of a frozen waterfall,
and in places the icicles pointed downward in long shaggy rows.

Would it be possible to pass? I could not tell, but did not hesitate to
try; and before long I had an answer. I had mounted only a few yards
when my feet gave way, and I went sprawling backward down the rocky
stair. How near I was to destruction I did not know; the first thing I
realized was that I was clinging to the overhanging branch of a tree,
while beneath me gaped an abyss that seemed bottomless.

A much frightened but a soberer man, I pulled myself into the tree, and
climbed back to safety. As I regained the ground, I had a glimpse of
Yulada standing silently far above, with a thin wisp of vapor across
her face, as if to conceal the grim smile that may have played there.
But I had seen enough of her for one day, and slowly and thoughtfully
took my way back to the valley.

From that time forth, and during most of the winter, I had little
opportunity for further assaults upon Yulada. If that thin coat of
November ice had been enough to defeat me, what of the more stubborn
ice of December and the deep drifts of January snow? Even had there not
been prospects of freezing to death among the bare, wind-beaten crags,
I should not have dared to entrust myself to the trails for fear of
wolf-packs. Yet all winter Yulada stared impassively above, a mockery
and a temptation--the only thing in human form that greeted me during
those interminable months!

I shall pass over the eternities between my first attempt upon Yulada
in November and my more resolute efforts in March. But I must not
forget to describe my physical changes. I had grown a bushy brown
beard, which hid my chin and upper lip and spread raggedly over my
face; my hair hung as long and untended as a wild man's; while from
unceasing exertions in the open, my limbs had developed a strength they
had never known before, and I could perform tasks that would have
seemed impossible a few months earlier.

Hence it was with confidence that I awaited the spring. Daily I scanned
the mountains after the first sign of a thaw in the streams; I noted
how streaks and furrows gradually appeared in the white of the higher
slopes; how the gray rocky flanks began to protrude, first almost
imperceptibly, then more boldly, as though casting off an unwelcome
garb, until great mottled patches stood unbared to the sunlight. Toward
the middle of March there came a week of unseasonably warm days, when
the sun shone from a cloudless sky and a new softness was in the air.
And then, when half the winter apparel of the peaks was disappearing
as at a magic touch and the streams ran full to the brim and the lake
overflowed, I decided to pay my long-postponed visit to Yulada.

Almost exultantly I set forth early one morning. The first stages of
the climb could hardly have been easier; it was as though nature had
prepared the way. The air was clear and stimulating, yet not too cool;
and the comparative warmth had melted the last ice from the lower
rocks. Exhilarated by the exercise, I mounted rapidly over slopes
that would once have been a formidable barrier. Still Yulada loomed
afar, with firm impassive face as always; but I no longer feared her,
for surely, I thought, I should this day touch her with my own hands!
As I strode up and up in the sunlight, I smiled to remember my old
superstitions--what was Yulada after all but a rock, curiously shaped
perhaps, but no more terrifying than any other rock!

Even when I had passed the timber-line, and strode around the
blue-white glaciers at the brink of bare ravines, I still felt an
unwonted bravado. Yulada was drawing nearer, noticeably nearer, her
features clear-cut on the peak--and how could she resist my coming?
In my self-confidence, I almost laughed aloud, almost laughed out a
challenge to that mysterious figure, for certainly the few intervening
miles could not halt me!

So, at least, I thought. But Yulada, if she were capable of thinking,
must have held otherwise. Even had she been endowed with reason and
with omnipotence, she could hardly have made a more terrible answer to
my challenge. I was still plodding up the long, steep grades, still
congratulating myself upon approaching success, when I began to notice
a change in the atmosphere. It was not only that the air was growing
sharper and colder, for that I had expected; it was that a wind was
rising from the northwest, blowing over me with a wintry violence. In
alarm, I glanced back--a stone-gray mass of clouds was sweeping over
the northern mountains, already casting a shadow across the valley, and
threatening to enwrap the entire heavens.

Too well I recognized the signs--only too well! With panicky speed,
more than once risking a perilous fall, I plunged back over the path
I had so joyously followed. The wind rose till it blew with an almost
cyclonic fury; the clouds swarmed above me, angry and ragged-edged;
Yulada was forgotten amid my dread visions of groping through a
blizzard. Yet once, as I reached a turn in the trail, I caught a
glimpse of her standing far above, her lower limbs overshadowed by the
mists, her head obscured as though thus to mock my temerity.

And what if I did finally return to my cabin safely? Before I had
regained the valley, the snow was whirling about me on the arms of the
high wind, and the whitened earth, the chill air and the screeching
gale had combined to accentuate my sense of defeat.

It might be thought that I would now renounce the quest. But there is
in my nature some stubbornness that only feeds on opposition; and far
from giving up, I watched impatiently till the storm subsided and the
skies were washed blue once more; till the warmer days came and the new
deposits of snow thawed on the mountain slopes. Two weeks after being
routed by the elements, I was again on the trail to Yulada.

The sky was once more clear and calm; a touch of spring was in the air,
and the sun was warmer than in months. Determined that no ordinary
obstacle should balk me, I trudged with scarcely a pause along the
winding trail; and, before many hours, I had mounted above the last
fringe of the pines and deodars. At last I reached the point where
I had had to turn back two weeks ago; at last I found myself nearer
to the peak than ever before on all my solitary rambles, and saw the
path leading ahead over bare slopes and around distorted crags toward
the great steel-gray figure. The sweetness of triumph began to flood
through my mind as I saw Yulada take on monstrous proportions, the
proportions of a fair-sized hill; I was exultant as I glanced at the
sky, and observed it to be still serene. There remained one more
elevated saddle to be crossed, then an abrupt but not impossible grade
of a few hundred yards--probably no more than half an hour's exertion,
and Yulada and I should stand together on the peak!

But again the unexpected was to intervene. If I had assumed that no
agency earthly or divine could now keep me from my goal, I had reckoned
without my human frailties. It was a little thing that betrayed me,
and yet a thing that seemed great enough. I had mounted the rocky
saddle and was starting on a short descent before the final lap, when
enthusiasm made me careless. Suddenly I felt myself slipping!

Fortunately, the fall was not a severe one; after sliding for a few
yards over the stones, I was stopped with a jolt by a protruding rock.

Somewhat dazed, I started to arise ... when a sharp pain in my left
ankle filled me with alarm. What if a tendon had been sprained? Among
these lonely altitudes, that might be a calamity! But when I attempted
to walk, I found my injury not quite so bad as I had feared. The ankle
caused me much pain, yet was not wholly useless; so that I diagnosed
the trouble as a simple strain rather than a sprain.

But there could be no further question of reaching Yulada that day.
With a bitter glance at the disdainful, indomitable mistress of the
peak, I started on my way back to Sobul. And I was exceedingly lucky to
get back at all, for my ankle distressed me more and more as I plodded
downward, and there were moments when it seemed as if it would not bear
me another step.

So slowly did I move that I had to make camp that evening on the
bare slopes at the edge of the forest; and it was not until late the
following day that I re-entered the village. And all during the return
trip, when I lay tossing in the glow of the campfire, or when I clung
to the wall-like ledges in hazardous descents, I was obsessed by
strange thoughts; and in my dreams that night I saw a huge taunting
face, singularly like Yulada's, which mocked me that I should match my
might against the mountain's.

CHAPTER XIII

_THE BIRDS FLY NORTH_

It was with a flaming expectation and a growing joy that I watched
the spring gradually burst into blossom. The appearance of the first
green grass, the unfolding of the pale yellowish leaves on the trees,
the budding of the earliest wildflowers and the cloudy pink and white
of the orchards, were as successive signals from a new world. And the
clear bright skies, the fresh gentle breezes, and the birds twittering
from unseen branches, all seemed to join in murmuring the same refrain:
the warmer days were coming, the days of my deliverance! Soon, very
soon, the Ibandru would be back! And among the Ibandru I should see
Yasma!

Every morning now I awakened with reborn hope; and every morning, and
all the day, I would go ambling about the village, peering into the
deserted huts and glancing toward the woods for sign of some welcome
returning figure. But at first all my waiting seemed of no avail. The
Ibandru did not return; and in the evening I would slouch back to my
cabin in dejection that would always make way for new hope. Day after
day passed thus; and meantime the last traces of winter were vanishing,
the fields became dotted with waving rose-red and violet and pale lemon
tints; the deciduous trees were taking on a sturdier green; insects
began to chirp and murmur in many a reviving chorus; and the woods
seemed more thickly populated with winged singers.

And while I waited and still waited, insidious fears crept into my
mind. Could it be that the Ibandru would not return at all?--that
Yasma had vanished forever, like the enchanted princess of a fairy tale?

But after I had tormented myself to the utmost, a veil was suddenly
lifted.

One clear day in mid-April I had strolled toward the woods, forgetting
my sorrows in contemplating the green spectacle of the valley. Suddenly
my attention was attracted by a swift-moving triangle of black dots,
which came winging across the mountains from beyond Yulada, approaching
with great speed and disappearing above the white-tipped opposite
ranges. I do not know why, but these birds--the first I had observed
flying north--filled me with an unreasonable hope; long after they were
out of sight I stood staring at the blue sky into which they had faded,
as though somehow it held the secret at which I clutched.

I was aroused from my reveries by the startled feeling that I was no
longer alone. At first there was no clear reason for this impression;
it was as though I had been informed by some vague super-sense.
Awakened to reality, I peered into the thickets, peered up at the sky,
scanned the trees and the earth alertly--but there was no sight or
sound to confirm my suspicions. Minutes passed, and still I waited,
expectant of some unusual event....

And then, while wonder kept pace with impatience, I thought I heard
a faint rustling in the woods. I was not sure, but I listened
intently.... Again the rustling, not quite so faint as before ... then
a crackling as of broken twigs! Still I was not sure--perhaps it was
but some tiny creature amid the underbrush. But, even as I doubted,
there came the crunching of dead leaves trodden under; then the
sound--unmistakably the sound--of human voices whispering!

My heart gave a thump; I was near to shouting in my exultation. Happy
tears rolled down my cheeks; I had visions of Yasma returning, Yasma
clasped once more in my arms--when I became aware of two dark eyes
staring at me from amid the shrubbery.

"Karem!" I cried, and sprang forward to seize the hands of my friend.

Truly enough, it was Karem--Karem as I had last seen him, Karem in the
same blue and red garments, somewhat thinner perhaps, but otherwise
unchanged!

He greeted me with an emotion that seemed to match my own. "It is long,
long since we have met!" was all he was able to say, as he shook both
my hands warmly, while peering at me at arm's length.

Then forth from the bushes emerged a second figure, whom I recognized
as Julab, another youth of the tribe. He too was effusive in his
greetings; he too seemed delighted at our reunion.

But if I was no less delighted, it was not chiefly of the newcomers
that I was thinking. One thought kept flashing through my mind, and I
could not wait to give it expression. How about Yasma? Where was she
now? When should I see her? Such questions I poured forth in a torrent,
scarcely caring how my anxiety betrayed me.

"Yasma is safe," was Karem's terse reply. "You will see her before
long, though just when I cannot say."

And that was the most definite reply I could wrench from him. Neither
he nor Julab would discuss the reappearance of their people; they would
not say where they had been, nor how far they had gone, nor how they
had returned, nor what had happened during their absence. But they
insisted on turning the conversation in my direction. They assured me
how much relieved they were to find me alive and well; they questioned
me eagerly as to how I had passed my time; they commented with zest
upon my changed appearance, my ragged clothes and dense beard; and
they ended by predicting that better days were in store.

More mystified than ever, I accompanied the two men to their cabins.

"We must make ready to till the fields," they reminded me, as we
approached the village, "for when the trees again lose their leaves
there will be another harvest." And they showed me where, unknown to
me, spades and shovels and plows had been stored in waterproof vaults
beneath the cabins; and they surprised me by pointing out the bins of
wheat and sacks of nuts and dried fruits, preserved from last year's
produce and harbored underground, so that when the people returned to
Sobul they might have full rations until the ripening of the new crop.

Before the newcomers had been back an hour, they were both hard at work
in the fields. I volunteered my assistance; and was glad to be able to
wield a shovel or harrow after my long aimless months. The vigorous
activity in the open air helped to calm my mind and to drive away my
questionings; yet it could not drive them away wholly, and I do not
know whether my thoughts were most on the soil I made ready for seeding
or on things far-away and strange. Above all, I kept thinking of Yasma,
kept remembering her in hope that alternated with dejection. Could it
be true, as Karem had said, that I was to see her soon? Surely, she
must know how impatiently I was waiting! She would not be the last of
her tribe to reappear!

That night I had but little sleep; excited visions of Yasma permitted
me to doze away only by brief dream-broken snatches. But when the gray
of dawn began to creep in through the open window, sheer weariness
forced an hour's slumber; and I slept beyond my usual time, and awoke
to find the room bright with sunlight.

As I opened my eyes, I became conscious of voices without--murmuring
voices that filled me with an unreasoning joy. I peered out of the
window--no one to be seen! Excitedly I slipped on my coat, and burst
out of the door--still no one visible! Then from behind one of the
cabins came the roar of half a dozen persons in hearty laughter ...
laughter that was the most welcome I had ever heard.

I did not pause to ask myself who the newcomers were; did not stop to
wonder whether there were any feminine members of the group. I dashed
off crazily, and in an instant found myself confronted by--five or six
curiously staring men.

I know that I was indeed a sight; that my eyes bulged; that surprise
and disappointment shone in every line of my face. Otherwise, the men
would have been quicker to greet me, for instantly we recognized each
other. They were youths of the Ibandru tribe, all known to me from last
autumn; and they seemed little changed by their long absence, except
that, like Julab and Karem, they appeared a trifle thinner.

"Are there any more of you here?" I demanded, after the first words of
explanation and welcome. "Are there--are there any--"

Curious smiles flickered across their faces.

"No, it is not quite time yet for the women," one of them replied, as
if reading my thoughts. "We men must come first to break the soil and
put the village in readiness."

* * * * *

If I had been of no practical use to the Ibandru in the fall, I was to
be plunged into continuous service this spring. Daily now I repeated
that first afternoon's help I had lent Karem in the fields; and when
I did not serve Karem himself, I aided one of his tribesmen, working
from sunrise to sunset with occasional intervals of rest.

It was well that I had this occupation, for it tended to keep me sane.
After three or four days, my uneasiness would have amounted to agony
had my labors not provided an outlet. For I kept looking for one
familiar form; and that form did not appear. More than twenty of the
men had returned, but not a single woman or child; and I had the dull
tormenting sense that I might not see Yasma for weeks yet.

This was the thought that oppressed me one morning when I began tilling
a little patch of land near the forest edge. My implements were of
the crudest, a mere shovel and spade to break the soil in primitive
fashion; and as I went through the laborious motions, my mind was less
on the task I performed than on more personal things. I could not
keep from thinking of Yasma with a sad yearning, wondering as to her
continued absence, and offering up silent prayers that I might see her
soon again.

And while I bent pessimistically over my spade, a strange song burst
forth from the woods, a bird-song trilling with the rarest delicacy
and sweetness. Enchanted, I listened; never before had I heard a song
of quite that elfin, ethereal quality. I could not recognize from what
feathered minstrel it came; I could only stand transfixed at its fluted
melody, staring in vain toward the thick masses of trees for a glimpse
of the tiny musician.

It could not have been more than a minute before the winged enchantress
fell back into silence; but in that time the world had changed. Its
black hostility had vanished; a spirit of beauty surrounded me again,
and I had an inexplicable feeling that all would be well.

And as I gazed toward the forest, still hopeful of seeing the
sweet-voiced warbler, I was greeted by an unlooked-for vision.

Framed in a sort of natural doorway of the woods, where the pale green
foliage was parted in a little arched opening, stood a slender figure
with gleaming dark eyes and loose-flowing auburn hair.

"Yasma!" I shouted. And my heart pounded as if it would burst; and my
limbs shuddered, and my breath came fast; and the silent tears flowed
as I staggered forward with outspread arms.

Without a word she glided forth to meet me, and in an instant we were
locked in an embrace.

It must have been minutes before we parted. Not a syllable did we
speak; ours was a reunion such as sundered lovers may know beyond the
grave.

When at length our arms slipped apart and I gazed at the familiar face,
her cheeks were wet but her eyes were glistening. It might have been
but an hour since we had met, for she did not seem changed at all.

"Oh, my beloved," she murmured, using the first term of endearment I
had ever heard from her lips, "it has been so long since I have seen
you! So long, oh, how long!"

"It has been long for me too. Longer than whole years. Oh, Yasma, why
did you have to leave?"

A frown flitted across the beautiful face, and the luminous eyes became
momentarily sad. "Do not ask that!" she begged. "Oh, do not ask now!"
And, seeing her distress, I was sorry that the unpremeditated question
had slipped from my lips.

"All that counts, Yasma," said I, gently, "is that you are here now.
For that I thank whatever powers have had you in their keeping."

"Thank Yulada!" she suggested, cryptically, with a motion toward the
southern mountains.

It was now my turn to frown.

"Oh, tell me, tell me all that has happened during the long winter!"
she demanded, almost passionately, as I clutched both her hands and she
stared up at me with an inquiring gaze. "You look so changed! So worn
and tired out, as if you had been through great sufferings! Did you
really suffer so much?"

"My greatest suffering, Yasma, was the loneliness I felt for you. That
was harder to bear than the blizzards. But, thank heaven! that is over
now. You won't ever go away from me again, will you, Yasma?"

She averted her eyes, then impulsively turned from me, and stood
staring toward that steel-gray figure on the peak. It was a minute
before she faced me again; and when she did so it was with lips drawn
and compressed.

"We must not talk of such things!" she urged, with pleading in her
eyes. "We must be happy, happy now while we can be, and not question
what is to come!"

"Of course, we must be happy now," I agreed. But her reply had aroused
my apprehensions, and even at the moment of reunion I wondered whether
she had come only to flutter away again like a feather or a cloud.

"See how quick I came back to you!" she cried, as though to divert
my mind. "I left before all the other women, for I knew you would be
waiting here, lonely for me."

"And were you too lonely, Yasma?"

"Oh, yes! Very lonely! I never knew such loneliness before!" And the
great brown eyes again took on a melancholy glow, which brightened into
a happy luster as she looked up at me confidently and reassuringly.

"Then let's neither of us be lonely again!" I entreated. And
forgetting my spade and shovel and the half-tilled field, I drew her
with me into the seclusion of the woods, and sat down with her by a bed
of freshly uncurling ferns beneath the shaded bole of a great oak.

"Remember, Yasma," I said, while I held both her hands and she peered
at me out of eyes large with emotion, "you made me a promise about the
spring. I asked you a question--the most important question any human
being can ask another--and you did not give me a direct answer, but
promised you would let me know when the leaves were again sprouting
on the trees. That time has come now, and I am anxious for my answer,
because I have had long, so very long to wait."

Again I noticed a constraint about her manner. She hesitated before the
first words came; then spoke tremblingly and with eyes downcast.

"I know that you have had long to wait, and I do not want to keep you
in suspense! I wish I could answer you now, answer outright, so that
there would never be another question--but oh, I cannot!--not yet, not
yet! Please don't think I want to cause you pain, for there's no one
on earth I want less to hurt! Please!"--And she held out her hands
imploringly, and her fingers twitched, and deep agitated streams of red
coursed to her cheeks.

"I know you don't want to hurt me--" I assured her.

But she halted me with a passionate outburst.

"All I know is that I love you, love you, love you!" she broke out,
with the fury of a vehement wild thing; and for a moment we were again
clasped in a tight embrace.

"But if you love me, Yasma," I pleaded, when her emotion had nearly
spent itself, "why treat me so oddly? Why not be perfectly frank?
I love you too, Yasma. Why not say you will be my wife? For I want
you with me always, always! Oh, I'd gladly live with you here in
Sobul--but if we could we'd go away, far, far away, to my own land, and
see things you never saw in your strangest dreams! What do you say,
Yasma?"

Yasma said nothing at all. She sat staring straight ahead, her fingers
folding and unfolding over some dead twigs, her lips drawn into rigid
lines that contrasted strangely with her moist eyes and cheeks.

"You promised that in the spring you would tell me," I reminded her,
gently.

I do not know what there was in these words to arouse her to frenzy.
Abruptly she sprang to her feet, all trace of composure gone; her eyes
blazed with unaccountable fires as she hurled forth her answer.

"Very well then, I will tell you! I cannot say yes to you, and I
cannot say no--I cannot, cannot! Go see my father, Abthar, as soon
as he returns--he will tell you! Go see him--and Hamul-Kammesh, the
soothsayer."

"Why Hamul-Kammesh?"

"Don't ask me--ask them!" she cried, with passion. "I've told you all I
can! You'll find out, you'll find out soon enough!"

To my astonishment, her fury was lost amid a tumult of sobbing. No
longer the passionate woman but the heart-broken child, she wept
as though she had nothing more to live for; and when I came to her
consolingly, she flung convulsive arms about me, and clung to me as
though afraid I would vanish. And then, while the storm gradually died
down and her slender form shook less spasmodically and the tears flowed
in dwindling torrents, I whispered tender and soothing things into
her ear; but all the time a new and terrible dread was in my heart,
for I was certain that Yasma had not told me everything, but that her
outburst could be explained only by some close-guarded and dire secret.

CHAPTER XIV

_THE WARNING_

Had it been possible to consult Abthar immediately in the effort to
fathom Yasma's strange conduct, I would have wasted only so much time
as was necessary to take me to the father's cabin. But, unfortunately,
I must remain in suspense. So far as I knew, Abthar had not yet
returned to the village; and none of the townsfolk seemed sure when he
would be back. "He will come before the last blossom buds on the wild
rose," was the only explanation they would offer; and knowing that it
was not the way of the Ibandru to be definite, I had to be content with
this response.

True, I might have followed Yasma's suggestion and sought advice of
Hamul-Kammesh, since already that Rip Van Winkle figure was to be seen
shuffling about the village. But ever since the time, months before,
when he had visited my sick-room and denounced me to the people, I had
disliked him profoundly; and I would about as soon have thought of
consulting a hungry tiger.

And so my only choice was to wait for Abthar's return. The interval
could not have been more than a week; but during all that time I
suffered torments. How to approach him, after his return, was a
question that occupied me continually. Should I ask him bluntly what
secret there was connected with Yasma? Or should I be less direct but
more open, and frankly describe my feelings? It was only after much
thought that I decided that it would be best to come to him candidly as
a suitor in quest of his daughter's hand.

I well remember with what mixed feelings I recognized Abthar's tall
figure once more in the village. What if, not unlike some western
fathers, he should be outraged at the idea of uniting his daughter to
an alien? Or what if he should mention some tribal law that forbade my
alliance to Yasma? or should inform me that she was already betrothed?
These and other possibilities presented themselves in a tormenting
succession ... so that, when at length I did see Abthar, I was hampered
by a weight of imaginary ills.

As on a previous occasion, I found the old man working among his vines.
Bent over his hoe, he was uprooting the weeds so diligently that at
first he did not appear to see me; and I had to hail him loudly before
he looked up with a start and turned upon me those searching proud
brown eyes of his.

We exchanged greetings as enthusiastically as old friends who have not
met for some time; while, abandoning his hoe, Abthar motioned me to a
seat beside him on a little mound of earth.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour our conversation consisted mostly of
questions on his part and answers on mine; for he was eager to know how
I had passed the winter, and had no end of inquiries to make.

For my own part, I refrained from asking that question which bewildered
me most of all: how had he and his people passed the winter? It was
with extreme difficulty that I halted the torrent of his solicitous
queries, and informed him that I had a confession to offer and a
request to make.

Abthar looked surprised, and added to my embarrassment by stating how
gratified he felt that I saw fit to confide in him.

I had to reply, of course, that there was a particular reason for
confiding in him, since my confession concerned his daughter Yasma.

"My daughter Yasma?" he repeated, starting up as though I had dealt him
a blow. And he began stroking his long grizzled beard solemnly, and the
keen inquiring eyes peered at me as though they would bore their way
straight through me and ferret out my last thought.

"What about my daughter Yasma?" he asked, after a pause, and in tones
that seemed to bristle with just a trace of hostility.

As tranquilly as I could, I explained how much Yasma had come to mean
to me; how utterly I was captivated by her, how desirous of making
her my wife. And, concluding with perhaps more tact than accuracy, I
remarked that in coming to him to request the hand of his daughter, I
was taking the course considered proper in my own country.

In silence Abthar heard me to the last word. He did not interrupt
when I paused as if anxious for comment; did not offer so much as a
syllable's help when I hesitated or stammered; did not permit any
emotion to cross his weather-beaten bronzed features. But he gazed at
me with a disquieting fixity and firmness; and the look in his alert
stern eyes showed that he had not missed a gesture or a word.

Even after I had finished, he sat regarding me contemplatively without
speaking. Meanwhile my fingers twitched; my heart thumped at a telltale
speed; I felt like a prisoner arraigned before the bar. But he, the
judge, appeared unaware of my agitation, and would not break my
suspense until he had fully decided upon his verdict.

Yet his first words were commonplace enough.

"I had never expected anything at all like this," he said, in low sad
tones. "Nothing like this has ever been known among our people. We
Ibandru have seen little of strangers; none of our young people have
ever taken mates outside the tribe. And so your confession comes as a
shock."

"It should not come as a shock," was all I could mumble in reply.

"Were I as other fathers," continued the old man, suavely, "I might
rise up and order you expelled from our land. Or I might grow angry
and shout, and forbid you to see my daughter again. Or I might be
crafty, and ask you to engage in feats of prowess with the young
men of the town--and so might prove your unworthiness. Or I might
send your request to the tribal council, which would decide against
you. But I shall do none of these things. Once I too was young, and
once I too--" here his voice faltered, and his eyes grew soft with
reminiscence--"once I too knew what it was to love. So I shall try
not to be too harsh, my friend. But you ask that which I fear is
impossible. For your sake, I am sorry that it is impossible. But it is
my duty to show you why."

During this speech my heart had sunk until it seemed dead and cold
within me. It was as if a world had been shattered before my eyes;
as if in the echoes of my own thoughts I heard that fateful word,
"Impossible, impossible, impossible!"

"There are so many things to consider, so many things you cannot even
know," Abthar proceeded, still stroking his beard meditatively, while
my restless fingers toyed with the clods of earth, and my eyes followed
absently the wanderings of an ant lost amid those mountainous masses.
"But let me explain as well as I can. I shall try to talk to you as a
friend, and forget for the time that I am Yasma's father. I shall say
nothing of my hopes for her, and how I always thought to see her happy
with some sturdy young tribesman, with my grandchildren upon her knee.
I shall say nothing of the years that are past, and how I have tried
to do my best for her, a motherless child; how sometimes I blundered
and sometimes misunderstood, and was more anxious about her and more
blest by her than you or she will ever know. Let that all be forgotten.
What concerns us now is that you are proposing to make both her and
yourself more unhappy than any outcast."

"Unhappy!" I exclaimed, with an unconscious gesture to the blue skies
to witness how I was misjudged. "Unhappy! May the lightning strike me
down if I don't want to make her happier than a queen!"

"So you say," replied the old man, with just the hint of a cynical
smile, "and so you no doubt believe. We all set out in life to make
ourselves and others happy--and how many of us succeed? Just now,
Yasma's blackest enemy could not do her greater mischief."

"Oh, don't say that!" I protested, clenching my fists with a show of
anger. "Have you so far misunderstood me? Do you believe that I--that
I--"

"I believe your motives are of the worthiest," interrupted Abthar,
quietly. "But let us be calm. It is not your fault that your union with
Yasma would be a mistake; circumstances beyond all men's control would
make it so."

"What circumstances?"

"Many circumstances. Some of them concern only you; some only Yasma.
But suppose we begin with you. I will forget that Yasma and I really
know very little about you; about your country, your people, your past.
I am confident of your good faith; and for that reason, and because I
consider you my friend, I do not want to see you beating your heart out
on the rocks. Yet what would happen? Either you would find your way
back to your own land and take Yasma with you, or else you would live
with her in Sobul. And either course would be disastrous.

"Let us first say that you took her with you to your own country. I
have heard only vague rumors as to that amazing land; but I am certain
what its effect would be. Have you ever seen a wild duck with a broken
wing, or a robin in a cage? Have you ever thought how a doe must feel
when it can no longer roam the fields, or an eagle when barred from
the sky? Think of these, and then think how Yasma will be when the
lengthening days can no longer bring her back to Sobul!"

The old man paused, and with an eloquent gesture pointed to the jagged,
snow-streaked circle of the peaks and to the far-off, mysterious figure
of Yulada.

"Yes, yes, I have thought of that," I groaned.

"Then here is what we must expect. If you should take Yasma with you
to your own country, she would perish--yes, she would perish no matter
how kind you were to her, for endless exile is an evil that none of us
Ibandru can endure. Yet if you remained with her in Sobul, you would be
exiled from your own land and people."

"That is only too true," I sighed, for the thought was not exactly new
to me.

But at that instant I chanced to catch a distant glimpse of an
auburn-haired figure lithely skirting the further fields; and the full
enchantment of Yasma was once more upon me.

"It would be worth the exile!" I vowed, madly. "Well, well worth it!
For Yasma's sake, I'd stay here gladly!"

"Yes, gladly," repeated the old man, with a sage nod. "I know you would
stay here gladly--for a while. But it would not take many years, my
friend, not many years before you would be weary almost to death of
this quiet little valley and its people. Why, you would be weary of us
now were it not for Yasma. And then some day, when unexpectedly you
found the route back to your own world, you would pick up your things
and silently go."

"Never! By all I have ever loved, I could not!" I swore. "Not while
Yasma remained!"

"Very well, let us suppose you would stay here," conceded Abthar,
hastily, as though skimming over a distasteful topic. "Then if your
life were not ruined, Yasma's would be. There are reasons you may not
be aware of."

"There seems to be much here that I am not aware of."

"No doubt," Abthar admitted, in matter-of-fact tones. And then, with
a gesture toward the southern peak, "Yulada has secrets not for every
man's understanding."

For an instant he paused, in contemplation of the statue-like figure;
then quickly continued, "Now here, my friend, is the thing to remember.
Take the migration from which we are just returning. Do not imagine
that we make such a pilgrimage only once in a lifetime. Every autumn,
when the birds fly south, we follow in their wake; and every spring we
return with the northward-winging flocks."

"Every autumn--and every spring!" I gasped, in dismay, for Abthar had
confirmed my most dismal surmises.

"Yes, every autumn and every spring. How would you feel, my friend,
with a wife that left you five months or six every year? How do you
think your wife would feel when she had to leave?"

"But would she have to leave? Why would she? After we were married,
would she not be willing to stay here?"

"She might be willing--but would she be able?" asked Abthar, pointedly.
"This is no matter of choice; it is a law of her nature. It is a
law of the nature of all Ibandru to go every autumn the way of the
southward-speeding birds. Could you ask the sap to stop flowing from
the roots of the awakening tree in April? Could you ask the fountains
not to pour down from the peaks when spring thaws the snow? Then ask
one of us Ibandru to linger in Sobul when the frosty days have come
and the last November leaf flutters earthward."

Abthar's words bewildered me utterly, as all reference to the flight
of the Ibandru had bewildered me before. But I did not hesitate to
admit my perplexity. "Your explanation runs contrary to all human
experience," I argued. "During my studies and travels, I have heard of
many races of men who differed much in habits and looks; but all were
moved by the same impulses, the same natural laws. You Ibandru alone
seem different. You disappear and reappear like phantoms, and claim to
do so because of an instinct never found in the natural world."

My companion sat staring at me quizzically. There was just a little
of surprise in his manner, just a little of good-natured indulgence,
and something of the smiling tolerance which one reserves for the
well-meaning and simple-minded.

"In spite of your seeming knowledge, my friend," he remarked at length,
"I see that you are really quite childish in your views. You are
mistaken in believing that we Ibandru do not follow natural laws. We
are guided not by an instinct unknown in the great world around us, but
by one that rules the lives of countless living things: the birds in
the air and the fishes in the streams, and even, if I am to believe the
tales I have heard, is found among certain furry animals in the wide
waters and at times among swarms of butterflies."

"But if you feel the same urge as these creatures, then why should only
you out of all men feel it?"

"No doubt it exists elsewhere, although weakened by unnatural ways of
life. Did it ever occur to you that it may have been common to all men
thousands of years ago? Did you never stop to think that you civilized
folk may have lost it, just as you have lost your keenness of scent
and sense of direction? while we Ibandru have preserved it by our
isolation and the simplicity of our lives? As your own fathers may have
been five hundred generations ago, so we Ibandru are today."

"But if your migration be a natural thing," I asked, remembering the
sundry mysteries of Sobul, "why make a secret of it? Why not tell me
where you go in winter? Indeed, why not take me with you?"

A strange light came into Abthar's eyes. There was something a little
secretive and yet something a little exalted in his manner as he lifted
both hands ardently toward Yulada, and declared, "There are truths of
which I dare not speak, truths that the tradition of my tribe will not
let me reveal. But do not misunderstand me, my friend; we must keep our
secrets for the sake of our own safety as well as because of Yulada.
If all that we do were known to the world, would we not be surrounded
by curious and unkindly throngs? Hence our ancient sages ordained that
when we Ibandru go away at the time of falling leaves we must go alone,
unless there be with us some understanding stranger--one who has felt
the same inspiration as we. But such a stranger has never appeared.
And until he does appear, Yulada will weave dread spells over him who
betrays her secrets!"

The old man paused, and I had no response to make.

"But all this is not what you came to see me about," he continued. "Let
us return to Yasma. Now that I have told you of our yearly migration,
you can judge of the folly you were contemplating. But let me mention
another fact, which even by itself would make your marriage foolhardy."

"What fact can that be?" I demanded, feeling as if a succession of
hammer strokes had struck me on the head.

"Again I must go out of my way to explain. For many generations, as far
back as our traditions go, there has been one of our number known as
a soothsayer, a priest of Yulada. His mission is to read the omens of
earth and sky, to scan the clouds and stars, and to tell us Yulada's
will. Sometimes his task has been difficult, for often Yulada has
hidden behind a mist; but at other times his duty has been clear as
light, and we have profited greatly from his wisdom. Yulada has never
been known to betray her worshipper; all those who have heeded her have
been blest, and all the scorners have lived to rue their scorn. And
so, for hundreds of years, as far back as we can remember, whenever
Hamul-Kammesh has foretold--"

"But how old under heaven is Hamul-Kammesh?"

"As old as the Ibandru," stated Abthar, simply. "As old as Yulada
herself. The physical form changes, but Hamul-Kammesh is always the
same. The father dies, and the son takes his place; but still we call
him Hamul-Kammesh, for still he is the mouthpiece of Yulada."

"Maybe so," I conceded. "But what has all this to do with Yasma?"

"More than I wish it had! More than I wish!" declared Yasma's father,
gloomily. "At the time of her birth a prophecy was made--"

"Prophecy?"

"Yes, a bitter prophecy! I well recall the day; the wild geese were
flying south, and Yulada's head and shoulders were hooded in gray
cloud. In that cloud a slit appeared and vanished; but we could
see that it took the form of a man--a man striding toward us from
across the mountains. At the same time, a flock of seventeen birds
went winging above the peak; so that Hamul-Kammesh, reflecting upon
these omens, was led to foretell a sad fate for the babe born on that
day. After seventeen summers, he said, a stranger would come to us
from beyond the mountains; and he would mean us no harm, and would
have to be respected, yet would work grievous ill; for his fate was
darkly connected with that of Yasma, my child. How it was connected,
Hamul-Kammesh did not say; but the sun that day at twilight was
strangely red through the western mist; and in the deep crimson dusk
the soothsayer saw disaster. Nevertheless, he warned us that we could
not struggle against that disaster; it was foreordained, and was the
will of Yulada!"

A long, painful silence followed, which I did not choose to break. For
Abthar had spoken in the tones of one who dwells on tragedy that has
been no less than on tragedy to be; and his eyes, so keen and alert
before, now bore the weary look of one who tells for the hundredth time
an old hopeless tale.

"For years I rarely thought of that prediction," he finally resumed.
"We are all apt to forget the fate that hovers above us. Even when you
were first carried into our midst, I did not connect your arrival with
Hamul-Kammesh's prophecy. In fact, no one connected the two events
until the soothsayer himself spoke of you as the stranger whose coming
he had divined long ago. Then to the old forecasts he added new ... but
these I need not mention. The meaning of it all, is this: should you
wed Yasma, you will court your own doom. That is all I need to say. If,
knowing what you know, you must persist in your madness, I will lift my
voice no further; but the blame for your sufferings will not be mine."

"Oh, but how can you expect me to believe such predictions?" I
protested, more impressed than I would have admitted even to myself.
"How can you--"

I could proceed no further. "That is all, my friend," said Abthar, with
decision. "Perhaps some other time we shall have further talk."

Solemnly he arose, and slowly went ambling away among the green rows of
vines, his great graying head bent sadly and thoughtfully over his long
lanky form.

CHAPTER XV

_CRUCIAL MOMENTS_

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, "it _is_ a 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.

CHAPTER XVI

_HAMUL-KAMMESH ORDAINS_

Even after Yasma and I had agreed, it was no easy matter to carry out
our plans. We foresaw that most of the villagers would be unalterably
prejudiced; that they would regard our union as impious; that
Hamul-Kammesh would fan their opposition and refuse to perform the
ceremony; that, even were we wedded, we should be in danger of living
as outcasts, since in Sobul it was virtually necessary to secure the
community's consent to a marriage.

After racking my brains for hours, I decided to consult Karem; and,
accordingly, I went to him where he was working in the fields, and
declared that I desired his advice on an important matter.

Karem seemed not at all surprised, but continued to plunge his spade
methodically into the earth. "I shall help you--if I can," was all he
said.

As calmly as I could, I explained about Yasma, emphasizing the need of
having our relationship accepted in the village.

All the while that I was talking, Karem remained busy at his spade; yet
his bronzed brow was ruffled with thought.

"You have not an easy fight to win," he reminded me, when I had
finished. And he paused in his labors, and stood with one hand
clutching the wooden spade-handle, and one hand meditatively propping
up his chin. "Still, there must be ways. If you can only gain the favor
of Hamul-Kammesh, the others will follow fast enough."

"Yes, but how gain the favor of Hamul-Kammesh? Certainly, he won't
consent out of love for me. And I don't happen to have--well, anything
valuable--"

"Oh, you shouldn't have to bribe him," interrupted Karem, reflectively.
"You will only have to make him friendly out of self-defense. If he has
to smile upon your marriage for the sake of his prestige, be sure he
will smile his brightest."

"But how could my marriage affect his prestige?"

"We must, of course, strike at his most vital spots. And the most vital
spots are his miracles, prophecies, and dreams.... Now do you see?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Hamul-Kammesh claims to be a great interpreter of dreams," continued
my friend, with mounting enthusiasm, while the spade-handle dropped
unheeded to the ground. "He is honored as much for his dream-readings
as for his prophecies. Not only our own Hamul-Kammesh but all his
ancestors for a hundred generations have been dream-readers. They have
construed so many dreams that they have come to have a code; this
applies to all the every-day dreams, and is known to the whole tribe.
Thus, if you dream you are attacked by wild beasts, this means that
evil spirits are abroad and disease will break out in the village. Or,
if you dream of falling from a treetop, this means that someone will be
stricken dead unless we propitiate Yulada. Or, again, if your dream is
of comets or shooting stars, this is proof that the gods are conferring
and a great leader is to be born among us."

"All very interesting!" I commented, beginning to see the light. "But
just how does it concern us now?"

"I thought you would have guessed," declared Karem, with a tinge of
disappointment. "Then consider this: if you dream that you see two
white clouds, and the clouds travel side by side through blue skies,
the explanation is that there is soon to be a marriage in the village.
Now what if I were to dream about two such clouds?"

"Oh, so that's it!" I shot out, laughing heartily at Karem's naïve way
of putting the idea. "So you can dream to order?"

"Why not? It has been done before."

"And you have often dreamed--"

"No, not I. If I had dreamed too often, the people might lose faith
in me. As it is, I am not free to doubt the dreams of my friends. Why
should they doubt mine?"

"Then how will you arrange things?"

Karem smiled a broad, knowing smile. "Oh, that will be as easy as
burning dry straw. I will whisper to some of my friends about the two
white clouds. But only in confidence. I will ask them not to let anyone
know. Within a day or two, twenty people will come to Hamul-Kammesh
secretly with the story of the dream. They will all want to know
who's going to get married. That will make the soothsayer wrinkle up
his brows, because none of our young people are to be married just
now--most of our matings, you know, take place at the harvest time,
when the year's labors are about over. Naturally, Hamul will look wise
on hearing of the dream, and will make some prophecies, but at the same
time he will be worried, because his reputation will be threatened.
Then, just when he is hardest put to find a way out, I will see him
and mention that you hope to marry my sister. This will give him his
chance, and he will proclaim that your marriage to Yasma has been
ordered by Yulada, and preparations must be made immediately."

"That sounds logical enough," I admitted. "But can the people all be
duped so easily?"

"No, not all. But many can. And those who are not deceived will be too
wise to seem to doubt."

My only reply was an ironic nod.

* * * * *

Four or five days after my talk with Karem, I received a visitor who
had never favored me before. I had just returned from the fields after
a strenuous day's labor, when I observed a tall, long-bearded man
framed in the open doorway of my cabin. From his stiff demeanor, as
well as from the high black headgear that added a foot to his stature,
I recognized him as the soothsayer. Hence I lost no time about inviting
him in.

"To what do I owe this honor?" I asked, trying to assume a tone of
proper deference.

"My son, I would have a word with you," he began, in a ringing, pompous
manner; while, remembering the native etiquette, I motioned him to a
seat opposite me on the straw-covered floor.

"Yes, I have an announcement of importance," he continued, as he
squatted cross-legged near the door. In the gathering twilight I could
not quite make out the expression on his face; but I thought that a
troubled look softened his habitual self-satisfaction.

"I shall be flattered!" I stated, bowing almost to the floor according
to the local custom.

A silence intervened. Then the soothsayer coughed, cleared his throat,
and slowly and with great dignity announced, "It is an extraordinary
mission, my son, that brings me here. I come not of my own will, but
as the messenger of higher powers. For the gaze of Yulada has alighted
upon you, and she has taken pleasure in you and found you worthy, and
has decided to bestow a favor upon you."

"A favor?" I echoed, trying to appear surprised. "What favor would
Yulada bestow upon one so humble?"

"It is not for us to question the will of those on high," dogmatized
the soothsayer, with a pious gesture toward the ceiling. "Nor must
we rejoice too much in the moment's happiness, for dark secrets lurk
behind the veil, dark secrets lurk behind the veil, and all may not be
well hereafter!"

Hamul-Kammesh paused, as though he wished to allow this bit of wisdom
time to seep in.

"What dark secrets do you refer to, worthy sire?" I asked, using the
native form of address.

"It does not matter, my son. Let us pass them by!" he urged, with a
grimace suggesting that he wished to be done with a distasteful topic.
"Let us not be concerned with tomorrow's bitter draught till tomorrow
is here. At present, we may consider only your good fortune. For Yulada
has singled you out for rare good fortune."

"Indeed?"

"Indeed, my son! She has bidden you to smile upon a certain young
maiden of our village, and has bidden that maiden to smile back upon
you. Her name I need not mention, but it is the desire of Yulada that
you woo this daughter of our tribe."

Upon hearing this announcement, I tried not to appear too jubilant.

"If it be the desire of Yulada," I acquiesced, in my most solemn tones,
"then who am I to object? My own will is as nothing; I can only humbly
offer my thanks, and accept whatever is granted."

"Your spirit does you great credit, young man," approved Hamul-Kammesh,
as with a sigh of relief he arose to leave. "I am glad to find that you
have a proper humility."

It was fortunate that the darkness was now so deep that the soothsayer
could not see my face.

"There is only one thing more," Hamul-Kammesh announced, as he stood
again in the doorway. "Yulada decrees that your nuptials take place
very soon. Yes, she decrees them at the time of the next full-moon. You
will be ready then, my son?"

"If Yulada decrees, I will be ready," said I, bowing my assent. And as
the soothsayer went shuffling away through the lamplit village, I let
my eyes travel to a crescent moon low-hanging above the western peaks.

But as I stood there gazing across the valley and meditating upon my
good fortune, I was not so exultant as I might have been; it was as
if a shadow had passed across my life instead of a happy promise.
Now that all appeared to be arranged and my marriage to Yasma was
inevitable, the haze of my emotions was momentarily rent; I saw with
a dispassionate vision, and asked myself whether it was not insane
to link myself to this child of a primitive mountain race. Was it
not worse than insane, since she belonged to a tribe that possessed
qualities scarcely human, a tribe that seemed akin to the wild goose
and the dove? So I questioned, as I had questioned more than once in
the past; but now, since the fateful event appeared imminent, my doubts
were deeper than ever before, and my fears more acute.

Yet, as always, my hesitancies were whisked aside like dust when my
mind framed a picture of Yasma, Yasma as she had radiantly flitted
along the dim wooded lanes, Yasma as she had clung to me in a storm
of sad emotion. And love, the blinding, all-powerful master, came as
always to silence the protests of reason; I was flooded once more with
tenderness and yearning, was held once more as in a magic mood; and the
little remembered things Yasma had said, and the things Yasma had done,
the dimpling smiles that played across her face and even the petulant
frowns, her quaint little manner of nodding when happy, the puckish
creasing of merriment about the corners of her lips, and the pitiful
sadness of her half-closed tearful eyes, had all a part in weaving the
halo that enveloped her.

And so it was useless to struggle, useless to seek to unravel that web
which time and chance and my own passions had wound about me. Even
had I known that Yasma and I were to be wedded and the next moment
hurled together over a precipice, I would hardly have had the strength
to check our fatal course. No! for the sake of my own peace of mind,
as well as because dark and powerful forces were stirring within me,
I would have had to yield to the enchantment and fuse the two fierce
currents of our lives. And so profound was my longing for Yasma that,
despite the moment's misgivings, it seemed that an incalculable epoch
must pass before the crescent could expand into the full moon.

CHAPTER XVII

_AT THE TIME OF THE FULL MOON_

A wedding among the Ibandru is celebrated by twenty-four hours of
feasting and rejoicing. All members of the tribe are invited, and all
are expected to participate; no one is permitted to labor in the fields
or at home; from dawn until dawn the village is delivered into the
hands of the merrymakers. Bonfires are lighted at night, and weird and
picturesque dances executed; songs are sung by day, and races run, and
games of strength and skill find favor; prayers are uttered, orations
made, stories told, and poems intoned. And as the supreme mark of the
occasion, a privilege that combines pleasure with consecration, the
elders of the tribe pass the jugs of "sacru," a local intoxicant made
from the roots of a starchy herb; and all are urged to drink out of
respect for the wedded pair.

Judged by the quantity of "sacru" consumed when Yasma and I were
married, the respect in which we were held was enormous. Had the
beverage not been withheld during the first two or three hours of the
festivities, many of the reverential ones would not have been in a
condition to appreciate anything that went on.

For my own part, I had not the same capacity for pleasure as some of
the others; indeed, rarely have I been so uncomfortable as on that day
which should have been the happiest of my life. Not that I did not
appreciate the importance of the occasion; or that I felt any desire
to undo the bond now being irrevocably tied. But the crowds of idlers,
staring and staring at Yasma and me as though to swallow us with their
eyes, made me feel miserably out of place; and the ceremonies were so
curious that I felt like an intruder.

When I awoke after a troubled sleep in the dusk of that unforgettable
May morning, I was vaguely aware of the undercurrent of excitement in
the village. Even at this hour, the people were abroad; I could hear
them moving quickly about, could hear their chattering voices. Without
delay, therefore, I arose and dressed in a bright blue and red native
costume, Abthar's wedding gift, which he had urged upon me in place of
my now ragged civilized garb; then somewhat timidly I stepped out of my
cabin.

The first persons I met were Karem and his brother Barkodu, who were
standing not twenty paces from my door, as though awaiting me. I
observed that long ribbons and tassels of red and yellow hung from
their heads and shoulders; while streamers of every conceivable
hue--crimson and purple, orange, lavender and green--had been strung
during the night from cabin to cabin, giving the village a fantastic
and festal appearance.

My two friends greeted me enthusiastically; muttered congratulations;
and led me to the cabin where Yasma was expecting my arrival. The
bride-to-be was clad in a slender, specially woven robe of sky-blue;
and ornaments of a stone like amethyst adorned her hair and shoulders.
My heart leapt as she beamed her greeting to me--how dazzling, I
thought, how dazzling beyond the most gaudy princess that ever graced
a salon! She was paler today than ordinarily; her eyes shone with an
unusual timidity; yet there was something ravishingly sweet about her
expression, a childlike candor and smiling loveliness that reminded me
of a flower just bursting into bloom.

But only for one instant I reveled in the sight of her. Then, though
she lingered at my side, she might have been a thousand miles away.
Together we were escorted to the open space in the center of the
village, where we were hailed by scores of men and women, all bedecked
with colored tassels and banners. Amid that staring multitude, each
member of which came forth in turn to express the same felicitations in
the same words, we had little chance to communicate with one another by
so much as a meeting of fingers or a sidelong glance. As best we could,
we endured the ordeal; but I could see that Yasma was being tired out
by the innumerable bows she had to make and the innumerable expressions
of thanks.

The sun had barely overtopped the eastern peaks when Hamul-Kammesh
arrived and the ceremonies began. The soothsayer was especially
apparelled for the occasion, and wore white robes that matched his
beard, and a two-foot conical white hat that brought me frivolous
remembrances. Yet he conducted himself with the august air of the
wise men of old, and spoke in the sonorous and measured tones of a
patriarch. He was especially impressive when he stationed himself on a
little newly reared mound in the middle of the clearing, and, taking a
small horn-like instrument from his cloak, blew a blast that brought
the noisy, chattering assemblage instantly to order.

"Let us begin by offering thanks to Yulada!" he thundered, as soon as
the spectators were giving him their undivided attention.

Instantly the three or four hundred men, women and children threw
themselves down upon the ground; stretched themselves full-length with
faces turned southward; and mumbled and muttered incoherently.

Of course, I had to prostrate myself along with the crowd, and to join
in murmuring the unintelligible jargon. But how thankful I was when the
ceremony was over! After this trial, it seemed a relief to listen to
Hamul-Kammesh.

"My friends," he proclaimed, in the manner of one who relishes his
own eloquence, "we are here today by the decree of Yulada, Yulada
whose ways are inscrutable and whose will no man can oppose. Why she
has brought us together I may not reveal, nor whether tomorrow she
will scourge us with earthquake and lightning. All that she permits
me to say is that this moment shall be one of rejoicing, for today we
celebrate the union of one of our daughters with a stranger from the
lands beyond the mountains. Never before have any of our maidens been
wedded except to sons of our own tribe, but let us not question Yulada,
who is wiser than all men; let us only give thanks, remembering that
whatever she does is for our best."

It will be needless to repeat the remainder of the sermon. It would,
in fact, be impossible to do so, for all that I can recall is that the
speaker continuously praised Yulada, emphasizing and re-emphasizing
his remarks until he had spoken for an hour and said the same thing in
twenty ways. Yet the audience listened with mouths agape and staring
eyes; and when he had finished, there was an uproar of approving yells
and cheers.

Following this frightful pandemonium, Hamul-Kammesh prepared to tie
the knot that would make Yasma my wife. In ringing tones he uttered
first my name, then hers; and in single file we had to thread our way
amid the squatting figures and take our places at the soothsayer's
side on the central mound. This was embarrassing enough; but a more
embarrassing experience awaited us upon our arrival at what I shall
call the stage. No sooner were we within touching distance than the
soothsayer, with a wide sweep of his arms, enfolded Yasma in a close
embrace. Of course, I realized that this was held essential to the
ceremony; but it did seem to me that Hamul-Kammesh was unnecessarily
long about releasing Yasma. I was about to cough tactfully when he at
length freed her, and, to my disgust, flung his arms in my direction,
and for an instant I felt his bristly white beard against my face.

But this time the embrace was not protracted. Indeed, I had no more
than realized what was happening, when it was over. And Hamul-Kammesh,
with a wry grimace, was again addressing the audience:

"The bride and bridegroom have now been enfolded in the arms of Yulada.
They are at last fit to leave their solitary paths; and I am therefore
ready to declare their two souls immortally one. But first I must speak
of their obligations. They must always hold the name of Yulada in awe,
and their children and their children's children must have the fear
of Yulada in their hearts. They must not fail in that worship which
Yulada commands; they must do deference each year by taking the way of
the southward-flying birds if but they hear the call; and, above all,
they must not reveal any of Yulada's secrets, and must never approach
within five stones' throws of the feet of the goddess. But during all
the season of green leaves they must remain in Sobul, tilling the earth
as Yulada wishes and roaming her mountains but never defiling her trees
or wild things. If so, long life will be theirs, unless--unless--"
Here Hamul-Kammesh hesitated, and something menacing came into his
tone.--"Unless Yulada should not choose to revoke her old prophecy,
but, for reasons which only she can fathom, should send some portent of
her wrath."

Crowning this address, Hamul-Kammesh stretched his arms imploringly
toward Yulada, and, with eyes upturned, mumbled a prayer. And, after
completing his incoherent mutterings, he took my right hand in his
left, and Yasma's left hand in his right, and joined our two hands in a
not unwilling clasp.

For a moment I fancied that this completed the ceremony, and that,
according to the law of Sobul, Yasma and I were now man and wife. But I
quickly perceived my error. While my betrothed and I stood with hands
interlocked, the soothsayer reached into the folds of his garments and
withdrew two little ruby-red stones, which he exhibited high in air.

"Here are the life-stones," he explained, "the gems that show the
fusion of the heart's blood. These, in the eyes of Yulada, are the
symbols of your union; and these Yulada shall now bestow upon you."

There followed an impressive silence, while Hamul-Kammesh carefully
examined the red trinkets. Then, turning to me and holding out the
larger of the two tokens, he asked, "Do you, the bridegroom, desire
this life-stone? Will you cherish it and preserve it, the sign and
consecration of your marriage, the gift of Yulada on your wedding day?"

"I shall be glad to do so."

"Then for you Yulada has tied the cord that cannot be broken!" And, by
means of a little projecting hook, the old man fastened the red stone
just above my heart.

Then, while the audience stood looking on breathlessly, he turned to
Yasma, held forth the second little jewel, and repeated the questions
he had asked me.

But what a startling change had come over Yasma! Her face had grown
tense and white; her eyes were distended; suddenly she seemed smitten
dumb. After Hamul-Kammesh had put the final question, she remained
simply staring at him--staring without a word!

"Will you cherish and preserve this life-stone?" repeated
Hamul-Kammesh, still displaying the ornament.

But still she could not reply. Her shoulders twitched, and a shudder
ran through her body; her lips trembled, but not a sound came forth.

"For the third time," repeated the soothsayer, in impressive tones, "I
ask whether you wish the life-stone? You are not compelled to answer,
but unless you do answer you cannot be married. If for the third time
you fail to reply, your silence will mean refusal, and there must be
no further festivities today; but the guests must leave, and no suitor
must seek your favor for another year. And so for the last time I put
the question--"

"Yes, yes, give me the life-stone!" sighed Yasma, in a broken voice, as
she reached toward the red trifle.

Without delay, Hamul-Kammesh hung the symbol of our union about her
neck.

* * * * *

As soon as Yasma and I had received our life-stones, the "sacru" was
passed and became the center of attention. The occasion was more than
welcome to me, not because of the liquor, which I scarcely tasted, but
for the sake of Yasma, with whom I desired an occasional word on this
our bridal day. While the men and women were crowding forward for their
share of the drink, I recognized my opportunity; and, motioning Yasma
to follow me, I threaded my way to the edge of the crowd and beyond the
furthest cabin to a trail winding through the woods. Fortunately, no
one seemed to notice our departure, for the enchantment of the "sacru"
was already at work.

Yasma seemed glad enough to accompany me; but though she shared in my
relief at breaking free from the crowd, her conduct was still peculiar.
She did not show any of the happiness natural to a bride, but was moody
and sad. She answered my questions and remarks only with monosyllables,
yet was by no means cold or indifferent, and gave evidence of her
affection by the clinging closeness with which she held my arm.

Having reached the woods, we seated ourselves side by side on a log at
the borders of some fragrant white-flowering bushes; and there we began
our wedded life in an unlooked-for fashion.

"Well, Yasma, we have come to the end of our separate roads," I
reminded her, patting her hand and trying to conceal my anxiety. "From
now on we shall follow one path together. Surely, it shall always make
us happy to look back upon this day. Shall it not, Yasma?"

Yasma's response was far from reassuring. A long silence intervened,
while she sat with head bent low and eyes averted. Suddenly, as I
sought to draw her close, I became aware that her whole form was
quivering.

"Yasma!" I cried, dismayed and bewildered, as I took the weeping girl
into my arms. "Yasma, Yasma dear, what is wrong?"

"Oh, I'm so afraid, so afraid!" she wailed, as she clung to me, her
face still turned away. "Please, please take good care of me! I'm so
afraid--I don't know why--I can't help it!"

Almost desperately she held me, and buried her face against my breast,
and sobbed and sobbed while I strove in vain to console her.

"But what can be the matter, Yasma?" I asked, beseechingly, when the
storm was beginning to spend itself. "I don't understand--I don't
understand at all!"

"Oh, I don't understand, either!" she burst forth, vehemently. "It's
silly of me, simply silly! There's no reason, not the least! Oh, you
shouldn't care for me, you shouldn't, you shouldn't!"

And the tears came in a renewed torrent, and it was minutes before they
had subsided again.

"Don't pay any attention to me--I'm too foolish!" she murmured, as she
sat clinging to me, her face still pitifully moist. "I know I shouldn't
act like this, but everything seems so strange and new. And I keep
thinking that what we've done today can never be taken back, never,
never! That thought frightens me. What if--what if Yulada should still
be angry with us?"

Of course, I strove my best to soothe away her fears. I told her that
we had nothing to dread from Yulada; that we had acted wisely and
should always be glad of it. Yet, even as I spoke, I could not be
convinced of the truth of my own words. And I am afraid that I did not
convince her. For she cut me short with an outburst such as I had not
expected even from her.

"Oh, let's forget Yulada--forget everything! Forget everything but you
and me! Nothing, nothing else can matter! I have you, and that is all
I want. That is all I ever want! Oh, stay with me, stay with me, my
beloved, and I do not care what Yulada may do--no, I do not care what
may happen in the whole world!"

Her words ended in another sobbing crescendo; but this time it was
not so hard to console her. Soon, calmed by my coaxing, she dried her
tears, and looked up into my face, timidly smiling; and at this I
forgot all my misgivings, and told her how blessed she was making me;
and she answered with a coy tossing of the head, and murmured things
that my memory will treasure always but that may not be repeated.

It was almost dusk when we returned to the village. From afar we
could hear the shouts and cries of the revelers, the booming of
drums, the shrilling of horns; and, upon approaching, we found the
people riotously absorbed in their games. Some were engaged in feats
of wrestling and jumping; some were racing about after little wooden
balls; some were juggling with pebbles, and some twisting their bodies
into fantastic contortions; some were dancing in a long writhing
serpentine; some scuttled to and fro like children in games of
hide-and-seek; some staggered aimlessly hither and thither with the
weight of too much "sacru."

So preoccupied were the people that our return was scarcely noted;
indeed, it was not apparent that our absence had even been observed.
But we did not care; we were glad enough to be left alone; and, after
satisfying our hunger from the fruits and dainties being passed about
on wooden platters, we withdrew to a secluded corner to await the
firelight festivities. Gladly we would have left entirely; but we must
be present later in the evening, when, in the midst of the cheering,
congratulatory throng, we would be escorted to my cabin, which had
been bedecked with ribbons and equipped with household supplies by our
friends, and which would be the stage for a second and briefer ceremony
under the auspices of Hamul-Kammesh.

But before that ceremony could take place, there was to be an
unscheduled exhibition. The sunset fires had barely died and the bright
yellow full moon peeped above the eastern ranges, when an uncanny
ruddy light flared beneath the moon; a great ball of fire blazed into
sight, soaring high with startling swiftness, like a projectile shot
out of some colossal gun. Sultry red with a glare that drowned out
the luster of the moon and stars, it went hurtling in a long curve
across the heavens and beyond the western peaks; and as it swept out of
view, sputtering and scintillating like a burning rocket, an unearthly
hissing came to our ears; while, after the specter had retreated, a
long copper furrow remained to mark its pathway, glowing and smoldering
and only gradually fading out amid the thin starlight.

The effect upon the Ibandru was overpowering. Within a few seconds the
celestial visitant had flashed into life and vanished; but for hours
the wedding guests could only gape and stare, muttering in alarm,
walking about as if distracted, prostrating themselves upon the ground
and praying to Yulada. All merrymaking was over for the night; no one
even thought of further festivities. "A portent! A portent!" cried the
people; and no words of mine could dissuade them. Useless to tell them
that they had observed merely a great meteor,--they were convinced that
Yulada had sent them a message, a warning; convinced that my marriage
was an unhallowed thing, and that only misfortune could follow. Even
Yasma shared in the general panic; her fears of a few hours before were
revived; and as she huddled against me, huddled desperately as a child
in need of comfort, I could feel her whole body quaking; and I had the
impression that I was holding not a woman but a caged bird suddenly
conscious of its bars.

CHAPTER XVIII

_THE SECOND FLIGHT BEGINS_

Whenever I recall my sorrows and misfortunes in Sobul, I am tormented
also by happy memories that wound like fresh trials. And foremost
among those memories I place my first few months with Yasma. If a
cloud hovered over our betrothal and a deeper cloud descended upon our
marriage day, the skies became immediately blue again once the wedding
festival was over. The consternation produced in Yasma's mind by the
meteor proved to be only temporary; if she ever remembered it again,
she did not mention the fact; and if she had any remaining scruples
regarding Yulada and the righteousness of our marriage, she kept her
doubts to herself. To me she was all sweetness, kindness and devotion;
a new radiance seemed to have overspread her countenance, and her face
shone with a richer and more beautiful light than ever; while all
her movements were imbued with the grace and airiness of one at once
perfectly carefree and perfectly unspoiled.

So potently had Yasma woven her spell over me that for the time I was
a convert to the ways of Sobul. As the Ibandru lived, so I lived;
momentarily I had almost forgotten that I was the son of civilized
lands. Each morning I would go forth with Karem and Barkodu to till
the fields; and each noon and evening I would return to a home where
skilled feminine hands had prepared a tasteful meal. Sometimes, when
the work on the farms was not too pressing, I would join the tribesmen
in day-long expeditions across the mountains, expeditions in which
Yasma would always take part; sometimes there would be holidays when
I would go fishing with Karem or roaming the woods with Yasma; and
in the evenings, except in the infrequent event of rain, I would take
part with the others in the village sports, running and wrestling,
dancing and singing, competing in the games, or merely sitting about
the campfire exchanging reminiscences.

Now at last I was accepted almost as a native of Sobul. My marriage
to a daughter of the tribe apparently made the people think of me
as an Ibandru by adoption; yes, even though in some ways I was
still a stranger, and though the people still were silent when I
questioned them as to their autumnal flight. If any of them recalled
Hamul-Kammesh's original prophecy, and in particular the omen of the
fireball, they were careful to keep their recollections quiet; and even
if they had their fears, they cherished no personal resentment--for was
it not Yulada herself who had showed me the way to Sobul? Was it not by
her will that I was remaining?

Certainly, it seemed to suit the pleasure of Yulada that I should
linger here indefinitely. The way to the outer world was still unknown;
no visitors came to Sobul, and in my wanderings among the mountains I
had discovered no sign of human life and no road that gave promise of
leading toward civilization. Not that I would have left if I could; to
go away without Yasma would have been unthinkable; and to go with her
would have been as difficult as it was dangerous. Yet I kept wondering
if I was to spend my remaining days in this primitive valley; and I had
more than an occasional day-dream of finding some previously unobserved
mountain pass and making my way with Yasma toward some civilized
settlement.

But as yet, in the happiness of my young wedded life, such thoughts
troubled me very little. No one in my country was half so dear to me
as Yasma; and all the friends I had left, the habits I had abandoned
and the work I had lost could not weigh in the scales against her. And
so for a while I merely toyed with the thought of escape; and even had
it seemed possible to extricate myself from the wilderness of Sobul, I
should scarcely have stirred to make the attempt. Months passed, and
all remained as it had been; the hot days came, and the woods were
densely green again with the summer foliage; the fruit of the orchards
swelled and ripened, the plum was dyed a rich purple, and the face
of the peach was delicately pink. But Yasma and I, in our enchanted
retreat, scarcely noted the passing of the weeks, scarcely were aware
that we were drifting on a slow tide toward the end of bliss. At
times, indeed, some prematurely yellowing leaf or some field newly
prepared for the harvest, would bring an uncomfortable premonition of
autumn; at times the sight of Yulada perched inscrutably upon the peak
would awaken unpleasant reminders of the past winter and still more
unpleasant reminders of the winter to come. But mostly I managed to
thrust such thoughts from me, to live in the enjoyment of the present
moment, and to feel that the present moment was to endure. I was only
deceiving myself with phantoms!--alas, I did not succeed in deceiving
myself completely!--and now and then, when the veil was momentarily
lifted, I was aware that a shadow still brooded above me, that for the
moment it was dim and far-away, but that it would return, return as
certainly as the days would grow frosty and the birds fly south once
more!

* * * * *

I had been in Sobul more than a year when my worst forebodings seemed
about to be fulfilled. The days were again on their decline; the
unharvested fields once more lay ripe before the reaper; a chill began
to creep into the air of evenings, and the landscape was occasionally
blurred with mist; the wild fruits and nuts were falling in the forest,
and the squirrels were laying up their winter supplies; the woods began
to take on a ragged lining of brown and yellow and premature golden,
and more than an occasional leaf was fluttering down in early deference
to the fall.

Then came October; and with October I grew aware, as a year before, of
an undercurrent of excitement in the village. Once more the youths and
maidens had seemingly lost interest in their noisy evening pastimes;
once more the people were growing restless and uneasy; once more they
bore the aspect of waiting, of waiting for some imminent and momentous
event.

Even Yasma did not escape the general anxiety. At times I observed a
far-away look in her eyes, a melancholy that I could not quite fathom;
and at such moments she would seek to avoid my presence. At other times
she would burst without apparent cause into fits of weeping, and would
cling to me, and beg me to forgive her if she could not do her duty and
were not a good wife. But always it seemed futile to question her; for
did I not surmise what the trouble was? Could I forget that the season
of cold winds was at hand?

Not until the first southward flight of the birds did my fears
crystallize. It was as if this event, the occasion for wild rejoicing
among the Ibandru, signalized the close of my idyllic life with Yasma.
On a day of wind and gathering cloud, when the first triangle of living
dots came soaring from across the mountains and out of sight beyond
Yulada, it seemed as if the birds were speeding away with my hopes.
Just as a year before, the entire village became tumultuously excited,
and abandoned all other occupations to watch the winged travelers; and,
as a year before, a great firelight celebration was held, in which
all the tribe participated, and over which Abthar and Hamul-Kammesh
presided.

But although the ceremonies of a year ago were almost duplicated, I did
not find this festival so interesting as the former. Rather, I found it
terrifying, for it brought me visions of deserted cabins and snow-clad
mountainsides, and seemed to impose a dismal gulf between Yasma and me.

To reassure myself, I sought to stay at Yasma's side during the
celebration. But somehow she slipped away, much as last year; and I
could find no trace of her until late that night I discovered her
in our cabin with moist face, and eyes that even by the flickering
firelight seemed swollen and red.

"Yasma!" I cried. "What is the matter?"

For a moment she did not reply, but looked at me with large smoldering
eyes. Then tenderly she came to me, placed her hands upon my shoulders,
and murmured, "I was thinking of you, my beloved, thinking of you here
all alone when the cold winds blow and the days grow gray and empty,
and there is no one, no one to take care of you!"

Overcome by her own words, she gave way to sobbing.

And I, faced with the inevitable, could only put the question I had
put so many times before. "But could you not stay with me here, Yasma?
Could you not--"

"No, no, no!" she interrupted, in the midst of her tears. "I could not,
could not! Yulada would not permit it!"

"Not even for me?" I entreated, as one might entreat a favor of a
refractory child.

"Not even for you! Could I make my heart stop beating for you? Could I
cease breathing and still live because you wished it of me? No, no,
no, do not ask me to change my nature!"

"I would not ask you to change your nature, Yasma," I assured her
gently, as I took her again into my arms. "But I love you so much, my
dearest, so much that I can hardly bear to think of being parted from
you."

"Or I to be parted from you!"

Mastered once more by her emotion, she turned from me, wringing her
hands.

A long, silent moment intervened before she faced me again. But when
she did turn to me, her face was more composed, and her eyes shone with
new resolution.

"Let us try to be brave, my beloved," she urged. "I will stay with you
here a while yet; will stay as long as Yulada permits. And what if,
after I go, the winter must come?--it will pass, and the green leaves
will grow again, and the snow will melt on the mountainsides; and I
will come back, come back with the first northward-flying birds!"

She paused, and smiled in melancholy reassurance. But I did not reply,
and the smile quickly faded; and she continued, pleadingly, "Remember,
my beloved, when you asked me to marry you, you said you were willing
to lose me half the year. You promised, or I could never have
consented. So why are you not willing now?"

"Yes, I did promise," I admitted, with a groan. "I did promise, and I
know I should be willing. But how different things seemed then! How
much harder to lose you after all these months together! Why, Yasma, I
must lose you without even knowing where you're going! At least, you
might tell me that! How would you feel if I went away and you didn't
know where?"

As always before, my pleas had no effect except to bring the tears to
Yasma's eyes.

"Do you not think I would tell you if I could?" she asked, gently and
sadly. "But Yulada would not permit it, and I dare not lift my voice
against her. I could not if I would. For there are things we cannot
describe, and things that can be known only to those that share in
them. Could you expect the wild dove to tell you of its flight? Could
you expect the eagle to make known the joy it feels when it sails into
the sun?"

"Oh, but you are not as the eagle or the dove!" I protested.

"Why do you think we are not?" she returned, with a curious smile.

At this query I was struck by a fancy so wild that even now I hesitate
to mention it: the thought that Yasma and her people were not wholly
human! that for half the year they walked the earth as men and women,
and for the other half sailed the sky as birds! Nor did this notion
seem quite so absurd as it would have appeared before my arrival in
Sobul. Here in this world-forsaken valley, with its periodically
migrating inhabitants, anything at all seemed possible; even the
supernatural appeared to lose its remote and fabulous glow. And so, for
an instant, I had the impression that something unearthly enveloped
Yasma, even Yasma, my wife! And once again, as on first coming to
Sobul, I experienced the sense of otherworldly forces at work all about
me, forces that had Yasma in their keeping and were bound to wrest
her from me, no matter how I might groan and struggle, no matter how
I might cry out and entreat and reach forth my arms and call and call
after her dwindling form!

CHAPTER XIX

_THE CYCLE IS COMPLETED_

With what sadness I watched the autumn gradually return to Sobul! The
crimson and tan and russet woods, glowing with a forlorn and dying
inner radiance, were tragic as with the sorrow of a crumbling universe;
each frightened leaf that scurried earthward with a sharp blast, seemed
laden with some hope that had withered; the legions of wild ducks and
geese that went speeding ever, ever beyond the southern peaks, were to
me awe-inspiring and solemn portents. And the clouds that came whirling
and clustering by in troops and squadrons at the goad of the high wind,
were grim with evil reminders; and their glee in overrunning the sky's
blue and blurring the fringes of the peaks, was as the glee of those
dark forces that invisibly blotted out my happiness.

Partly in order to drive tormenting premonitions from my mind, I tried
to keep well occupied during those harrowing days. I had not forgotten
the preparations I had made for the previous winter, nor the need of
fortifying myself for the winter to come. Once again I gathered large
supplies of food and firewood; once again I sealed all cracks and
crannies in my cabin walls, procured heavy garments, and made ready
for a hermit's life. And in these preparations Yasma helped me as
energetically and skillfully as last year. But she worked sadly, and
in silence; and often the tears were in her eyes as she stored the
firewood in orderly heaps or arranged the dried fruits, nuts and grains
in neat and convenient piles.

I alone, just as last autumn, was preparing for the winter; as time
went by, the other inhabitants of Sobul were going their mute and
mysterious way. Gradually the village was being deserted; face after
familiar face was disappearing: first Abthar, then Barkodu, then Karem,
then Hamul-Kammesh; while by degrees the town assumed a desolate
appearance. The end of October saw its population reduced by more than
half; early November found a mere handful remaining; and I knew that
the time was not far-off when even this handful would have vanished.
But where the people went was as much an enigma as ever.

As during the previous year, I made several attempts to trace the
fugitives. More than once, slipping out of the cabin at night when
Yasma was asleep, I lay in wait for hours in a thicket at the village
edge; but my only reward was fresh torment and bewilderment. I never
caught any glimpse of the departing natives, though always in the
morning I would note that there were more absentees; on my most
successful attempt, I found a number of fresh-made tracks, which I
hopefully traced southward into the woods, until they came to an end as
inexplicably as though their makers had evaporated.

I well remember my last effort. I must have been a little incautious
in leaving the cabin; or perhaps Yasma was not quite asleep, as I had
thought; for no sooner had I taken my usual station in the thicket than
I became aware of a shadowy approaching form. Thinking that this was
one of the fleeing Ibandru, I crouched down so as not to be seen; but a
peal of laughter brought me to my senses; in an instant, I found myself
face to face with--my wife!

"Oh, you silly creature, how do you expect to find out anything that
way?" she chided me, having apparently divined my purpose. "You may lie
there watching till the end of time, and you'll never discover a thing.
It is not by examining the earth that you may learn of the eagle's
flight."

With these words Yasma took my arm; and docilely I accompanied her back
to our cabin.

Only by a great effort of will had I dared to leave her side that
night, for I lived in terror that when I next turned to look for her
she would be gone. Indeed, if she had been a bubble that might burst
at a touch, or a rainbow that a shadow would shatter, I could scarcely
have been more worried; for it would hardly have surprised me to see
her transform herself into a sun-mote, and go dancing into the air and
out of view.

November was not yet very old when some persistent voice within me
proclaimed that the crisis was at hand. There arrived a day when not
a score of the Ibandru paced about among the empty cabins; there
arrived a later day when not half a score were to be seen, and then the
climactic day--not very much later--when only one member of the tribe
still walked in the village.

Even at this distant hour I can relive the sorrow and passion of that
day. I remember how the solemn gray clouds went scudding beneath the
gray solemn sky; how the wild geese, the last of the winged migrants,
called and called plaintively on their way southward; how the wind,
like a harried soul that answered the driven birds, shrieked and wailed
when its impetuous gusts chased down the last of the red leaves and
scattered the swirling eddies of dust. A wild, mad day! a day when the
whole earth seemed risen in fury and revolt! a day when the elements,
alive with the vehemence and vain frenzy of all created things, were
voicing the sadness and despair of the universe in a dirge for the
dying year!

And on that tumultuous day, in that world of raging wind and cloud,
Yasma came to me with such a light in her eyes as the dying may show
when they bid farewell to love. One glance at her shuddering form
confirmed my fears; I knew her message, and felt intuitively the
hopelessness of protest or reproach.

Without a word she flung her arms about me, stormily sobbing; and I
held her in an embrace so long and fierce that I might have been a foe
striving to crush her frail body.

But at length she struggled free, and stood before me, moist-eyed and
pathetically smiling. "Good-bye, my beloved, good-bye," she murmured,
and edged toward the door.

"Do not go, do not go!" I cried, and I stretched out my arms
imploringly. But some numbing force had paralyzed my limbs--I was
unable to move a step.

"Good-bye, my beloved," she repeated, with a look like a tormented
angel's. "Good-bye--until the spring!"

And her slender form slipped past the door, and its wooden bulk closed
behind her. And as she escaped, sudden action came to my frozen limbs,
and I rushed out of the cabin, calling and calling, "Yasma! Yasma!" And
then, frantically, "Yasma! Yasma!" But only the wind replied. A whirl
of dust struck me in the face, and for a moment I was half blinded.
Then, when I turned to look for Yasma, no Yasma was to be seen. And in
bewilderment and balked anger and despair, I realized that I should see
her no more until the birds were flying north.

III

_The Will of Yulada_

CHAPTER XX

_THE SECOND WINTER_

It would be pointless to dwell at length upon my second winter in
Sobul. In everything essential, it was a repetition of the winter
before. There were the same long solitary months, the same monotonous
loneliness by the evening firelight, the same trudging through the snow
on companionless expeditions, the same arduous gathering of faggots and
the same fear of predatory wild things, the same howling of wolves from
across the valley and the same clamoring of storm-winds, the same bleak
questionings and the same impotent wrath at the unkindliness of my fate.

But in one respect my lot this year was harder to bear. For now there
were memories to torment, memories that arose like ghosts when in
the long evenings I sat musing by the golden-yellow light of the log
blaze. A year ago there had also been memories; a year ago I had also
thought of Yasma with sadness; but then there had been no endearing
intimacy to haunt every object she had brightened with her presence and
every spot her feet had pressed. Now the very cabin she had occupied
with me seemed desolate because she had been there; the very pans and
kettles and earthen vessels her fingers had touched became sorrowful
reminders, while a little spray of wildflowers, gathered by her hands
months before and now hanging gray and withered from the log wall, was
the perpetual source of longing and regret. How strange and ironic that
every gay moment we had passed together should have its melancholy
echoes, and that her very smiles and laughter and little winning ways
and little loving kindnesses should all return to mock me now!

As I sat dreaming of Yasma, my thoughts would flicker fitfully as the
flames writhing in the fireplace. One moment I would blame myself for
bringing misfortune upon my beloved; the next moment anger would rise
in my heart and I would feel aggrieved at her and at the world because
I had been forsaken. And when I remembered that this second lonely
winter might not be the last, that next winter and every winter I might
be deserted, then a furious resolve blazed up within me; and with a
strength born of my wretchedness I determined that never again should
I live through the cold season alone. Let Yasma refuse to stay, and I
would coax, cajole, entreat, and if need be force her to remain. Was
she not my wife? Was it not unreasonable to be abandoned as she had
abandoned me? No doubt she would plead that she had never promised to
stay, had always insisted on the need for a migration--but might that
need not be a mere superstition, born of blind obedience to some secret
tribal tradition? And, whatever the necessity that moved her, how could
it compare with my own necessity?

Another winter of solitary confinement, I feared, and I should go mad.
Already I was tending toward the obsessions that beset one overlong
in his own company--and should I do Yasma a favor by bequeathing her
a lunatic for a husband? Plainly, she did not understand, could not
understand, any more than I could understand her ways; but was it
not my duty to protect us both by any means within my grasp? Thus I
reasoned, repeating the arguments over and over to myself, until I knew
them as the mathematician knows his axioms; and so, partly by logic and
partly by sophistry and largely because of the frenzy of my love and
despair, I decided upon that step which was to make all succeeding
winters different, and was to mark the fateful climax of my life in
Sobul.

Having made my resolve, I could face the world with fresh courage.
All that winter, when the mountains were white specters beneath the
blue sky or when the clouds blotted out the peaks and the snow was
sifted down day after day, I kept hope alive not only at the thought of
Yasma's return in the spring but by the determination that she should
not leave in the autumn. I might be tormented by loneliness; I might
read only sorrow in the denuded woods, and menace in the lowering
skies; I might quiver at the wail of the wolf, and people the shadows
of the night with evil shapes; I might find the peaks cruelly aloof,
and Yulada as disdainful as ever on her rock-throne; yet at least I had
something to clutch at, something to bring me consolation and make it
seem worth while to live.

But there was another thought that lent the world interest. Yulada
still drew me toward her with a mysterious fascination; I was as
anxious as ever to climb to her feet. My previous failures did not
discourage me; I told myself that I had been unlucky, and should
succeed if I persisted. Had the upper altitudes not been coated
with ice, I should have made the attempt immediately after Yasma's
departure; but experience had taught me to wait; and I determined that
early in the spring, before the first Ibandru had reappeared, I should
again match my strength with the elusive slopes.

It was when March was still young that a benign mildness came into the
air; that the snow began to melt, and the streams to run full to the
brim. During most of the month the warmth endured; and shortly before
the arrival of April the peaks were banded and mottled with wide gray
patches, and I concluded that it was time for my new adventure.

I was not at fault in this judgment. Never before had the ascent seemed
quite so easy; the way had been smoothed as though by invisible hands.
No ice or snow impeded me along the lower slopes, or blockaded me on
the upper; no impassable cliff intervened as I followed the windings
of the trail through groves of deodar and pine, and along the verge of
thousand-foot precipices. But the blue sky, the invigorating breezes
and the new-washed glittering peaks all served to strengthen my
determination. To climb to Yulada appeared almost a simple matter, and
I could scarcely understand why I had not succeeded before.

Yet somehow I could not remain cheerful as the hours went by and I
trudged along the stony ledges and over ridge after steep projecting
ridge. Or was I being infected with the same superstition as the
Ibandru felt? This much, at least, I know: the higher I mounted, the
lower my spirits sank; I began to feel as one who sacrilegiously
invades a shrine; had I not opposed my determination to my fears, I
might not have come within miles of Yulada.

But, after several hours, my stubbornness appeared to be winning. By
early afternoon I had mounted high among the bare ridges at Yulada's
feet; the stone figure loomed not many hundred yards above, proud and
defiant as ever, so huge that she could have held me like a pebble
in one hand, and so majestic that she seemed the masterpiece of some
titanic artist. Truly, an awe-inspiring, a terrifying sight! Truly, I
had reason to feel my own insignificance as I stood gazing at those
cyclopean outlines, the steel-gray contours of the exquisitely modelled
figure, the firm and haughty face inexorably set like the face of fate
itself, the hands upraised as though in supplication to the Unseen, and
one foot lifted as if to step into the abyss.

If I had been sanguine before, I was now merely appalled. It seemed
impossible that I, a pygmy intruder, should ever stand within touching
distance of the goddess! Surely some sign would come, as always before,
to checkmate my approach; either the fog would rise, or the storms
be hatched, or my feet would falter and fall. So I thought as with
painstaking slowness I attacked the final few hundred yards, watching
every step and half expecting the ground to give way or the earth
itself to open.

With vigorous efforts, the last lap might have been accomplished in
half an hour; but my cautious crawl took nearer to an hour and a half.
During all that time I had scarcely a glimpse of Yulada, for the grade
was such that I could observe her only as the pedestrian at the base
of a skyscraper may view the flagpole. Yet I was so busy creeping on
hands and knees up the steep inclines, that I could give Yulada hardly
a thought. I did not doubt that, having mastered the slopes, I should
be able to inspect the goddess to advantage.

Finally, in joy not unmixed with dread, I was reaching the end of my
climb. One last pinnacle to surmount, and I should stand face to face
with Yulada! I could scarcely believe in my own good fortune--would the
rock not crumble beneath me, and hurl me into the void? But no! the
rock was solid enough; with one climactic effort, I lifted myself over
the brink, and stood safely on the peak!

But was I on the peak? What was that irregular gray mass above? I
blinked, and observed that I was on a narrow plateau, over which there
loomed a great pile of crags, jagged and beetling and apparently
without form or design. For a moment I stared in idiotic bewilderment;
then gradual recognition came to me. This shapeless heap of rock was
Yulada! It was only from a distance that her outlines appeared human;
seen at close range, she was but a fantastic formation of stone!

In my first surprise and disappointment at the irony of the discovery,
I laughed aloud. Yet I was not slow to understand. I remembered how a
fine painting, splendid at several yards, may seem a blur to one who
approaches too closely. And was Yulada not a masterwork of nature,
intended for inspection only from afar? Her form, as I saw it, was full
of flaws and irregularities, but how well distance smoothed away the
defects, supplying her with statuesque outlines that were unreal, a
verisimilitude that was only illusion!

For almost an hour I lingered at Yulada's feet, trying to penetrate
what still remained of her secret. But there seemed little enough to
penetrate. The rugged granite of her body, scarred and polished by the
tempests of centuries, was responsible for her gray color; her head,
neck, face and limbs were barely distinguishable--she was as any other
crag which nature, chance sculptress, had modelled into something
lifelike and rare.

As I strolled about the base of Yulada, I found myself wondering about
the beliefs of the Ibandru, their dread of approaching the stone
figure. And suddenly an explanation came to me. What if some wily
priest, climbing long ago where I had climbed today, had realized that
his power would be enhanced and the fear of Yulada intensified if the
people were never to ascend to the peak? And what if, having conspired
with his fellow priests, he had passed an edict forbidding his
followers, under dire penalties, to mount within five stones' throws of
the statue-like figure? Among a superstitious people, could not such a
taboo be made impressive?

But though my reason accepted this explanation, I am an inconsistent
individual, and my emotions rejected it utterly. Even as I stood
gazing up at the rocky mass, fear crept back into my heart; irrational
questionings forced themselves once more upon me despite all that good
sense could do to keep them out. Were the Ibandru wholly at fault in
dreading Yulada? in dreading to stand at her feet? Here again it may
have been only my imagination at work; but when a cloud came drifting
out of nowhere across the sky and for a moment dimmed the sun, I had
a sense of some mysterious overshadowing presence. And all at once
I was anxious to escape, to free myself from the uncanny imminence
of the peak; and it seemed that the great stone mass above, and the
cloud-flecked sky, and the billowy gaunt ranges, were all joined
against me in some gigantic conspiracy.

As rapidly as safety permitted, I made my way down from the mountain.
But still strange fears disturbed me, that same inexplicable uneasiness
which had obsessed me so often in Sobul. Heedless of hunger and
fatigue, sore muscles and blistered feet, I continued downward for
hours; and that evening I made camp between two sheltered crags just
above the timber-line.

Yet the day's torments were not over. As I skilfully struck my two
flints to make a fire, a greater and more arresting fire was flaring in
the west. Huge masses of cloud were heaped above the dark ranges, and
to the east the bars and patches of snow were smoldering with a mellow
rose-red. But their light was dim beside that of the clouds, which
were luminously golden, as though great flames leapt and sparkled in
their heart; and above the clouds the crimson of the sky was such as
may overtop the towers of a burning city. Spellbound, I watched; and,
as I watched, the crimson seemed gradually to take form; and the shape
was at first vague and indistinguishable, but by degrees became more
clearly pencilled; and then, perhaps owing to the downward drift of
the clouds, and perhaps because my imagination endowed the scene with
unreal qualities, I thought that I could make out a face, a red peering
face as vast as a mountain! And that face had familiar outlines; and
in amazement and horror and dismay I recognized the features--of Yulada!

For one moment only, the hallucination endured; then the countenance
became blurred and unrecognizable, and the crimson was drowned out by
the gray, and the fierce blaze of sunset was quenched and subdued, and
the twilight deepened, and the stars came out. But all that night,
while the constellations gleamed above and I lay huddled close to my
fire, I could not sleep but restlessly stirred from side to side, for I
kept seeing over and over again that terrible vision of Yulada.

CHAPTER XXI

"_THE MOLEB_"

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.

CHAPTER XXII

_THE TURNING POINT APPROACHES_

When the days were shortening once more toward fall and the forest
leaves were showing their first tinges of yellow, I knew that I was
approaching an all-important turning point. Already I had passed two
autumns and two winters in Sobul, two autumns of mystery and two
winters of solitude; and it seemed certain that the third year would
bring some far-reaching change. I tried to tell myself that the change
would be beneficent, that the enigma of Sobul would be penetrated, and
that henceforth there would be no separation between Yasma and myself;
but even though I doubted my own hopes and feared some undiscovered
menace, I remained firm in my determination that Yasma should not leave
me this year.

More than once, when summer was still in full blossom, I gave Yasma
hints of my intention. But she either did not take them seriously, or
pretended not to; she would brush my words aside with some attempted
witticism, and did not appear to see the earnestness beneath my mild
phrases. In my dread of casting some new shadow over us both, I delayed
the crucial discussion as long as possible; delayed, indeed, until
the hot days were over and the woods were again streaked with russet
and crimson; delayed until after the Ibandru had held their annual
firelight festival; delayed until the brisk winds brought promise of
frost, and more than one of the tribesmen had gone on that journey
which would not end until the new leaves were green. Even so, I still
hesitated when the moment came to broach the subject; I realized only
too well that one false move might precipitate a storm, and defeat my
purpose.

The time I selected was a calm, clear evening, when twilight was
settling over the village and a red blaze still lingered above the
western range. Arm in arm Yasma and I had been strolling among the
fields; and as we returned slowly to our cabin, a silence fell between
us, and her exuberant spirits of the afternoon disappeared. Looking
down at her small figure, I observed how frail she actually was, and
how dependent; and I thought I noted a sorrow in her eyes, a grief that
had hovered there frequently of late and that seemed the very mark of
the autumn season. But the sense of her weakness, the realization of
something melancholy and even pathetic about her, served only to draw
me closer to her, made it seem doubly sad that she should disappear
each autumn into the unknown.

And as I pondered the extraordinary fate that was hers and mine, words
came to me spontaneously. "I want you to do me a favor, Yasma," I
requested. "A very particular favor."

"But you know that I'll do any favor you ask," she assented, turning to
me with the startled air of one interrupted amid her reveries.

"This is something out of the ordinary, Yasma. Something you may not
wish to do. But I want it as badly as I've ever wanted anything in the
whole world."

"What can it be that you want so badly and yet think I wouldn't give?"

"Do you promise?" I bargained, taking an unfair advantage. "Do you
promise, Yasma?"

"If it's anything within my power--and will bring you happiness--of
course I'll promise!"

"This will bring me the greatest happiness. When the last birds fly
south, and the last of your people have gone away, I want you to stay
here with me."

Yasma's response was a half-suppressed little cry--though whether of
pain or astonishment I could not tell. But she averted her head, and
a long silence descended. In the gathering darkness it would have
been impossible to distinguish the expression of her face; but I felt
intuitively what a blow she had been dealt.

Without a word we reached our cabin, and entered the dim, bare room. I
busied myself lighting a candle from a wick we kept always burning in a
jar of oil; then anxiously I turned to Yasma.

She was standing at the window gazing out toward the ghostly eastern
peaks, her chin sagging down upon her upraised palm.

"Yasma," I murmured.

Slowly she turned to face me. "Oh, my beloved," she sighed, coming to
me and placing her hands affectionately upon my shoulders, "I do not
want to pain you. I do not want to pain you, as you have just pained
me. But you have asked the one thing I cannot grant."

"But, Yasma, this is the only thing I really want!"

"It is more than I can give! You don't know what you ask!" she argued,
as she quickly withdrew from me.

"But you promised, Yasma," I insisted, determined to press my advantage.

"I didn't even know what I was promising! Why, it just never occurred
to me to think of such a thing; I imagined that had all been settled
long ago. Was it right to make me promise?" she contested, stanchly.

"I don't see why not," I maintained, trying to be calm. "Certainly,
it's not unjust to ask you not to desert me."

"Oh, it isn't a question of injustice!" she exclaimed, with passion.
"If I were starved, would it be unjust for me to want food? If I were
stifling, would it be unjust to crave air? Each year when the birds fly
south my people leave Sobul, not because they wish to or plan to but
because they must, just as the flower must have warmth and light!"

"But do you think you alone must have warmth and light? Do I not need
them too? Must I be forsaken here all winter while you go wandering
away somewhere in the sunshine? Think, Yasma, I do not absolutely ask
you to stay! I would not ask you to stay in such a dreary place! But
take me with you, wherever you go! That is all I want!"

"But that I can never do," she replied, falling into a weary, lifeless
tone. "I cannot take you with me. It is not in your nature. You can
never feel the call. You are not as the Ibandru; you would not be able
to follow us, any more than you can follow the wild geese."

"Then if I cannot go, at least you can remain!"

"No Ibandru has ever remained," she objected, sadly, as though to
herself. "Yulada does not wish it--and Yulada knows best."

Somehow, the very mention of that sinister figure made me suddenly and
unreasonably angry.

"Come, I've heard enough of Yulada!" I flared. "More than enough!
Never speak of her again!" And by the wavering candlelight I could see
Yasma's face distended with horror at my blasphemy.

"May Yulada forgive you!" she muttered, and bent her head as if in
prayer.

"Listen to me, Yasma!" I appealed, in rising rage. "Let's try to see
with clear eyes. You said something about fairness--have you ever
thought how fair you are to me? I can't go back to my own land because
I wouldn't leave you; but here in your land you yourself leave me for
months at a time. And I don't even know why you go or where. Would you
think it fair if I were gone half the time and didn't tell you why?"

Into her flushed face had come anger that rivalled my own. Her proud
eyes flashed defiance as she cried, "No, I wouldn't think it fair! And
if you are tired of staying here, you can go--yes, you can just go!"

"Very well then, I will go!" I decided, on a mad impulse. "If you don't
want me, I'll go at once! I'll return to my own people! The road is
open--I'll not trouble you to stay here this winter!"

As though in response to a well formed plan rather than to an
irrational frenzy, I began to fumble about the room for bits of
clothing, for scraps of food, for my notebook and empty revolver; and
made haste to bind my belongings together as if for a long journey.

For several minutes Yasma watched me in silence. Then her reaction was
just what it had been when, in a similar fury, I had run from her in
the woods long before. While I persisted with my preparations and the
suspense became prolonged, I was startled by a half-stifled sob from my
rear. And, the next instant, a passionate form thrust itself upon me
tensely, almost savagely, tearing the bundle from my grasp and weaving
its arms about me in a tearful outburst.

"No, no, no, you must not!" she cried, in tones of pleading and
despair. "You must not go away! Stay here, and I'll do anything you
want!"

"Then you'll remain all winter?" I stipulated, though by this time
I was filled with such remorse and pity that I would gladly have
abandoned the dispute.

"Yes, I'll remain all winter--if I can," she moaned. "But I do not
know, I do not know--if Yulada will let me."

It struck me that in her manner there was the sadness of one who
stands face to face with misfortune; and in her words I could catch a
forewarning of events I preferred not to anticipate.

CHAPTER XXIII

_THE LAST FLIGHT_

As the evening twilight came earlier and the trees were burnished
a deeper scarlet and gold, a strange mood came over Yasma. She was
no longer her old frolicsome self; she would no longer go dancing
light-heartedly among the woods and fields; she would not greet me
with laughter when I returned to our cabin, nor play her little games
of hide-and-seek, nor smile at me in the old winsome whimsical way.
But she was as if burdened with a deep sorrow. Her eyes had the look
of one who suffers but cannot say why; her actions were as mechanical
as though her life-interest had forsaken her. She would sit on the
cabin floor for hours at a time, staring into vacancy; she would stand
with eyes fastened upon the wild birds as their successive companies
went winging southward; she would gaze absently up at Yulada, or would
mumble unintelligible prayers; she would go off by herself into the
forest, and when she returned her cheeks would be moist.

At times, indeed, she struggled to break loose from this melancholia.
For a moment the old sweet untroubled smile would come back into her
eyes, and she would take my hand, and beg me not to mind her queer
ways; but after a few minutes the obsession would return. Now and then
she would be actually merry for a while, but I would fancy that in her
very gaiety there was something strained; and more than once her jovial
mood ended in tears. I could not understand her conduct; I was more
deeply worried than she could have known; and often when she sat at my
side, wrapped in some impenetrable revery, I would be absorbed in a
bleak revery of my own, wherein Yasma would have the central place.

Yet, even at this late date, it would have been possible to avert
catastrophe. Dimly I recognized that I had only to release Yasma from
her promise, and she would be once more her buoyant, happy self. But I
could not bring myself to the necessary point. In part I was restrained
by the very urge of self-preservation, by the threat of madness if I
must live alone winter after winter; in part I was held back by sheer
stubbornness, the determination not to surrender the prize on which
I had set my heart. And in part I was misled by my own blindness. I
still felt that I had only to win this one victory, and happiness would
shine for me again; that once I had weaned Yasma from her long yearly
absences, neither of us would have anything more to fear.

Had my eyes only been open, I would have been warned not by Yasma's
attitude alone, but by the hints of her kinsmen. Not until later did I
take note of the gradually changing attitude of the villagers, and link
together a multitude of signs, each slight in itself, which testified
to the unspoken reproach I had aroused. But what I did observe even at
the time, yet did not properly weigh or fathom, was the uneasiness and
even alarm in the manner of Yasma's father and brothers. When Karem
bade farewell before disappearing for the winter, he mentioned Yasma in
scarcely veiled tones, bidding me not to "clip her wings"; when Barkodu
bade farewell, he adjured me not to try to adapt the Ibandru to my own
nature. And when Abthar came to say good-bye, it was with the manner of
one who suffers a great sorrow; the grizzled face became tender and the
stern eyes soft when he counselled me to take good care of his child.
But he had the air of one who reluctantly bows to the inevitable, and
spoke as though knowing that his words would be without effect.

I had hoped that after Abthar and Karem and the other tribesmen had
gone, Yasma would recover from her despondency. But, if anything, her
depression grew as the days went by. It was as though the departing
ones took with them her slight remaining joy in life; with each of
her kinsmen that disappeared, some new corner of her small universe
crumbled away. Her eyes would now travel toward the south as if to seek
there some great and glorious good hidden from her forever; and it gave
me many a pang to see how she craved what was not to be. But still my
purpose held firm.

Eventually there came a day when all but a few of the cabins were
empty; then a day when even those few were vacant--when all except
our own were deserted. The evening before had still seen two or three
belated men strolling about the village; but now we were alone, utterly
alone except for the screaming wild things in the woods and the
unperturbed figure of Yulada above. And now at last Yasma and I were
face to face with our fate.

And now the long-incipient revolt flamed forth. It was a wild, chilly
day of wind and flying cloud, reminding me of that other day, a year
before, when Yasma had left me. All morning she had been in a somber
mood, and I had been unable to break through her silence; all afternoon
she had been standing, like one in a daze, peering up at the dreary
gray curtain of clouds. My remarks to her, my questions, my pleas, my
soft-toned phrases of affection, were all without effect; she heard me
only as one in a dream may hear murmurs from the waking world. Never
before had I been so far from her; she could hardly have been more
remote had she joined her kinsmen on their mysterious flight!

Late that afternoon I was busying myself in the cabin, lighting a fire
and preparing some simple articles of food, for I could not let myself
spend all my time brooding like Yasma. A brilliant light gleamed in her
eyes; ecstasy and longing and terror and furious enthusiasm convulsed
her features; she seemed a living blaze of vehemence and desire.
Urgently she seized my hand, and led me unresisting into the open; then
passionately pointed upward, upward to a triangle of black dots darting
across the gray heavens.

"See!" she cried. "See, the birds fly south! The last birds fly south!"

I glanced skyward, but first peered at her in fright, for it occurred
to me that brooding and excitement might have deranged her mind. But
except for her extreme agitation, she appeared quite normal; her eyes
flashed with a beautiful flame, and her old animated, fiery self had
revived.

"Let me go from here!" she pleaded, almost in a transport. "Let me go,
oh, let me go the way of the birds!"

I stood as if paralyzed by the force of her words; and if she had made
a motion to leave, I might not have been able to detain her.

"Oh, let me go the way of the birds!" she repeated. "Do not hold me, my
beloved! I want to go far from here, across the mountains, the way the
birds go!"

But dread of losing her was beginning to possess me, and I made my
first defense against the wild power of her appeal. "No!" I forbade.
"You shall not go! You shall stay here with me!"

"No, I must go! Yulada calls! For now the last birds fly south, the
last birds fly south! Oh, I must go, my beloved!"

In these words there was an intensity of longing that was almost
pitiable. But my own longing was at storm pitch; and desperately I
reiterated what I had just said.

"But Yulada orders me to go! I cannot resist her call! It is burning
away in me like a torment!" she wailed, and raised her arms imploringly
toward the gray skies, across which another band of winged travelers
was careering. "Oh, I must not be late! Good-bye, my beloved!"

And she started away from me, and in a moment might have been obscured
amid the shadows.

But terror of losing her filled my heart; and I darted after her, and
an instant later had her in my arms.

"Yasma! You shall not go! You shall not!" I found myself crying, in a
frenzy that equalled her own. And my arms clung about her, and forced
the quivering form closely to me. "You must not go! You cannot! You
promised to stay! I will not let you go, I will not, will not!" And
what more I said I cannot now recall; but I held her to me tenaciously,
distractedly, in an abandon of fear and passion; and she could not
struggle free from my clasp.

And as the darkness deepened, and a red rift in the clouds like a fiery
omen marked the way of the setting sun, my madness subsided, and hers
subsided too; and she lay in my arms, a limp, huddled mass.

"Let it be as you wish. I will not go," she was saying, in tones
wherein there seemed to be scarcely a trace of life. "I will not go. I
will stay with you here--if Yulada permits."

And she buried her face against my breast, and her whole form shook and
shuddered. And as I reached out a trembling hand to comfort her, there
came a weird querulous calling from the deep gloom above; and I knew
that still another flying thing, perhaps the last, had gone gliding on
its way beyond the mountains.

CHAPTER XXIV

_THE WILL OF YULADA_

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_

*** End of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "When the birds fly south" ***

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