“There were no more screams, but there were other sounds—I cannot describe them! Suddenly I felt myself lifted up and a voice said: ‘Come quickly. There will be another wave. And we are sinking.’ I recognized the voice of the young Bostonian. He half carried me to the top of the pilot-house, where a few others were huddled. The fog lifted. I could see still others clinging to the higher parts of the boat, but nearly every one had been washed overboard. By this time lights were flashing all along the shore, and we expected every moment that boats would put out to our rescue. But the seas were running at a frightful rate. I heard later that more than one boat was launched, but unable to fight the energy of those heaving mountains.
“One end of the steamer was below water. The other was pounding horribly; we merely waited for her to free herself and plunge to the bottom. More than once she slipped—twisted—When morning came the pilot-house was but a few feet above water. My young friend lashed me to a mast. How I climbed it with him I cannot tell you, but I did, and was firmly tied. He stood on a rung just below me and held my hand. He had already wrapped his coat about me. There was no more rope, even for him. I saw the others washed away, one by one. They went in silence. At first I implored him not to leave me to die alone, and he promised that he would not. But finally I begged him to try to swim to the shore. He was so strong, and we now could see people running up and down, a boat launching, even fancied we heard cries of encouragement. Surely they would manage to pick him up even although they might not reach the ship. But he would not. He said that a man could die only once, and that he should be ashamed to call himself an American if he deserted a woman in an hour like that.
“It will always be incredible to me that they did not make a more persistent effort to save us than they did. And his life was worth saving! The day passed. We saw a steam tug, evidently telegraphed for; but after hanging about for an hour it went away again without making any attempt to approach us. Another night passed. The gale did not diminish for an instant. I was stiff, frozen, hungry, a mere bundle of automatic nerves. Will, memories, reason, all that make the individual, might have gone to find a grave for my tortured body. But I was safe so long as the ship gripped the rock. With him it was a different matter. He was strong and young, but he was not a god, and he was not lashed to the mast. He spoke to me from time to time, but his hold on my hand relaxed more than once, and I knew that he was in agony.
“I fell asleep. When I awakened, in a moment or two, no doubt, I called to him in terror, for, had he too slept, he must have fallen and been washed away. He answered me in a moment, and then I roused myself from my lethargy and talked constantly. He held out till morning. Almost with the dawn I saw a glittering green mountain, that seemed to smoke like a volcano, rise above the ship, bend down, slip under my friend, roar again and recede, holding triumphantly aloft that straight young figure. For the first time in my life I forgot myself and wept for the fate of another. Then I set my teeth in the face of that demoniacal storm and swore that I would not be conquered. I had survived Life. I would defy the mere elements. I thought of my voice, the voice my master had begged me, literally on his knees, to consecrate to the greatest rôles ever written. Sometimes he had thrilled me with an appetite for fame, independence, but intermittently; perhaps because, although I had read those rôles again and again, I had never heard them, above all never known the ecstasy of singing them (he made me grind at tone production, scales, difficult exercises); perhaps because I was by no means giving my life to music alone. But now, abruptly, the artist awoke to life. Alone in that raging waste of water, with death tugging at my very feet and screaming in my ears, I was born into the religion of art, received the sign that I had been chosen to worship at that shrine, to be blest, to be lifted to its highest places—I—I—of all women! I saw far beyond those hungry waters. I no longer regretted my friend. What mattered it—the death of one mere mortal? I heard the cries of the Valkyrs as they rode across the sky on their winged horses. The black clouds rolled apart and I saw Wotan on his throne in Walhalla, the daughters of Erda, my sisters, about him . . . they besought him. . . . I could see the streaming of their hair, the flashing of their helmets and shields, as they ran back and forth, leaned over the ramparts to encourage me with their cries: ‘Hi—ya—ha! Ho—yo—to—ho!’ I was Brünhilde on her rock. The waves were fire. Ah!” Styr flung her arms upward, her body backward, swaying from side to side. “I shall never have such exquisite delusions again. Never! Never! For one hour—or was it one moment?—I was a goddess. It was no delusion! I was Brünhilde, awaking from a sleep, not of a generation, but of the centuries that had gone since she rode into the funeral pyre. I try to recall that ecstasy on the stage. Some of it comes back, but not all! Not all! I have a fancy that Death will bring it in his hand when he comes again.”
She dropped her arms, and her groping hand closed over the back of a chair. “I remember nothing of the rescue. I awoke in bed. They told me that I had slept for two days and nights, that I had been lashed to the mast for forty hours, alone for ten. They asked my name. I gave the first insignificant combination that entered my head. Charitable people advanced the money for my return to New York. I had money of my own there, for I had made profitable investments, when the whim for playing with gold instead of spending it had seized me. I revealed myself to no one but my banker and my singing teacher, and lived in obscure lodgings until I was pronounced fit to go to Bayreuth and ask The Master to listen to my voice. So far as any one else that had ever heard of me knew, I was dead, dead with the rest of that miserable company. And I was dead—for must not one die to be born again?”
XI
THE DIPLOMATIC TEMPERAMENT
Ordham had been leaning against the wall, staring at her, carried out of himself. He had heard the roar of the waters, the fragment of ship pounding on the rocks, seen the solitary woman lashed to the mast for an eternity, witnessed the tragedy of the gallant youth in whose death he felt a poignant sense of loss. Once or twice he shivered, as when Styr screamed on the stage, or her voice seemed to come from some far hidden bower, dying of languor, in the love duet of Tristan und Isolde.
She passed through an archway and lit a lamp. As she turned and motioned him to a chair she thought she had never seen any one look so young. Every memory in his brain but this last might have withered and floated away. He recovered himself and followed her into what appeared to be a long gallery used as a living room.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I think he deserved that one man should honour his memory. Why don’t you sit on this comfortable divan?”
He arranged the pillows about her, took a chair close by, and accepted a cigarette; which, he felt, he had never needed more. She did not smoke, but sat staring straight before her. Her eyes seemed to burn her white face, but her repose was absolute. In a few moments she spoke abruptly.