The soft, soundless, midsummer night wrought upon me in a wonderfully peaceful way. Yet a positive, adamantine resolve grew within me ere I came in. I shall wait one more day—one only. If Celeste does not return to-morrow, then the day after I take up the search. There is nothing to be gained by staying here longer, and all to lose, even life. When I find her—when I find her—my God! At the very thought my love surges through me so that my chest hurts and my eyelids are hot upon the balls. I write no more to-night. I am lonely, and I am starving—for her! I want to see her golden hair tremble in the breeze, hear her laugh, look into the deeps of her eyes, hold her to me and tell her that I love her—love her!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IN WHICH I VANQUISH A DEMONIAC, AND ENTER INTO GLORY
This is written a month later.
The next day passed eventless. I kept to the plateau, for now I had even greater cause not to incur needless risks. After supper I sought my seat of the night before, my mind made up. Again I saw the moon creep up the sky, and it was full that night; its immense disk was a perfect circle. I sat watching the grotesque, ever-changing shapes evolved from my pipe smoke, silvery luminous in the moonshine, and wondering just how and where I would begin my search in the morning. Then my unchecked thoughts drifted to Celeste, and as the minutes glided by I felt the restraint which I had placed upon myself slipping more and more. I made no effort to stay my imaginings, or to turn their trend. The hour was made delicious by this mental revel; by sublime visions of what the future would be. Most rigidly had I held myself in check since that night on the peak, when I woke to a sense of my condition, and whither it was leading me. Now I would relax, and suffer my feelings to assume predominance again, for I was weary of the constant battle to banish this girl from my brain, and anyway, the game was about played. Unless Buck came upon me that night, I would speedily be beyond his reach.
As my unleashed emotions mastered me more and more, a keen restlessness seized me, the natural result of unsatisfied longing. The bench where I had passed contented hours the night before became at length unendurable and I arose, my face set hungrily toward the whispering woods. Sweetly it lured me with its breath of odorous greenness; strongly it drew me by its very mystery of being, and I responded. I would go to the Dryad's Glade.
I was without coat or hat. My shirt was open at the throat and the sleeves were rolled above my elbows, for the day had been one of the hottest I had ever known, and in the early night the heat had not yet been conquered by the dew and the shadows. How well and strong I was! I tarried for a moment before the unlighted Lodge to enjoy a full conception of my superb physical vigor. It is something to make a man rejoice—this mere knowledge of brute power. I had it in perfection that night, and flooding my maligned lungs with a deep-drawn breath of Nature's exquisite attar, I moved away.
I had always loved to roam by night; I had always loved to tread the wild; I had always loved the face of old earth best when kissed by moonlight. These three conditions became important accessories to my mood that evening, a mood both tender and fierce. I reached the base of my hill of refuge, mechanically turned toward the west, and with bowed head and leisurely steps went forward where all was vast and dim and holy, to receive the benediction of the trees. I scarcely noticed my surroundings, although my perceptions received and appreciated the enveloping silence, and the pearl-gray gloom. The subtle scents of moss, and dew-soaked earth, and the indescribable tang from bark and leaf refreshed my nostrils with their blended odors. I felt that I was in the first sanctuary the world had ever known; a spot where Creator and creation were all but one; a place undefiled by the feet of grasping, sordid men. If a prayer were born in this temple it were born of the spirit, and not of mumbling lips more used to the shaping of lies and hypocrisies.
A sound came to me, threading the silence like a note from a flute; elfin, elusive, wild. For a moment I thought I was deceived. I stopped and listened. Piercing the continuous sigh which is never absent from a vast forest, even in times of greatest calm, the note came again, followed by a series of quirks and trills. Eerie enough was the sound. Was the jest which I had offered the Satyr, while under the influence of liquor, coming true? Did the great god Pan yet live, in truth, and did he make merry o' summer nights in sylvan court and viney bower? My spine grew chilly at the thought, and for an instant I was tempted to believe. Would I see him if I pressed forward cautiously, without noise? Would I find him dancing a drunken reel to his own music? For the nonce I cast logic and common sense aside, and determined to stalk this heathen deity. Bending forward, I advanced with the utmost care, walking on the balls of my feet. At intervals I heard the pagan fantasy—jumbled measures of the most fascinating, tuneless music that was ever set afloat. From familiar signs I knew I was approaching my objective point. My eagerness became intense as the pipe-notes sounded louder and louder, and then, suddenly, the scale fell a full octave, or more, and the liquid tones which now sifted through the motionless air were laden with a burden I knew. I stopped, grasped a tree, and threw my left hand to my forehead. I was listening to Jeff Angel's magic reed! He was playing the Song of the Brook, as he had played it for me that memorable night. Was the last vestige of his mind gone? Had he succeeded? Why was he dallying here when he must have known that my heart was aching and breaking for the news which he would bring? These thoughts and a dozen more congested my brain during the fleeting second I leaned against the tree. Then I was erect and dashing forward. It was a sort of natural lane down which I rushed, whose other end debouched into the Dryad's Glade. Fast and heedless as I sped, I saw that which checked me ere I dashed into the open; which drove me to one side, softly and breathlessly, where I could see without chance of discovery.