CHAPTER XXVI
Soft as the light shed from Beyond, a breeze blew over the inner fields of Elysium. Soft also was the whispered gratitude of the olive trees and palms; soft the smiles of the flowers of lilies and of Lebanon, of celestial roses, of amorant and of rustling immortelles. The ribbon-like stream that bounded the emerald velvet skirts of the meadow-land fluttered from the buoyant breath.
Of the trees, only a spruce atop a nearby knoll failed to sway. Too heavy was it with birds. Although its branches down-hung dejectedly, from its tip waved skyward a tuneful panegyric. So full was the chorus, it seemed that every songster must be voicing a heart full of joy. Yet one there was that did not sing, a yellow, strongly visible atom of immortality perched upon a low-swung twig.
His head was perked to one side. His round, quick eyes were fixed on the glittering hazes that hung, like veils of silver-mesh veiling countless finer veils of golden threads, before the Source of Light. He was looking and listening. An excited chirp escaped him. With the motions of a bird unused to the exercise of his wings, he half hopped, half flew from his branch to the sward and started with what speed he might across the greening pastures.
One spiritualized to follow the hope of so small a shade would have seen turning back from a company of spirits, then advancing into the radiant distances, the form of a child—a boy-soul of some nine years. With an odd, slithering sort of walk, he retraced his steps. Now and then he would stop and, shading his eyes, would peer in the general direction of the Mystery Gate. He, too, appeared to be listening and looking.
Although Jack Cabot still limped, he had out-progressed any pain of consciousness over his deformity. Knowing that except for the imperfect union of his parents, he would have been born perfect in love, he believed that the visible of him would be straightened at his second birth. Adjudged an innocent offspring of righteousness, he had been unhampered by the curse of the world; indeed, had been given benefit of every doubt. His movements had gained freedom and his features had beautified. On closer view, however, his expression showed to be disconsolate. His sigh was repeated in that of another back-gazing manes whom he passed.
“Don’t you belong to anybody, too?” Jack asked him. “Mors told me I was assigned to bliss. I walk so much easier now, I know I ought to go on. But, oh, I am so lonely!”
“I know. I know”—the stranger-shade. “It is hard to be blissful alone.”
At the moment Jack espied the tiny yellow creature fluttering toward him. An eager chirp started him toward it, at first hesitantly, then as fast as he could go. Thus met the two passionate spirits which had been caged together on Earth—the one passionate in his resentment, the other in the determination, instinct, or whatsoever may be called the will of a bird, to teach the joy of life.
In his hurry, Jack stumbled and fell, both hands outstretched. Into them flew the yellow mite; twittered ecstatically; billed the boyish lips that quivered into sobs and laughter.
“You look like—You are! Oh, Dick, you flew into the Light after me? You have been hunting for me? I’m ashamed of the way I used to treat you, Dickie bird. But you understand now, don’t you, that it was only because I didn’t ’preciate that there’s a heart in every living thing, sometimes the biggest in the littlest? I had my eyes so set on a dog that I didn’t see how precious you were! I wonder did the gold-fish like me, too? It means something when a boy’s bird will die to follow him. I’m ashamed, Dick. Honest, I’m awful ashamed.”
The canary’s response was a burst of the song which he had not sung when sitting upon the spruce tree, bereft of companionship although in the company of so many of his kind. Perched upon the boy-shade’s shoulder, he revealed his secret in sound. Higher and freer and more poignantly sweet than ever fluted songster of Earth, he gave out on the Elysian air the theme of selfless love.
Inspirited, Jack continued on his return over the fields. He walked evenly that he might not dislodge his pet. And he chatted appreciatively in the intervals of the song, to atone for his unappreciative past.
“There are all sorts of musicians as you go nearer the Light, they tell me. There are pipers and harpers and trumpeters and countless choir-singers that almost make you long to die again for joy. But I’ll bet there’s none will sing so sweet as you, Dick. Once I’m satisfied to go on, I’ll take you with me and give you the chance you never had on Earth.”
By now the two were well over the crest of the stream-skirted knoll. Toward them, from the direction of the gate, spirits fluttered like leaves in a wind. Voices called out through the spaces—glad cries of greeting and wails of disappointment worn weak from repetition.
As before, Jack shielded his eyes with one hand and peered about. And, as he peered, he vented a cry that was the aggregate of all certitude. His left hand he lifted to guard the bird, then started down the hill.
From out the nether hazes a man-shade came climbing toward them. That he lately had arrived from Earth showed in the anxiety of his dark, strong face. When he saw who was shuffling toward him and recognized the excited, childish voice hailing him, he increased his pace. When they met, father and son:
“Greetings, John Cabot!”
“Jack Cabot, greetings!”
The large and small hands gripped.
“I had a feeling you were due,” explained the boy, conquering the first incoherency of his delight. “I guess Dick must have felt the same way. Did you hear him sing as we came over the hill? Oh, John, I’m so glad you’ve come! This is a wonderful place to be happy in. But you can’t be happy alone. I’ve come back ever so often, hoping that you or——”
“Then you haven’t seen her yet?”
“You mean?” For a moment the child-soul stared up at his father’s emotionful face. He stood on tip-toe to whisper his interpretation, lest the joy-jealous zephyrs snatch it away. “Not her—not ’Lores!”
“She came a month since. I am sure she would have been on the lookout for you, Jack. Strange you have not met.”
“Maybe——” Jack shuddered. “It’s an awful journey over. Maybe she got so afraid of the snakes and the owls and the wild asses——”
“There’s no stopping along the highway, son. Every soul survives the dread of death, they tell me. In reality, the transition between the two phases of existence is brief. At the gate they told me that she had passed through, but they refused so much as a hint at the direction she had taken. I’ve covered the border fields thoroughly since I came. Had concluded she must have found you and gone on.”
His concern lowered like a shadow to Jack’s face. “It don’t seem like ’Lores to forget me. I’d never give up trying to find her.”
“She may not have known that I was on the way.” John appeared to be advising himself. “But she did seem so close to me that morning above the sea. Her voice sounded so clear—so near. I was sure she had called me. If I could hear her with ears of clay, it seems as though she—— I tried to answer her. I wonder——”
Neither father nor son had noticed two small clouds which had appeared on the horizon line above the nether world. Mere fluttering specks at first, they had developed color and form in a rapid approach. They settled upon the sward and hurried forward. He in advance was of up-standing form, his face beautiful and ardent, despite its lines of care. By one hand, he led a fair girl spirit whose head hung as if from shame and whose eyes, on close approach, showed to brim with tears. Boldly enough the youth lined up before the two Cabots.
“I am Amor and this is Innocentia. You know us well, although on Earth you could not see us. In a way we belong to you as well as to our dear Dolores.”
“Dolores?” John snatched at the name. “You can tell us where she is?”
“Let me prepare you”—in pity, Amor. “I owe my life to you, John Cabot. I was, in fact, born of your heart beats that day you first saw her in Seff’s shop. Not consciously—of course mortals realize only the half of what they do—you sent me to her side to guide her. I have done what I could. But earthlings have no care for love. They never think to spare it until after it is dead.”
The shy girl spirit was moved by her comrade’s self-depreciation to speak. “Amor has been splendid. He was close beside her when she heard the news that you had been sent to the Fields. He proposed our search for you. And he held me up with sheer strength when I felt that I must swoon from exhaustion. Always he has tried to protect me even as—as you.”
“As I?” John asked.
“Don’t you recognize me yet?” She brushed the moisture from her eyes and lifted them to his, twin blue anemones. “I am what you loved best in your love. Although you could not see me as now, you knew that I was there. You held me dearer than her beauty, than her youth—yes, even than her passion for you.”
“In mercy’s name, don’t taunt me!” John’s voice was a sort of groan. “I did value you. I tried to save you from myself. God knows how hard I tried. It seems incredible to me now that I should have torn you from her—trampled on you——”
“Trampled me? You never did that.” Her timidity conquered by sight of his suffering, Innocentia touched his arm. “Not for one minute was I really afraid of you. A great love, such as yours, could not harm me. Amor often told me that. I stayed close to her on Earth and crossed with her into Shadow Land.”
“Even down there we’ve been with her most of the time,” Amor added.
“Down there?” Startled out of his shame, John Cabot peered into the care-worn faces of the guardian pair. “You mean—she is assigned——”
He read the answer in their distressed, averted looks. His mind was quickly made.
“Lead on—and down!”
“But, John——” Young Jack clung tight to one of the knotted fists that hung at his father’s side—“you can’t go into Gehenna. You and I are assigned to the Fields. It is a rule here that we can go on, but never back.”
“Go on—without her?” John laughed in a short, hard way. “There is no right in a rule that assigns me to Elysium and her to Gehenna. I’ll find a way to prove that one man feels responsible for a woman’s fall. Son, I am going to bring her back with me.”
“If you could, John—if only you could!” Afraid, yet brave to believe in the power of his god of Earth, the boy-soul gazed into his father’s face. “You’ll look for me, John, first thing when you come back? A little way on there are bowers and villas that the shades build to live in while their eyes and minds are getting used to the Light. They leave them empty for anyone to take when they’re ready to progress nearer the Source. You’ll know the one I’m in if you listen to hear Dick sing. I’ll be waiting for you and—and her, John Cabot.”
“Jack Cabot, until we meet again!”
In time the boy had remembered his lameness, so did not plead to go along. The best way to expedite his hero’s return was to let him proceed unencumbered. Striving for courage, he watched the tall form follow Amor and Innocentia across the fields. A twitter reminded him that he was not entirely deprived. Gulping back his disappointment, he declared manfully:
“We’ll get a nice place ready for her, Dick—my other mother. He says he’ll bring her back, so we know he will. John can do anything. It will be fun being happy!”
Across the mystery wastes that lie between the mortal world and Shadow Land looms a redoubtable wall. Through its gateway any from Earth may pass at will. But none may return.
Just within, the two head ushers slumped upon their bench and gazed over the familiar, but incogitable scene. The well-worn inward path soon divided, its lower half to drop over a declivity, whence it sloped “easily” into Avernus, its upper to wind away and away until lost in that incalculably distant glow.
“Queer set this”—the first usher.
“Queer is right—or wrong”—his fellow. “I’d like to know, for instance, what makes that Light.”
“I, too. Can’t be either sun or moon, because it never sets.”
The chief’s eyes fixed on a verdant slope, from whose hazes a female figure sped with apprehensive manner toward the base of the wall. He shrugged on seeing a unit of the boundary patrol return her into the Fields, but gently, with never a threat of spear.
“One of the yearning mothers, I suppose. Strange how they’re possessed to slip back to their children!”
“Children who likely aren’t wasting a worry on them,” the associate sighed. “Why won’t mothers let bad enough alone?”
A wail like the lament of a lost zephyr drew their attention to the rim.
“That fool woman in love trying to descend again,” the second usher continued to grumble. “She’s not the first who’s insisted that she’d rather be in Hell with him than in Heaven without. Quaint, isn’t it, considering that we don’t have any trouble with men in vice-versa cases?”
“Hi, guardsmen! You asleep? What’s wrong over there?”
With his cry, the chief sprang up and hurried toward the down path. Ahead of him ran the spear-carrier whom he had called to task. Behind came his fellow.
From the brume of the upper distances a group of three spirits had emerged and were rushing downward, regardless of the shade patrol. Through the array of spears leveled against them they darted as though impervious to wounds of fear.
On the rock-strewn cliff the reinforcements found themselves facing an aroused man-manes whose like they never had seen. Clothed in an armor of light was John Cabot, “his eyes as lamps of fire ... and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.”
“What matter the judgments of men, after man’s little day is done? Make way. I am going through.”
“Drive him back,” commanded the chief usher. “All together now!”
Against the row of leveled spear points, John hurled himself.
“Right is might and I am right,” he cried.
“You can’t pit one will against hundreds and win,” the chief contended. “Stop a second. Realize how foolish——”
“And what is folly but a riotous expenditure of will?” At his application of the memory flash, John laughed. “This is—to will—and to have—my will,” he panted as he fought the united determination to stay him. “You witness the end—of my social ideas—my immoderate desires—my excesses—my pleasures that—have ended—in death. A laugh for—your hundreds—of wills!”
Perhaps by his rashness, perhaps by force of the wind now rousing in strength from over the Fields, the light forms of Amor and Innocentia were snatched up and borne through the ranks of the guard. At sight of their disappearance into the abyss, John’s eyes blazed like lit torches.
“Since mind is more than matter up here—since this is a world of will—let the stronger will prevail!”
From the grasp of the nearest of the patrol, he wrenched a torch-lit spear. Waving it on high, he rushed their resistance; engaged them; smote their thoughts with his thoughts. The two ushers fell back, powerless to contend against him.
“He must be a madman,” gasped the chief.
“Or a god”—his associate.
Both shook in the greatening gale. Both paled to see that the mystery Light, which had abided since their entrance into Shadow Land, was being eclipsed by Stygian clouds. So dark grew the air that they scarcely could discern the form of the man-manes outlined against the rim. But his battle-cry came back to them.
“Make way—make way for my mind!”
Into the thunders that rocked the clouds merged his voice. Lightnings lit his victory. Madman or god, he plunged over the rim.