CHAPTER X
On the following day Rima continued in the same inexplicable humour; andfeeling my defeat keenly, I determined once more to try the effect ofabsence on her, and to remain away on this occasion for a longer period.Like old Nuflo, I was secret in going forth next morning, waiting untilthe girl was out of the way, then slipping off among the bushes intothe deeper wood; and finally quitting its shelter, I set out across thesavannah towards my old quarters. Great was my surprise on arrivingat the village to find no person there. At first I imagined that mydisappearance in the forest of evil fame had caused them to abandontheir home in a panic; but on looking round I concluded that my friendshad only gone on one of their periodical visits to some neighbouringvillage. For when these Indians visit their neighbours they do it in avery thorough manner; they all go, taking with them their entire stockof provisions, their cooking utensils, weapons, hammocks, and eventheir pet animals. Fortunately in this case they had not taken quiteeverything; my hammock was there, also one small pot, some cassavabread, purple potatoes, and a few ears of maize. I concluded that thesehad been left for me in the event of my return; also that they had notbeen gone very many hours, since a log of wood buried under the ashesof the hearth was still alight. Now, as their absences from home usuallylast many days, it was plain that I would have the big naked barn-likehouse to myself for as long as I thought proper to remain, with littlefood to eat; but the prospect did not disturb me, and I resolved toamuse myself with music. In vain I hunted for my guitar; the Indianshad taken it to delight their friends by twanging its strings. At oddmoments during the last day or two I had been composing a simple melodyin my brain, fitting it to ancient words; and now, without an instrumentto assist me, I began softly singing to myself:
Muy mas clara que la luna Sola una en el mundo vos nacistes.
After music I made up the fire and parched an ear of maize for mydinner, and while laboriously crunching the dry hard grain I thankedHeaven for having bestowed on me such good molars. Finally I slung myhammock in its old corner, and placing myself in it in my favouriteoblique position, my hands clasped behind my head, one knee cocked up,the other leg dangling down, I resigned myself to idle thought. I feltvery happy. How strange, thought I, with a little self-flattery, thatI, accustomed to the agreeable society of intelligent men and charmingwomen, and of books, should find such perfect contentment here! But Icongratulated myself too soon. The profound silence began at length tooppress me. It was not like the forest, where one has wild birds forcompany, where their cries, albeit inarticulate, have a meaning and givea charm to solitude. Even the sight and whispered sounds of green leavesand rushes trembling in the wind have for us something of intelligenceand sympathy; but I could not commune with mud walls and an earthen pot.Feeling my loneliness too acutely, I began to regret that I had leftRima, then to feel remorse at the secrecy I had practiced. Even nowwhile I inclined idly in my hammock, she would be roaming the forest insearch of me, listening for my footsteps, fearing perhaps that I hadmet with some accident where there was no person to succour me. It waspainful to think of her in this way, of the pain I had doubtless givenher by stealing off without a word of warning. Springing to the floor, Iflung out of the house and went down to the stream. It was better there,for now the greatest heat of the day was over, and the weltering sunbegan to look large and red and rayless through the afternoon haze.
I seated myself on a stone within a yard or two of the limpid water; andnow the sight of nature and the warm, vital air and sunshine infectedmy spirit and made it possible for me to face the position calmly,even hopefully. The position was this: for some days the idea had beenpresent in my mind, and was now fixed there, that this desert was tobe my permanent home. The thought of going back to Caracas, that littleParis in America, with its Old World vices, its idle political passions,its empty round of gaieties, was unendurable. I was changed, and thischange--so great, so complete--was proof that the old artificial lifehad not been and could not be the real one, in harmony with my deeperand truer nature. I deceived myself, you will say, as I have oftenmyself said. I had and I had not. It is too long a question todiscuss here; but just then I felt that I had quitted the hot, taintedatmosphere of the ballroom, that the morning air of heaven refreshed andelevated me and was sweet to breathe. Friends and relations I had whowere dear to me; but I could forget them, even as I could forget thesplendid dreams which had been mine. And the woman I had loved, andwho perhaps loved me in return--I could forget her too. A daughter ofcivilization and of that artificial life, she could never experiencesuch feelings as these and return to nature as I was doing. For women,though within narrow limits more plastic than men, are yet without thatlarger adaptiveness which can take us back to the sources of life, whichthey have left eternally behind. Better, far better for both of us thatshe should wait through the long, slow months, growing sick at heartwith hope deferred; that, seeing me no more, she should weep my loss,and be healed at last by time, and find love and happiness again in theold way, in the old place.
And while I thus sat thinking, sadly enough, but not despondingly, ofpast and present and future, all at once on the warm, still air camethe resonant, far-reaching KLING-KLANG of the campanero from some leafysummit half a league away. KLING-KLANG fell the sound again, andoften again, at intervals, affecting me strangely at that moment, sobell-like, so like the great wide-travelling sounds associated in ourminds with Christian worship. And yet so unlike. A bell, yet not made ofgross metal dug out of earth, but of an ethereal, sublimer materialthat floats impalpable and invisible in space--a vital bell suspended onnothing, giving out sounds in harmony with the vastness of blue heaven,the unsullied purity of nature, the glory of the sun, and conveying amystic, a higher message to the soul than the sounds that surge fromtower and belfry.
O mystic bell-bird of the heavenly race of the swallow and dove, thequetzal and the nightingale! When the brutish savage and the brutishwhite man that slay thee, one for food, the other for the benefit ofscience, shall have passed away, live still, live to tell thy message tothe blameless spiritualized race that shall come after us to possess theearth, not for a thousand years, but for ever; for how much shall thyvoice be our clarified successors when even to my dull, unpurged soulthou canst speak such high things and bring it a sense of an impersonal,all-compromising One who is in me and I in Him, flesh of His flesh andsoul of His soul.
The sounds ceased, but I was still in that exalted mood and, like aperson in a trance, staring fixedly before me into the open wood ofscattered dwarf trees on the other side of the stream, when suddenly onthe field of vision appeared a grotesque human figure moving towards me.I started violently, astonished and a little alarmed, but in a veryfew moments I recognized the ancient Cla-cla, coming home with a largebundle of dry sticks on her shoulders, bent almost double under theburden, and still ignorant of my presence. Slowly she came down to thestream, then cautiously made her way over the line of stepping-stonesby which it was crossed; and only when within ten yards did the oldcreature catch sight of me sitting silent and motionless in her path.With a sharp cry of amazement and terror she straightened herself up,the bundle of sticks dropping to the ground, and turned to run fromme. That, at all events, seemed her intention, for her body was thrownforward, and her head and arms working like those of a person going atfull speed, but her legs seemed paralysed and her feet remained plantedon the same spot. I burst out laughing; whereat she twisted her neckuntil her wrinkled, brown old face appeared over her shoulder staring atme. This made me laugh again, whereupon she straightened herself up oncemore and turned round to have a good look at me.
"Come, Cla-cla," I cried; "can you not see that I am a living man and nospirit? I thought no one had remained behind to keep me company and giveme food. Why are you not with the others?"
"Ah, why!" she returned tragically. And then deliberately turningfrom me and assuming a most unladylike attitude, she slapped herselfvigorously on the small of the back, exclaiming: "Because of my painhere
!"
As she continued in that position with her back towards me for sometime, I laughed once more and begged her to explain.
Slowly she turned round and advanced cautiously towards me, staring atme all the time. Finally, still eyeing me suspiciously, she related thatthe others had all gone on a visit to a distant village, she startingwith them; that after going some distance a pain had attacked her in herhind quarters, so sudden and acute that it had instantly brought her toa full stop; and to illustrate how full the stop was she allowed herselfto go down, very unnecessarily, with a flop to the ground. But she nosooner touched the ground than up she started to her feet again, withan alarmed look on her owlish face, as if she had sat down on astinging-nettle.
"We thought you were dead," she remarked, still thinking that I might bea ghost after all.
"No, still alive," I said. "And so because you came to the ground withyour pain, they left you behind! Well, never mind, Cla-cla, we are twonow and must try to be happy together."
By this time she had recovered from her fear and began to feel highlypleased at my return, only lamenting that she had no meat to giveme. She was anxious to hear my adventures, and the reason of my longabsence. I had no wish to gratify her curiosity, with the truth at allevents, knowing very well that with regard to the daughter of the Didiher feelings were as purely savage and malignant as those of Kua-ko. Butit was necessary to say something, and, fortifying myself with the goodold Spanish notion that lies told to the heathen are not recorded, Irelated that a venomous serpent had bitten me; after which a terriblethunderstorm had surprised me in the forest, and night coming onprevented my escape from it; then, next day, remembering that he who isbitten by a serpent dies, and not wishing to distress my friends withthe sight of my dissolution, I elected to remain, sitting there in thewood, amusing myself by singing songs and smoking cigarettes; and afterseveral days and nights had gone by, finding that I was not going to dieafter all, and beginning to feel hungry, I got up and came back.
Old Cla-cla looked very serious, shaking and nodding her head a greatdeal, muttering to herself; finally she gave it as her opinion thatnothing ever would or could kill me; but whether my story had beenbelieved or not she only knew.
I spent an amusing evening with my old savage hostess. She had thrownoff her ailments and, pleased at having a companion in her drearysolitude, she was good-tempered and talkative, and much more inclined tolaugh than when the others were present, when she was on her dignity.
We sat by the fire, cooking such food as we had, and talked and smoked;then I sang her songs in Spanish with that melody of my own--
Muy mas clara que la luna;
and she rewarded me by emitting a barbarous chant in a shrill, screechyvoice; and finally, starting up, I danced for her benefit polka,mazurka, and valse, whistling and singing to my motions.
More than once during the evening she tried to introduce serioussubjects, telling me that I must always live with them, learn to shootthe birds and catch the fishes, and have a wife; and then she wouldspeak of her granddaughter Oalava, whose virtues it was proper tomention, but whose physical charms needed no description since they hadnever been concealed. Each time she got on this topic I cut her short,vowing that if I ever married she only should be my wife. She informedme that she was old and past her fruitful period; that not much longerwould she make cassava bread, and blow the fire to a flame with herwheezy old bellows, and talk the men to sleep at night. But I stuck toit that she was young and beautiful, that our descendants would be morenumerous than the birds in the forest. I went out to some bushes closeby, where I had noticed a passion plant in bloom, and gathering a fewsplendid scarlet blossoms with their stems and leaves, I brought them inand wove them into a garland for the old dame's head; then I pulled herup, in spite of screams and struggles, and waltzed her wildly to theother end of the room and back again to her seat beside the fire. Andas she sat there, panting and grinning with laughter, I knelt before herand, with suitable passionate gestures, declaimed again the old delicatelines sung by Mena before Columbus sailed the seas:
Muy mas clara que la luna Sola una en el mundo vos nacistes tan gentil, que no vecistes ni tavistes competedora ninguna Desdi ninez en la cuna cobrastes fama, beldad, con tanta graciosidad, que vos doto la fortuna.
Thinking of another all the time! O poor old Cla-cla, knowing not whatthe jingle meant nor the secret of my wild happiness, now when I recallyou sitting there, your old grey owlish head crowned with scarletpassion flowers, flushed with firelight, against the background ofsmoke-blackened walls and rafters, how the old undying sorrow comes backto me!
Thus our evening was spent, merrily enough; then we made up the firewith hard wood that would last all night, and went to our hammocks, butwakeful still. The old dame, glad and proud to be on duty once more,religiously went to work to talk me to sleep; but although I called outat intervals to encourage her to go on, I did not attempt to follow theancient tales she told, which she had imbibed in childhood from otherwhite-headed grandmothers long, long turned to dust. My own brain wasbusy thinking, thinking, thinking now of the woman I had once loved, faraway in Venezuela, waiting and weeping and sick with hope deferred;now of Rima, wakeful and listening to the mysterious nightsounds of theforest--listening, listening for my returning footsteps.
Next morning I began to waver in my resolution to remain absent fromRima for some days; and before evening my passion, which I had nowceased to struggle against, coupled with the thought that I had actedunkindly in leaving her, that she would be a prey to anxiety, overcameme, and I was ready to return. The old woman, who had been suspiciouslywatching my movements, rushed out after me as I left the house, cryingout that a storm was brewing, that it was too late to go far, andnight would be full of danger. I waved my hand in good-bye, laughinglyreminding her that I was proof against all perils. Little she cared whatevil might befall me, I thought; but she loved not to be alone; even forher, low down as she was intellectually, the solitary earthen pot hadno "mind stuff" in it, and could not be sent to sleep at night with thelegends of long ago.
By the time I reached the ridge, I had discovered that she hadprophesied truly, for now an ominous change had come over nature. A dullgrey vapour had overspread the entire western half of the heavens;down, beyond the forest, the sky looked black as ink, and behind thisblackness the sun had vanished. It was too late to go back now; I hadbeen too long absent from Rima, and could only hope to reach Nuflo'slodge, wet or dry, before night closed round me in the forest.
For some moments I stood still on the ridge, struck by the somewhatweird aspect of the shadowed scene before me--the long strip of dulluniform green, with here and there a slender palm lifting its featherycrown above the other trees, standing motionless, in strange reliefagainst the advancing blackness. Then I set out once more at a run,taking advantage of the downward slope to get well on my way before thetempest should burst. As I approached the wood, there came a flash oflightning, pale, but covering the whole visible sky, followed after along interval by a distant roll of thunder, which lasted several secondsand ended with a succession of deep throbs. It was as if Nature herself,in supreme anguish and abandonment, had cast herself prone on the earth,and her great heart had throbbed audibly, shaking the world with itsbeats. No more thunder followed, but the rain was coming down heavilynow in huge drops that fell straight through the gloomy, windless air.In half a minute I was drenched to the skin; but for a short timethe rain seemed an advantage, as the brightness of the falling waterlessened the gloom, turning the air from dark to lighter grey. Thissubdued rain-light did not last long: I had not been twenty minutesin the wood before a second and greater darkness fell on the earth,accompanied by an even more copious downpour of water. The sun hadevidently gone down, and the whole sky was now covered with one thickcloud. Becoming more nervous as the gloom increased, I bent my stepsmore to the south, so as to keep near the border and more open part ofthe wood. Probably I had already grown confused bef
ore deviating andturned the wrong way, for instead of finding the forest easier, itgrew closer and more difficult as I advanced. Before many minutes thedarkness so increased that I could no longer distinguish objects morethan five feet from my eyes. Groping blindly along, I became entangledin a dense undergrowth, and after struggling and stumbling along forsome distance in vain endeavours to get through it, I came to a standat last in sheer despair. All sense of direction was now lost: I wasentombed in thick blackness--blackness of night and cloud and rain andof dripping foliage and network of branches bound with bush ropes andcreepers in a wild tangle. I had struggled into a hollow, or hole, asit were, in the midst of that mass of vegetation, where I could standupright and turn round and round without touching anything; but when Iput out my hands they came into contact with vines and bushes. To movefrom that spot seemed folly; yet how dreadful to remain there standingon the sodden earth, chilled with rain, in that awful blackness in whichthe only luminous thing one could look to see would be the eyes, shiningwith their own internal light, of some savage beast of prey! Yet thedanger, the intense physical discomfort, and the anguish of lookingforward to a whole night spent in that situation stung my heart lessthan the thought of Rima's anxiety and of the pain I had carelesslygiven by secretly leaving her.
It was then, with that pang in my heart, that I was startled by hearing,close by, one of her own low, warbled expressions. There could be nomistake; if the forest had been full of the sounds of animal lifeand songs of melodious birds, her voice would have been instantlydistinguished from all others. How mysterious, how infinitely tender itsounded in that awful blackness!--so musical and exquisitely modulated,so sorrowful, yet piercing my heart with a sudden, unutterable joy.
"Rima! Rima!" I cried. "Speak again. Is it you? Come to me here."
Again that low, warbling sound, or series of sounds, seemingly froma distance of a few yards. I was not disturbed at her not replying inSpanish: she had always spoken it somewhat reluctantly, and only whenat my side; but when calling to me from some distance she would returninstinctively to her own mysterious language, and call to me as birdcalls to bird. I knew that she was inviting me to follow her, but Irefused to move.
"Rima," I cried again, "come to me here, for I know not where to step,and cannot move until you are at my side and I can feel your hand."
There came no response, and after some moments, becoming alarmed, Icalled to her again.
Then close by me, in a low, trembling voice, she returned: "I am here."
I put out my hand and touched something soft and wet; it was her breast,and moving my hand higher up, I felt her hair, hanging now and streamingwith water. She was trembling, and I thought the rain had chilled her.
"Rima--poor child! How wet you are! How strange to meet you in such aplace! Tell me, dear Rima, how did you find me?"
"I was waiting--watching--all day. I saw you coming across the savannah,and followed at a distance through the wood."
"And I had treated you so unkindly! Ah, my guardian angel, my light inthe darkness, how I hate myself for giving you pain! Tell me, sweet, didyou wish me to come back and live with you again?" She made no reply.Then, running my fingers down her arm, I took her hand in mine. It washot, like the hand of one in a fever. I raised it to my lips and thenattempted to draw her to me, but she slipped down and out of my arms tomy feet. I felt her there, on her knees, with head bowed low. Stoopingand putting my arm round her body, I drew her up and held her against mybreast, and felt her heart throbbing wildly. With many endearing words Ibegged her to speak to me; but her only reply was: "Come--come," as sheslipped again out of my arms and, holding my hand in hers, guided methrough the bushes.
Before long we came to an open path or glade, where the darkness was notprofound; and releasing my hand, she began walking rapidly before me,always keeping at such a distance as just enabled me to distinguish hergrey, shadowy figure, and with frequent doublings to follow the naturalpaths and openings which she knew so well. In this way we kept on nearlyto the end, without exchanging a word, and hearing no sound except thecontinuous rush of rain, which to our accustomed ears had ceased tohave the effect of sound, and the various gurgling noises of innumerablerunners. All at once, as we came to a more open place, a strip of brightfirelight appeared before us, shining from the half-open door of Nuflo'slodge. She turned round as much as to say: "Now you know where you are,"then hurried on, leaving me to follow as best I could.