“No,” he said. “On my back—quick!”
“You are going to carry me?”
“There are bloodhounds,” he replied. “There must be no tracks but the stilts’—no scent for them to follow.”
Then I understood the fulness of his plan; but still I lingered, amazed.
“I am not a child. What strength, though yours, could bear me so?”
He showed me a long staff that leaned to him against the outer wall.
“There is my third prop,” he said. “When I am driven, I can still seat you upon a branch, and save the scent. The ground is iron, and”—he struck his chest—“these ribs. Come, and let me wear my heart upon my sleeve.”
The next moment we were off. The great creature swayed beneath me like a tree; but he never staggered or faltered, save periodically to rest himself and me. The sweet night wind blew upon my face, cold and colder. I snuggled from it into the vast nape of his neck, which was like a mat for warmth. I had no idea or care whither he was taking me, and the knowledge only that it was by roads deserted at this silent hour. Still he held on, and, when frost and weariness threatened to numb my brain, could spare a strong hand to imprison both mine lest I fell. And still the flight endured, and I asked, could ask, no question, not even when I grew penetrated by a dull consciousness of ascent—of my comrade straining and toiling beneath me like a stricken Sisyphus—of the groaning of the giant spirit in him who would not be subdued. Then, at last, came a pause, and darkness and release; and I felt myself swung gently down to rest upon a mat of scented leaves, whose warmth and fragrance wooed me to such a sleep as I had never known before.
XV.
I BECOME AN INMATE OF “RUPERT’S FOLLY”
I awoke, flushed and happy as a dormouse from its winter bed of leaves. The world was good again, with all its potentialities of love and freedom; the sun was somewhere seeking me; there was no ache, but the sweet ache of memory, in my whole heart and body. Locality, I have said before, has never influenced my temper. I make the only reservation now of liberty to change it at my will.