CHAPTER XX
That good fight had been to me like a draught of wine, and made me fora while oblivious of my loss and of the pain from my wound. But the glowand feeling of exultation did not last: the lacerated flesh smarted; Iwas weak from loss of blood, and oppressed with sensations of fatigue.If my foes had appeared on the scene they would have made an easyconquest of me; but they came not, and I continued to walk on, slowlyand painfully, pausing often to rest.
At last, recovering somewhat from my faint condition, and losing allfear of being overtaken, my sorrow revived in full force, and thoughtreturned to madden me.
Alas! this bright being, like no other in its divine brightness, so longin the making, now no more than a dead leaf, a little dust, lost andforgotten for ever--oh, pitiless! Oh, cruel!
But I knew it all before--this law of nature and of necessity, againstwhich all revolt is idle: often had the remembrance of it filled me withineffable melancholy; only now it seemed cruel beyond all cruelty.
Not nature the instrument, not the keen sword that cuts into thebleeding tissues, but the hand that wields it--the unseen unknownsomething, or person, that manifests itself in the horrible workings ofnature.
"Did you know, beloved, at the last, in that intolerable heat, in thatmoment of supreme anguish, that he is unlistening, unhelpful as thestars, that you cried not to him? To me was your cry; but your poor,frail fellow creature was not there to save, or, failing that, to casthimself into the flames and perish with you, hating God."
Thus, in my insufferable pain, I spoke aloud; alone in that solitaryplace, a bleeding fugitive in the dark night, looking up at the starsI cursed the Author of my being and called on Him to take back theabhorred gift of life.
Yet, according to my philosophy, how vain it was! All my bitterness andhatred and defiance were as empty, as ineffectual, as utterly futile,as are the supplications of the meek worshipper, and no more than thewhisper of a leaf, the light whirr of an insect's wing. Whether I lovedHim who was over all, as when I thanked Him on my knees for guidingme to where I had heard so sweet and mysterious a melody, or hated anddefied Him as now, it all came from Him--love and hate, good and evil.
But I know--I knew then--that in one thing my philosophy was false, thatit was not the whole truth; that though my cries did not touch nor comenear Him they would yet hurt me; and, just as a prisoner maddened athis unjust fate beats against the stone walls of his cell until he fallsback bruised and bleeding to the floor, so did I wilfully bruise my ownsoul, and knew that those wounds I gave myself would not heal.
Of that night, the beginning of the blackest period of my life, I shallsay no more; and over subsequent events I shall pass quickly.
Morning found me at a distance of many miles from the scene of my duelwith the Indian, in a broken, hilly country, varied with savannah andopen forest. I was well-nigh spent with my long march, and felt thatunless food was obtained before many hours my situation would be indeeddesperate. With labour I managed to climb to the summit of a hill aboutthree hundred feet high in order to survey the surrounding country, andfound that it was one of a group of five, and conjectured that thesewere the five hills of Uritay and that I was in the neighbourhood ofManaga's village. Coming down I proceeded to the next hill, which washigher; and before reaching it came to a stream in a narrow valleydividing the hills, and proceeding along its banks in search of acrossing-place, I came full in sight of the settlement sought for. As Iapproached, people were seen moving hurriedly about; and by the time Iarrived, walking slowly and painfully, seven or eight men were standingbefore the village' some with spears in their hands, the women andchildren behind them, all staring curiously at me. Drawing near I criedout in a somewhat feeble voice that I was seeking for Managa; whereupona gray-haired man stepped forth, spear in hand, and replied that he wasManaga, and demanded to know why I sought him. I told him a part of mystory--enough to show that I had a deadly feud with Runi, that I hadescaped from him after killing one of his people.
I was taken in and supplied with food; my wound was examined anddressed; and then I was permitted to lie down and sleep, while Managa,with half a dozen of his people, hurriedly started to visit the scene ofmy fight with Kua-ko, not only to verify my story, but partly with thehope of meeting Runi. I did not see him again until the next morning,when he informed me that he had found the spot where I had beenovertaken, that the dead man had been discovered by the others andcarried back towards Parahuari. He had followed the trace for somedistance, and he was satisfied that Runi had come thus far in the firstplace only with the intention of spying on him.
My arrival, and the strange tidings I had brought, had thrown thevillage into a great commotion it was evident that from that timeManaga lived in constant apprehension of a sudden attack from his oldenemy. This gave me great satisfaction it was my study to keep thefeeling alive, and, more than that, to drop continual hints of hisenemy's secret murderous purpose, until he was wrought up to a kind offrenzy of mingled fear and rage. And being of a suspicious and somewhattruculent temper, he one day all at once turned on me as the immediatecause of his miserable state, suspecting perhaps that I only wishedto make an instrument of him. But I was strangely bold and careless ofdanger then, and only mocked at his rage, telling him proudly that Ifeared him not; that Runi, his mortal enemy and mine, feared not him butme; that Runi knew perfectly well where I had taken refuge and would notventure to make his meditated attack while I remained in his village,but would wait for my departure. "Kill me, Managa," I cried, smiting mychest as I stood facing him. "Kill me, and the result will be that hewill come upon you unawares and murder you all, as he has resolved to dosooner or later."
After that speech he glared at me in silence, then flung down the spearhe had snatched up in his sudden rage and stalked out of the house andinto the wood; but before long he was back again, seated in his oldplace, brooding on my words with a face black as night.
It is painful to recall that secret dark chapter of my life--thatperiod of moral insanity. But I wish not to be a hypocrite, conscious orunconscious, to delude myself or another with this plea of insanity. Mymind was very clear just then; past and present were clear to me; thefuture clearest of all: I could measure the extent of my action andspeculate on its future effect, and my sense of right or wrong--ofindividual responsibility--was more vivid than at any other period of mylife. Can I even say that I was blinded by passion? Driven, perhaps, butcertainly not blinded. For no reaction, or submission, had followed onthat furious revolt against the unknown being, personal or not, that isbehind nature, in whose existence I believed. I was still in revolt: Iwould hate Him, and show my hatred by being like Him, as He appears tous reflected in that mirror of Nature. Had He given me good gifts--thesense of right and wrong and sweet humanity? The beautiful sacred flowerHe had caused to grow in me I would crush ruthlessly; its beauty andfragrance and grace would be dead for ever; there was nothing evil,nothing cruel and contrary to my nature, that I would not be guilty of,glorying in my guilt. This was not the temper of a few days: I remainedfor close upon two months at Managa's village, never repenting nordesisting in my efforts to induce the Indians to join me in that mostbarbarous adventure on which my heart was set.
I succeeded in the end; it would have been strange if I had not. Thehorrible details need not be given. Managa did not wait for his enemy,but fell on him unexpectedly, an hour after nightfall in his ownvillage. If I had really been insane during those two months, if somecloud had been on me, some demoniacal force dragging me on, the cloudand insanity vanished and the constraint was over in one moment, whenthat hellish enterprise was completed. It was the sight of an old woman,lying where she had been struck down, the fire of the blazing houselighting her wide-open glassy eyes and white hair dabbled in blood,which suddenly, as by a miracle, wrought this change in my brain. Forthey were all dead at last, old and young, all who had lighted the fireround that great green tree in which Rima had taken refuge, who haddanced round the blaze, shouting: "Burn! burn!
"
At the moment my glance fell on that prostrate form I paused and stoodstill, trembling like a person struck with a sudden pang in the heart,who thinks that his last moment has come to him unawares. After awhile I slunk away out of the great circle of firelight into the thickdarkness beyond. Instinctively I turned towards the forests across thesavannah--my forest again; and fled away from the noise and the sightof flames, never pausing until I found myself within the black shadowof the trees. Into the deeper blackness of the interior I dared notventure; on the border I paused to ask myself what I did there alone inthe night-time. Sitting down, I covered my face with my hands as if tohide it more effectually than it could be hidden by night and the forestshadows. What horrible thing, what calamity that frightened my soul tothink of, had fallen on me? The revulsion of feeling, the unspeakablehorror, the remorse, was more than I could bear. I started up with a cryof anguish, and would have slain myself to escape at that moment; butNature is not always and utterly cruel, and on this occasion she came tomy aid. Consciousness forsook me, and I lived not again until the lightof early morning was in the east; then found myself lying on the wetherbage--wet with rain that had lately fallen. My physical misery wasnow so great that it prevented me from dwelling on the scenes witnessedon the previous evening. Nature was again merciful in this. I onlyremembered that it was necessary to hide myself, in case the Indiansshould be still in the neighbourhood and pay the wood a visit. Slowlyand painfully I crept away into the forest, and there sat for severalhours, scarcely thinking at all, in a half-stupefied condition. At noonthe sun shone out and dried the wood. I felt no hunger, only avague sense of bodily misery, and with it the fear that if I left myhiding-place I might meet some human creature face to face. This fearprevented me from stirring until the twilight came, when I crept forthand made my way to the border of the forest, to spend the night there.Whether sleep visited me during the dark hours or not I cannot say:day and night my condition seemed the same; I experienced only a dullsensation of utter misery which seemed in spirit and flesh alike,an inability to think clearly, or for more than a few momentsconsecutively, about anything. Scenes in which I had been principalactor came and went, as in a dream when the will slumbers: now withdevilish ingenuity and persistence I was working on Managa's mind; nowstanding motionless in the forest listening for that sweet, mysteriousmelody; now staring aghast at old Cla-cla's wide-open glassy eyes andwhite hair dabbled in blood; then suddenly, in the cave at Riolama, Iwas fondly watching the slow return of life and colour to Rima's stillface.
When morning came again, I felt so weak that a vague fear of sinkingdown and dying of hunger at last roused me and sent me forth in questof food. I moved slowly and my eyes were dim to see, but I knew so wellwhere to seek for small morsels--small edible roots and leaf-stalks,berries, and drops of congealed gum--that it would have been strange inthat rich forest if I had not been able to discover something to stay myfamine. It was little, but it sufficed for the day. Once more Nature wasmerciful to me; for that diligent seeking among the concealing leavesleft no interval for thought; every chance morsel gave a momentarypleasure, and as I prolonged my search my steps grew firmer, the dimnesspassed from my eyes. I was more forgetful of self, more eager, and likea wild animal with no thought or feeling beyond its immediate wants.Fatigued at the end, I fell asleep as soon as darkness brought my busyrambles to a close, and did not wake until another morning dawned.
My hunger was extreme now. The wailing notes of a pair of small birds,persistently flitting round me, or perched with gaping bills andwings trembling with agitation, served to remind me that it was nowbreeding-time; also that Rima had taught me to find a small bird's nest.She found them only to delight her eyes with the sight; but they wouldbe food for me; the crystal and yellow fluid in the gem-like, whiteor blue or red-speckled shells would help to keep me alive. All day Ihunted, listening to every note and cry, watching the motions of everywinged thing, and found, besides gums and fruits, over a score of nestscontaining eggs, mostly of small birds, and although the labour wasgreat and the scratches many, I was well satisfied with the result.
A few days later I found a supply of Haima gum, and eagerly beganpicking it from the tree; not that it could be used, but the thought ofthe brilliant light it gave was so strong in my mind that mechanically Igathered it all. The possession of this gum, when night closed roundme again, produced in me an intense longing for artificial light andwarmth. The darkness was harder than ever to endure. I envied thefireflies their natural lights, and ran about in the dusk to capture afew and hold them in the hollow of my two hands, for the sake of theircold, fitful flashes. On the following day I wasted two or three hourstrying to get fire in the primitive method with dry wood, but failed,and lost much time, and suffered more than ever from hunger inconsequence. Yet there was fire in everything; even when I struck athard wood with my knife, sparks were emitted. If I could only arrestthose wonderful heat- and light-giving sparks! And all at once, as if Ihad just lighted upon some new, wonderful truth, it occurred to me thatwith my steel hunting-knife and a piece of flint fire could be obtained.Immediately I set about preparing tinder with dry moss, rotten wood, andwild cotton and in a short time I had the wished fire, and heaped wooddry and green on it to make it large. I nursed it well, and spent thenight beside it; and it also served to roast some huge white grubs whichI had found in the rotten wood of a prostrate trunk. The sight of thesegreat grubs had formerly disgusted me; but they tasted good to me now,and stayed my hunger, and that was all I looked for in my wild forestfood.
For a long time an undefined feeling prevented me from going near thesite of Nuflo's burnt lodge. I went there at last; and the first thing Idid was to go all round the fatal spot, cautiously peering into therank herbage, as if I feared a lurking serpent; and at length, at somedistance from the blackened heap, I discovered a human skeleton, andknew it to be Nuflo's. In his day he had been a great armadillo-hunter,and these quaint carrion-eaters had no doubt revenged themselves bydevouring his flesh when they found him dead--killed by the savages.
Having once returned to this spot of many memories, I could not quit itagain; while my wild woodland life lasted, here must I have my lair, andbeing here I could not leave that mournful skeleton above ground. Withlabour I excavated a pit to bury it, careful not to cut or injure abroad-leafed creeper that had begun to spread itself over the spot; andafter refilling the hole I drew the long, trailing stems over the mound.
"Sleep well, old man," said I, when my work was done; and these fewwords, implying neither censure nor praise, was all the burial servicethat old Nuflo had from me.
I then visited the spot where the old man, assisted by me, had concealedhis provisions before starting for Riolama, and was pleased to find thatit had not been discovered by the Indians. Besides the store of tobaccoleaf, maize, pumpkin, potatoes, and cassava bread, and the cookingutensils, I found among other things a chopper--a great acquisition,since with it I would be able to cut down small palms and bamboos tomake myself a hut.
The possession of a supply of food left me time for many things: timein the first place to make my own conditions; doubtless after themthere would be further progression on the old lines--luxuries added tonecessaries; a healthful, fruitful life of thought and action combined;and at last a peaceful, contemplative old age.
I cleared away ashes and rubbish, and marked out the very spot whereRima's separate bower had been for my habitation, which I intended tomake small. In five days it was finished; then, after lighting a fire,I stretched myself out in my dry bed of moss and leaves with a feelingthat was almost triumphant. Let the rain now fall in torrents, puttingout the firefly's lamp; let the wind and thunder roar their loudest, andthe lightnings smite the earth with intolerable light, frightening thepoor monkeys in their wet, leafy habitations, little would I heed itall on my dry bed, under my dry, palm-leaf thatch, with glorious fire tokeep me company and protect me from my ancient enemy, Darkness.
From that first sleep under shelter I wok
e refreshed, and was not drivenby the cruel spur of hunger into the wet forest. The wished time hadcome of rest from labour, of leisure for thought. Resting here, justwhere she had rested, night by night clasping a visionary mother in herarms, whispering tenderest words in a visionary ear, I too now claspedher in my arms--a visionary Rima. How different the nights had seemedwhen I was without shelter, before I had rediscovered fire! How had Iendured it? That strange ghostly gloom of the woods at night-time fullof innumerable strange shapes; still and dark, yet with something seenat times moving amidst them, dark and vague and strange also--an owl,perhaps, or bat, or great winged moth, or nightjar. Nor had I any choicethen but to listen to the night-sounds of the forest; and they werevarious as the day-sounds, and for every day-sound, from the faintestlisping and softest trill to the deep boomings and piercing cries, therewas an analogue; always with something mysterious, unreal in its tone,something proper to the night. They were ghostly sounds, uttered by theghosts of dead animals; they were a hundred different things byturns, but always with a meaning in them, which I vainly strove tocatch--something to be interpreted only by a sleeping faculty in us,lightly sleeping, and now, now on the very point of awaking!
Now the gloom and the mystery were shut out; now I had that which stoodin the place of pleasure to me, and was more than pleasure. It was amournful rapture to lie awake now, wishing not for sleep and oblivion,hating the thought of daylight that would come at last to drownand scare away my vision. To be with Rima again--my lost Rimarecovered--mine, mine at last! No longer the old vexing doubt now--"Youare you, and I am I--why is it?"--the question asked when our souls werenear together, like two raindrops side by side, drawing irresistiblynearer, ever nearer: for now they had touched and were not two, but oneinseparable drop, crystallized beyond change, not to be disintegrated bytime, nor shattered by death's blow, nor resolved by any alchemy.
I had other company besides this unfailing vision and the bright dancingfire that talked to me in its fantastic fire language. It was my customto secure the door well on retiring; grief had perhaps chilled my blood,for I suffered less from heat than from cold at this period, and thefire seemed grateful all night long; I was also anxious to exclude allsmall winged and creeping night-wanderers. But to exclude them entirelyproved impossible: through a dozen invisible chinks they would findtheir way to me; also some entered by day to lie concealed until afternightfall. A monstrous hairy hermit spider found an asylum in a duskycorner of the hut, under the thatch, and day after day he was there,all day long, sitting close and motionless; but at dark he invariablydisappeared--who knows on what murderous errand! His hue was a deepdead-leaf yellow, with a black and grey pattern, borrowed from some wildcat; and so large was he that his great outspread hairy legs, radiatingfrom the flat disk of his body, would have covered a man's open hand.It was easy to see him in my small interior; often in the night-time myeyes would stray to his corner, never to encounter that strange hairyfigure; but daylight failed not to bring him. He troubled me; but now,for Rima's sake, I could slay no living thing except from motives ofhunger. I had it in my mind to injure him--to strike off one of hislegs, which would not be missed much, as they were many--so as to makehim go away and return no more to so inhospitable a place. But couragefailed me. He might come stealthily back at night to plunge his long,crooked farces into my throat, poisoning my blood with fever anddelirium and black death. So I left him alone, and glanced furtively andfearfully at him, hoping that he had not divined any thoughts; thuswe lived on unsocially together. More companionable, but still in anuncomfortable way, were the large crawling, running insects--crickets,beetles, and others. They were shapely and black and polished, andran about here and there on the floor, just like intelligent littlehorseless carriages; then they would pause with their immovable eyesfixed on me, seeing or in some mysterious way divining my presence;their pliant horns waving up and down, like delicate instruments used totest the air. Centipedes and millipedes in dozens came too, and were notwelcome. I feared not their venom, but it was a weariness to see them;for they seemed no living things, but the vertebrae of snakes and eelsand long slim fishes, dead and desiccated, made to move mechanicallyover walls and floor by means of some jugglery of nature. I grew skilfulat picking them up with a pair of pliant green twigs, to thrust theminto the outer darkness.
One night a moth fluttered in and alighted on my hand as I sat by thefire, causing me to hold my breath as I gazed on it. Its fore-wingswere pale grey, with shadings dark and light written all over infinest characters with some twilight mystery or legend; but the roundunder-wings were clear amber-yellow, veined like a leaf with red andpurple veins; a thing of such exquisite chaste beauty that the sight ofit gave me a sudden shock of pleasure. Very soon it flew up, circlingabout, and finally lighted on the palm-leaf thatch directly over thefire. The heat, I thought, would soon drive it from the spot; and,rising, I opened the door, so that it might find its way out againinto its own cool, dark, flowery world. And standing by the open door Iturned and addressed it: "O night-wanderer of the pale, beautiful wings,go forth, and should you by chance meet her somewhere in the shadowydepths, revisiting her old haunts, be my messenger--" Thus much had Ispoken when the frail thing loosened its hold to fall without a flutter,straight and swift, into the white blaze beneath. I sprang forward witha shriek and stood staring into the fire, my whole frame trembling witha sudden terrible emotion. Even thus had Rima fallen--fallen from thegreat height--into the flames that instantly consumed her beautifulflesh and bright spirit! O cruel Nature!
A moth that perished in the flame; an indistinct faint sound; a dreamin the night; the semblance of a shadowy form moving mist-like in thetwilight gloom of the forest, would suddenly bring back a vivid memory,the old anguish, to break for a while the calm of that period. It wascalm then after the storm. Nevertheless, my health deteriorated. I atelittle and slept little and grew thin and weak. When I looked downon the dark, glassy forest pool, where Rima would look no more to seeherself so much better than in the small mirror of her lover's pupil, itshowed me a gaunt, ragged man with a tangled mass of black hairfalling over his shoulders, the bones of his face showing through thedead-looking, sun-parched skin, the sunken eyes with a gleam in themthat was like insanity.
To see this reflection had a strangely disturbing effect on me. Atorturing voice would whisper in my ear: "Yes, you are evidently goingmad. By and by you will rush howling through the forest, only to dropdown at last and die; and no person will ever find and bury your bones.Old Nuflo was more fortunate in that he perished first."
"A lying voice!" I retorted in sudden anger. "My faculties were neverkeener than now. Not a fruit can ripen but I find it. If a small birddarts by with a feather or straw in its bill I mark its flight, andit will be a lucky bird if I do not find its nest in the end. Could asavage born in the forest do more? He would starve where I find food!"
"Ay, yes, there is nothing wonderful in that," answered the voice. "Thestranger from a cold country suffers less from the heat, when daysare hottest, than the Indian who knows no other climate. But mark theresult! The stranger dies, while the Indian, sweating and gasping forbreath, survives. In like manner the low-minded savage, cut off from allhuman fellowship, keeps his faculties to the end, while your finer brainproves your ruin."
I cut from a tree a score of long, blunt thorns, tough and black aswhalebone, and drove them through a strip of wood in which I had burnt arow of holes to receive them, and made myself a comb, and combed out mylong, tangled hair to improve my appearance.
"It is not the tangled condition of your hair," persisted the voice,"but your eyes, so wild and strange in their expression, that show theapproach of madness. Make your locks as smooth as you like, and add agarland of those scarlet, star-shaped blossoms hanging from the bushbehind you--crown yourself as you crowned old Cla-cla--but the crazedlook will remain just the same."
And being no longer able to reply, rage and desperation drove me to anact which only seemed to prove that the hateful voice
had prophesiedtruly. Taking up a stone, I hurled it down on the water to shatter theimage I saw there, as if it had been no faithful reflection of myself,but a travesty, cunningly made of enamelled clay or some other material,and put there by some malicious enemy to mock me.