The flame-gatherers

by Margaret Horton Potter

“Hermit—is it thou?” and immediately relapsed into a state of semi-consciousness.

Oman did, at once, the only thing to be done. Lifting the body in his arms again, he carried it up the slope and back into the cave, where the fire still smouldered; and, laying the old man again on his grass bed, began to work over him.

The day passed without his returning to a normal state. Oman knew that he was very ill, but whether with some disease, or simply as the result of old age and exposure, he could not tell. He warmed him, fed him, bathed his brows with water, and sometimes caught what he took to be a murmur of gratitude from the feeble lips. As night came on, he began to fear lest the stranger should make some attempt to leave him again; but the fear proved groundless. With the setting of the sun, a hot fever rose in the aged and world-weary body. The sick one’s mind wandered through far-off regions, and he talked, loudly, of fragmentary things. For Oman there was no sleep that night. With a great pity for the helplessness of his guest, he watched over him tenderly, doing for him those things that only a woman would have thought of. During that night of anxiety, there rose up in the heart of the hermit something that for many years he had been striving vainly to kill. It was the hunger for human love and affection, a desire for something to care for. Suddenly, this last had been given him. This old man, querulous, evil-eyed, unlovable bodily and mentally, had become sacred in his eyes, an object of trust for which he should be answerable; and, in this thought, all the starved affection in Oman’s nature welled up within him, till his heart was full and overflowing with pain and joy.

On the evening of the second day of the stranger’s illness came the rains; and Oman knew that now, for the space of a month, at least, they were safe from intrusion. He and his charge were alone at the mercy of Nature; and, far from being dismayed at the prospect, Oman hailed it with joy. For him, who was now become veritably the mountain’s child, the old fear of the tempest was quite gone. Lightning and wind and rain were his brothers, when they sported across the peaks; and, since they brought him security against the impertinence of the people of the valleys, he blessed them anew for their presence. Thus, relieved from any untoward anxiety, he turned with all his strength and all his will to the assistance of the worn and world-weary creature whom chance or God had sent him to be his charge.

In the beginning, Oman always hoped that a few days would see the old man recovering, in some measure, his strength. But little by little that hope faded away. The illness, however, was never very alarming. By night there was always low fever, by day sometimes an abnormal chilliness, which Oman frequently strove to overcome by the heat of his own body. He would lie by the hour stretched along the bed, clasping the old form to his own, literally feeding his strength into the other. The stranger never tried his patience, at least. He was perfectly passive, obeyed every suggestion of his guardian, ate and drank whatever was given him, and never asked for more. Much of the time, indeed, Oman was in doubt as to whether he knew what was going on around him. By night his mind wandered, and he talked in his dreams; but by day he generally lay like one in a stupor, heeding nothing that passed. The one hour when he seemed to regain possession of his faculties, was at sunset. Usually, at this time, he would open his eyes, and, if Oman were not already beside him, would call for him, and ask a few questions, or address him on topics of interest to himself, the significance of which was lost on his listener. For a few days, just at first, he would often ask to sleep apart from his companion, would suggest vague dangers that were surrounding him, and certain suspicious circumstances that he believed himself to have noticed. From the general tenor of this talk, Oman gathered that he was in constant fear of being robbed; and, from watching the hands that were forever fumbling and playing with the string about his neck, he guessed that this string must be attached to the object of his anxiety. He was, therefore, scrupulously careful never to mention, and, so far as was possible, not even to look at this string; and the result of his consideration was what he hoped for:—very soon the old man dropped his suspicions, and seemed to feel for Oman a spirit of friendliness, almost affection.

The latter half of October and the first fortnight in November were wild weeks on the mountain top. It seemed as if the very elements were struggling over that soul in the cave. Never had such storms of hail, rain, wind, and snow raged round the Silver Peak. In all that time, however, Oman’s weaker nature never once manifested itself. He was using all the man and all the strength in him for the wanderer, whom the wild weather greatly disturbed. Indeed, often, during the storms, he would lie cowering with terror in his far corner of the shelter, talking deliriously of strange things, or uttering wild and terrified cries that wrung Oman’s very heart.

It was early in the afternoon of a mid-November day that one of the fiercest of these storms began, and lasted till early evening, when a great and unexpected peace descended upon the earth. Remarkably, the working of Nature was paralleled within the cave by an inexplicable scene. All through the morning the stranger had been conscious, sane, and unusually tranquil. After the noon meal he lay back on his bed with the avowed intention of sleeping; and Oman seated himself in the doorway of the hut, to watch the clouds roll up from the west and swirl close round the peak, in moisture-laden mists. For some moments the storm had been imminent; and Oman’s nerves were keyed for the first rush of the wind. His back was toward the bed. He could not know that the figure of the old man was suddenly upright. He could not see the fire of madness burning in the weird eyes, nor perceive that the shrunken muscles were as tense as those of a panther about to spring. But, in the first roar of the blast, with the first, fierce sweep of hail across the mountain top, the storm within also broke. Oman felt himself seized about the throat in an iron grip, and heard the shouting of the madman above the fury of the gale.

The half hour that followed he never clearly remembered. There was a fierce, almost mortal struggle. Locked in each other’s arms, the two reeled and rolled about the cave, like animals. Oman fought simply to preserve himself; but he was pitted against a madman’s strength. Blinded and half-stunned by the suddenness of the attack, it was many minutes before he got full control of his own forces. He soon became aware that a flood of wild ravings was pouring from the old man’s lips; and finally, at the very climax of the battle, when Oman felt his strength giving way, the wanderer suddenly dropped his arms, and his maniacal force seemed to throw itself into words, which he screamed out till they sounded high above the gush and clamor of the storm:

“Thou shalt not have it—thou shalt not, dog! Nor thou! Nor thou!—It is mine! The Asra ruby is mine own, given me in payment for work.—Ah—ye shall not take it from me! Faces—faces—faces!”

The last words sank, grewsomely, to a whisper, as he struck out once and again into the air at the phantom forms that closed him round. Then, suddenly, without any warning, he flung both hands over his head, reeled, and dropped in a heap at Oman’s side.