The Portal of Dreams Part 7

While I lived under the sword of the problematical to-morrow, suspended by the hair of an uncertain to-day, my dependence upon her grew greater.

The brave man is said to die once and the coward often, but the line between the courage and cowardice is not absolute. There were periods when I felt that I could play the game and die if I must, with the detached philosophy of a Socrates. At other times I wallowed in the pit of foreboding and died several times a day. In these moods I wished for the moment of crisis which should put my resolution to the touch, and end the matter.

The savages did not approach my cave, but sometimes when evening fell and the jungle spread itself in a fringed blanket against the moonlight, I could make out skulking patches of shadow at its edge. In my rambles too I had a sense of being endlessly watched by unseen eyes, and once bending over a sunlit pool to drink, I was startled by the haggard face which looked up from it with streaks of white in its long, tangled hair.

Each day I brought fresh orchids from the jungle's edge and heaped them before my intangible lady.

"They are more beautiful, Frances," I told her, "than any I could buy you along the Champs Elysees or Fifth Avenue--and all they cost is a s.h.i.+p and crew and cargo."

One morning I discovered that where the growth of cane and moss and vines had formerly been thick and unbroken there were now several clearly defined alleyways, made by the coming and going of the blacks, bent on observing me. A few inquisitive steps into one of these trails revealed, at a little distance, a pool of water. Its basin was of mossy rock, and its edges were choked with ferns. A slender waterfall fed it, and through the cloistered half-light of the forest interior fell a few fervid dashes of sunlight like gold leaf on the somber tones of greenery. The air hung wet and steamy like the atmosphere of a hot house. But the marvel of it was the orchids. They climbed and trailed and illumined the place with a dozen varieties of weird and subtle beauty. One could understand why men take their lives into their hands and penetrate fever-infested jungles in search of newer types. Their delicacy was unearthly and splendid. They were not, it seemed, flowers growing on dirt-fed stems, but blossoms of the G.o.ds. Each one was like the blooming of some human soul freed from the grossness of the flesh.

Here was a bloom as ethereally pure and pale as the reincarnation of some flawless virgin spirit; there were flaming petals of such magnificent color as might have sprung from the heart of a conqueror. I saw epitomized in petal and stamen, all the poetry of the world's dead dreams. I took as many as I could carry back to the portrait, and on the following morning I returned for more.

They lured me strangely with their fox fire of sheer beauty, until I had penetrated the jungle to the distance of a quarter of a mile and stood in a small opening where I plucked an armful of their blossoms.

Suddenly, as I started back, I felt a biting pang in my left shoulder, and knew that I had been speared, though the tangle of the jungle revealed no human form, and its silence remained unbroken. The spear, which had come from nowhere, as it seemed, fell to the ground, but not before it had gashed my flesh and left upon the tattered remnants of my jacket a tell-tale smear of blood.

I believed myself to have been mortally poisoned by the javelin, and my one wish now was to escape, with the semblance of greatness still upon me, and die unseen. I went with as much dignity as possible toward the beach, backing through the tangle to keep my flow of blood concealed. I had no doubt that many unseen eyes followed my exit and even if it were for a brief time, I wished to go with the seeming of divine invulnerability. I even forced a loud and derisive shout of laughter which rang weirdly through the silences. Wicked pains shot in white-hot currents through my blood and racked my muscles. I was weak with nauseating pain and dizziness swam in my brain. At last the merciful rocks gave me concealment. I dropped on my knees, my teeth gritted, and dragged myself back to my cave where I turned my face to the rock wall to die.

CHAPTER XI

I FIND MYSELF A DEMI-G.o.d

Yet I did not die. While I lay waiting to do so the insistent ache of my bones, the racking of my wound and the sodden numbness of my brain, slowly blurred me into apathy. That pa.s.sed and the delirium came on a swelling tide of temperature. Centuries trampled roughshod over me and demons of pain scourged me through the seven h.e.l.ls of fever. Scorching wastes of time were broken at long intervals by little oases of lucidity when I crawled to the opening and drank, but even these were clouded by shreds of nightmare horror, and remembered hallucinations.

Once, waking to momentary sensibility, I found the narrow cave still ringing with the echoes of my tortured and delirious shrieks.

When, at last, I came fully to myself, painfully weak and scalded with the fever, but sane, I could see the stars spangling my sc.r.a.p of sky. My adventure had occurred in the morning, but whether hours or days had played out their scores I did not know. I drank and slept again. I next woke to the glare of forenoon. The clouds in my brain had been swept away, and the hand I lifted fell weakly back on a forehead which was cool and moist. The battling life spark had triumphed over the native poison. But when I tried to drag myself to the mouth of my grotto, my weak head began rambling again, so that real and unreal things wandered strangely together. My side was lacerated by the pistol which had been at my belt as I tossed in the fever. A twist in the fissure brought me to the point where I, still concealed in the dark shadow, could see the primitive terrace of my plateau, and there were such things as brought back upon me an avalanche of terror, rage and violence.

The lady still smiled from her post of honor with her gracious and fearless eyes. The curved damascus daggers still held the enamelled sheet in place, but beyond her I saw death. Against a background of intense sea and sky under the glare of a fiercely brilliant sun, stood grouped a human ensemble of indescribable color and savagery. Upon scores of black and sweating torsos; upon gorgeously dyed feather work and sh.e.l.l ornaments, the light fell in color gone mad. They stood ma.s.sed and silent, their spears and bows and clubs for the moment idle. Their faces mutilated with spiked ears and nose ornaments and dyed teeth, were unspeakably hideous. Every eye was just now intent on the portrait of my lady. At the front stood the three whom I had supposed to be priests at the amphitheatre, and with them was a man very aged and white haired, but erect and gorgeously appareled.

Slowly one of the priests approached the portrait and put out an ulcerous hand to touch the face. A tidal wave of unspeakable fury caught me up and swept me back into the realm of insanity. I was transplanted in an instant to the nightmares of my delirium. I saw instead of a lifeless picture the slender, breathing figure of the woman I wors.h.i.+ped contaminated by this profane touch. I attempted to rush out and die like some Mad Mullah devotee in fanatical battle with her a.s.sailants, but my strength was not equal to my impulse. I stumbled to my knees and my right hand fell upon the hilt of my pistol. I whipped it out and fired.

In my agued hand it should have been harmless enough, but the range was short and I had once been a marksman. I saw the man crumple forward with a short, strangled groan. I saw those at the back crowding one another over the cliff in the panic of their disordered flight. They had not seen me. They knew only that bolts of death were striking them down. I heard endless thunders as the pistol report sent its echoes beating and rebounding against the confined walls of the fissure. Blue and slender lines of spiraling smoke went drifting out into the air. I caught a glimpse of two bolder spirits stopping to drag away their dead. Then I collapsed and lay for hours where I had fallen.

Once more I awoke with a moist forehead and a hunger which gnawed at the pit of my stomach. Only the G.o.ds knew how long I had been without food.

The air fanned me with the soft, reviving breath of night. The moon, riding up the east made an irregular diagram of silvered light across the ledge, and fell with a rea.s.suring touch of ivoried white, on the newspaper sheet and the portrait.

I was too famished and spent to stand, but I made the journey down to the beach on hands and knees, and when I had eaten my fill of unsavory crabs I lay for a time in the grateful coolness of the wet sand and drew new strength from its healing. My sickness was ended. The pitiable weakness that had made the downward journey a torture was the heritage of hunger. I had needed no medicine but food, and now I found myself able to walk back upright. That night I slept sweetly and dreamed once again of the familiar door beyond which lay luxury and security.

The sun was high when I awoke with a sense of great refreshment and recovery. The slit of sky framed in the rift was not yet hot, but tenderly blue with a color of promise. The fronds of fern and palm stirred to the land breeze. I went down to my surf bath and breakfast with an almost buoyant step. A half-hour after my return, when I turned to look at the jungle edge a sight greeted me which demonstrated the decision of the natives that our intercourse was not so soon to become a closed incident.

This time, however, their coming was characterized by a more gratifying element of respect. They swarmed out of the bush, not in paltry dozens nor scores, but in their panoplied hundreds. Gorgeously decked chiefs and the club-bearing warriors smeared with indigo halted in the open, leaving a satisfying interval between their position and mine. With great and conspicuous show of peace the warriors discarded their spears and s.h.i.+elds and raised their weaponless hands for me to behold as I looked down from my high place. The white-haired king broke a spear, gazing up at me the while, then dropping the pieces knelt and bowed his slanting forehead to the sands. At his back bent the priests, trailing their bright feathers in the dust. No one could misunderstand their pantomime. Men of their tribe had offended the deities. A nation had come in humility and supplication for forgiveness.

While they made obeisance in relays a group of young men approached the priests, bearing armfuls of orchids. The king and priests and orchid-bearers moved forward for a few steps and halted, gazing up inquiringly at me. This performance was several times repeated before I understood that they were seeking my consent to approach nearer. Then I bowed and pointed inward. A rigorous order of precedence was observed, the aged king keeping his place at their head and his followers their positions of relative rank. The weight of his years made the royal steps so slow that the colorful pageant crept like an army of snails.

Suddenly it dawned upon me that if I were to be a G.o.d receiving a delegation of mortals, I should receive it in some suitable degree of state. They were sending to me the mightiest men of their villages. The kinky head of their king was abased. Aged Merlins were coming on their marrow bones, resplendently trailing their feathered finery along the white and flaring sands. I stood awaiting them in a raveled, mud-smeared suit of pajamas which at their best had never been ostentatious. The thing seemed unfit. Evidently these folk inclined to the splendor of pomp. Jeffersonian simplicity would be lost on them. Their pageant should be met with pageantry. There had been some who had doubted and denied me. Of a surety if I were to play this nabob from the skies; if I were to turn the averted tragedy into a screaming and cheerful farce, it was my duty to dress the part.

With a signal of raised hands, I signified that they were to await my reappearance. Then I bowed with profound dignity, and stepping from their view, disappeared.

A few minutes later I emerged from my cave, a transmogrified being. I was no longer the derelict of rags and tatters. Mine was the opulent splendor of a High Mandarin of China. About my fever-wasted frame fell and flapped the gorgeous folds of the embroidered kimono. In my hands I carried a violin and bow. It is true I was unshaven, and through holes in my canvas shoes protruded eight or ten toes, but what mortal can a.s.sume to criticise such eccentricities as may be the part of G.o.dhood?

When I took my stand once more on my pedestal of mountain, I found them patiently awaiting the nod of deity. The sun fell resplendently on my silver storks and gold dragons and silk poppies. The lessening land breeze fluttered the embroidery-crusted folds and splintered light from my person. I listened with satisfaction to the incoherent sound that went up from many throats; a chorused gasp of profound awe and admiration and wonderment.

I signaled my immortal readiness to receive them. As the ludicrousness of the farce broke over me I had to bite back unsolemn roars of laughter. A spirit of deviltry and vaudeville possessed me. As their high priests in deadly earnest marched on all fours with faces as rapt and fanatically sober as those of Mecca pilgrims, I drew the bow across the catgut and, lifting my voice, proclaimed myself in ragtime.

I informed them in the words which were new only to them and solemn only to them that I had rings on my fingers and bells on my toes, and as I sung they became hushed with awe and approached with a deeply moved sense of their great honor and responsibility.

When they were only a little way off, I went down to meet them, and with a condescension which I trusted would not injure my prestige, lifted the aged chieftain to his feet and permitted him to walk. He, however, remained deferentially two paces in my rear. It was evident from their straining upward gazes, that deeply as they were moved to reverence by my own exalted spectacle, there was some greater revelation which they awaited above. This disquieted me since I had in reserve no added climax to offer. I had given them a display savoring of the circus but I had no grand spectacle to advertise in the main tent after the regular performance.

When we had reached the plateau, however, I understood and was relieved.

To me they had come kneeling, but before Her portrait they threw themselves on their faces and groveled. They sprinkled sand and pebbles upon their hair and their voices, even to me who understood no syllable, carried such depth of humility and supplication as filled me with wonder.

They would rise from their suppliance only long enough to glance at the face of the picture, then fall again and renew their paroxysms of ungainly prayer. From the hands of the orchid-bearers they took the heaps of blooms, and piled them at a distance from the shrine. The young men who had been so signally honored withdrew from the holy of holies.

Only the high priests and the king were left with me in the sacred arena.

For a time I stood dumbly looking on, then the idea percolated into my confused understanding. I realized that at best I was only a demi-G.o.d, perhaps a sort of super-high-priest, but no G.o.d. These amba.s.sadors extraordinary had come not to me but to The Lady of the Portrait.

I lifted up my voice for attention, and from their kneeling postures they regarded me with grave reverence. I took my place, with bowed head, before the portrait and addressed the lady in tones of deep solemnity.

It seemed to me that her delicate mouth line quivered with amus.e.m.e.nt, as though she and I had between us a delicious secret.

"Frances! Frances! Frances!" I declaimed with the deep profundity of a ritual. "I have failed totally and signally at the G.o.d job. There is in all this world of sky and sea and of my heart but one deity. It was you who struck down with a thunderbolt the sacrilegious, false priest. It was you who saved me from death and raised me to the high estate of your vicegerent." I paused and went on more seriously: "It is you whom these people wors.h.i.+p with idolatry--and of them all, none wors.h.i.+ps you so wholly as I, your priest!" And though I was declaiming before a lifeless image to impress ignorant cannibals, I meant it. When I had finished there rose a devout murmur from the blacks, and with a motion to them to remain, I went into the cave and came out again with the small j.a.panese burner and a taper of incense. As the heavy fragrance of the burning stuff spread itself upon the air, their wonder grew.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Frances! Frances! Frances!" I declaimed with the deep profundity of a ritual.]

At length I wheeled and pointed back to the jungle. Slowly, reluctantly, but with perfect obedience, the wild bush men took up their backward journey to relate the unbelievable tale of their reception.

CHAPTER XII

PORT AND STARBOARD LIGHTS

There are men whose lives develop in gradations of gentle growth. Decade merges into decade by unstartling evolution. Variations of thread and color run smoothly into the life-pattern. With me it has been otherwise.

The constantly recurring dream of the portal in the cliff was in a fas.h.i.+on symbolical of my life. The dreamed-of rescue never came by degrees, but by the abrupt opening of a door where there had been no door before and by the sudden changing of worlds in a step across the threshold. For me epoch had followed epoch with sudden breaks and few connecting threads. One day I was a bored tourist lounging under the striped awnings of Shepheard's Hotel. The next day found me on a disreputable ocean tramp bound for the Ultima Thule. That voyage had ended as suddenly as it began--with a quick curtain of unconsciousness on a tableau of violence. Mansfield, too, dropped out of my life with more instant suddenness that he had entered it. Now, presto! with the sudden trickeries of a mountebank the sprite who played with my destinies ushered in another unprefaced era. Across an invisible line I stepped into days of luxury and prosperity.

It is told that the Inca G.o.d-kings breakfasted each morning on fruit fresh plucked from growing-places a hundred miles away. In a horseless land relays of runners, each das.h.i.+ng his appointed distance, saw to it that a perishable dainty outlived its journey across a mountain range.

This gives a key to my mode of existence, for several months following, though my luxury was of a lesser scale. In those months I mastered some vocabulary--and in so crude a dialect vocabulary suffices. I lacked fluency, of course, and had trouble with their consonant-locked syllables and gutturals, but in a fas.h.i.+on I could talk. Day followed day with a monotony of ease. I was no longer satisfied with the noisome flesh of disgusting crabs, and gull eggs far advanced toward the hatching. Delicacies of fish and flesh and hitherto unheard-of fruits were served up to me to satiation. My tattered pajamas gave way to garments of cocoa-fiber and feathered finery for ceremonial wear. The necessity of entering into the lives of the natives brought repulsive revelations which I endured as best I could since if I were to influence them I must proceed with a nice diplomacy. My "fluttered folk and wild"

could not be hurriedly herded into new folds. Departing spirits, they believed, followed the sun into the west. G.o.ds visited mortals though usually in invisible forms and were fond of the flesh of enemies slain in battle. Fetich and superst.i.tion took a hundred phases. Their gusty and savage minds were childishly susceptible and in their quickly roused affections they were as demonstrative as collies. I began shortly to look about for some simple miracle wherein the new G.o.ddess might manifest herself as a deity of benefaction as well as of condign punishment. The opportunity came in a fas.h.i.+on most unexpected and the result hardly made for a reform of enlightenment. I was told that there dwelt in stilt-supported villages of gra.s.s on the far side of the island a warlike tribe, with whom my people were hostile.

My folk were bushmen and dreaded the sea, but these enemies were salt-water men, who could with axe and adz scoop from the solid tree outrigger canoes and who were terrible in their strength. Their king was lord over several villages and about his house went (this they told me with bated breath) a row of many round stones, and each stone stood for an enemy slain and eaten. For many seasons there had been peace, but one day there arrived at my plateau a delegation of grief-torn warriors. A small village had been attacked and two heads taken to swell the row of stones around the canoe house. They had now come to propitiate the deity bearing fruits and exquisitely wrought spears. They besought the forgiveness of my Gracious Lady, because they could offer no enemies'

flesh--the most G.o.d-satisfying of sacrifices. This omission, however, they swore to remedy, if victory were permitted to hover over them in fight. Among the most devout of the pet.i.tioners was Ra Tuiki, the aged chief with white hair. They urged me to accompany them to their princ.i.p.al village and lay the hand of blessing on their clubs and spears.

Through dense tangles of palm and fern, mangrove and moss I was borne in a rough hammock of fiber. Great soft-winged b.u.t.terflies flapped across the course of our march. Brilliant birds fluttered off, twittering and screaming. I should have preferred walking, but my position prohibited it. To condescend meant to become a mere man.

In their squalid villages of gra.s.s hovels I found filth and the excitement of battle preparation. It was my first view of their home life--and my last. I was taken to the house of a chief or sub-king, who lay mortally hurt of an arrow wound, and who wished to have the blessing of the highest priest that his spirit might take its course honorably, and without curse, to the west. He lay on his mat dying, and was older and more repulsive to the eye than Ra Tuiki. His ears had been stretched by many huge ornaments, and the cartilage of his nose was torn and ragged where the chances of battle had pulled out rings and spikes.