Read Ebook: The Cosmic Courtship by Hawthorne Julian

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Ebook has 570 lines and 39021 words, and 12 pages

Jim did a comprehensive gesture.

"Dis here hull joint is like de pantomimes down in de Bowery; when yer t'inks yer's up ag'in trouble, de ceilin' busts t'rough an' down swoops de fairy wid de goods; or de stage splits up, an' dey yanks down de vill'in out o' sight. An' de elf kids hops out of de bushes an' give yer de glad hand. Yes, sir, yer has de game down fine! It's sure some class, Sattum is; but lil, ol' N'York has yer beat, at dat!"

While Jim thus expressed himself, his retinue withdrew a little, and watched the tall human creatures with shy curiosity.

Lamara stooped and gave the urchin a kiss. "And where are you going now?" she asked. Jim reddened and glistened under the tribute; but recovered himself.

"Me? I's out fer blood!" he announced. "I leaves de boss ter tackle de yaller-haired kid, whilst I starts fer Torpy. I figgers you folks kin look out fer dis end of de line; but Torpy, 'tends ter him meself!"

"But how will you get to Tor" Argon asked.

"Don' let dat worry yer, young feller! I ain't much ter look at; but I meets up wid dat shiny gink--Sol Something he calls hisself--yer knows who I mean--he comes along, frien'ly like, an' swots de big lizzud I was arguin' wid; an' after we've chinned fer a spell, he gives me crutch de once-over, see, an' allows dere's a hull kit o' tools in her, what de fairies put dere; but I has a guess dat he done it hisself! Anyhow, she's loaded fer bear, an' when me an' Torpy gits inter de ring, dere'll be somp'n doin', believe me!"

"Is this possible?" Argon asked Aunion in an undertone.

"I cannot interpret," he replied, shaking his head.

"We may trust Solarion--he is of a higher order," said Lamara. "Still, something disquiets me on the child's account. But it is not for us to hold him back."

"Well, folks, I's on de war-pat'," Jim said, handling his crutch in a peculiar manner, "an' now I's goin' ter giver yer a s'prise! Kin'ly turn yer backs, all han's, till I makes me prep-rations; an' don' look eroun' till I gives de word! No peepin' now! Abbry-cadabbry! Presto change! As yer was! What d'yer t'ink o' dat?"

The others had indulged his humor, and now faced about again. How it had happened only Jim and perhaps the little Nature people could have told; but there Jim sat on a superb black stallion, which tossed its head, shook out its tail, and unfolded a pair of wings so wide and powerful that they seemed capable of bearing him from one end of the solar system to the other. The beautiful creature danced impatiently on its dainty hoofs, and seemed eager to be off.

"Well done, Jim! Good fortune! Safe return!" they cried; and the Nature people set up a joyful shout.

Jim settled himself in the saddle, and handled the reins with professional assurance. "Keep yer eye on de boss!" were his last words. He waved his hand, the horse gave a mighty sweep with his wings, and steed and rider bounded splendidly into the air.

JACK, seated in a corner of the silver bench, kept his eyes upon the column of blue vapor that rose upward from the smoldering fire in the font. But his mind was filled with somber thoughts of Miriam, and he was only superficially conscious either of the incantation or of Zarga. Of Miriam's faith he had no doubts; but as little could he question that Torpeon had by some means contrived to convey her to his stronghold. He could not think that Zarga would willfully mislead him upon that point, though he had indignantly rejected her suggestion that Miriam had consented to it; the idea that the Saturnian maiden was herself infatuated with him could not find entrance into his straight-forward mind; his own simple loyalty kept him from suspecting others. What the incantation might reveal was a matter of conjecture, but he did not so much as allow himself to imagine that it would present Miriam in any other light than as the soul of love and faith.

The music swept out in penetrating waves, the notes vibrating insistently upon the ear with a sweet but almost intolerable monotony; but the monotony gradually became a source of fascination. It seemed to enter into his blood and control the pulsations of his heart; it had the effect of a seductive but suffocating perfume, against the influence of which one might struggle at first, but at last found an exotic delight in yielding. It soothed the outward senses, but wrought a strange excitement within. Zarga had resumed her mystic dance, and now he followed her movements with dreamy intentness; she had ceased to be a distinct personality to him, but was a part of the general scene, and represented in movement what the rest imparted by color, form and sound. Her body and limbs, exquisite in their supple eloquence, swayed and shifted like the waving of slender fronds in tropic gardens, or the rhythm of fairy surf lapsing on coral beaches. She seemed far away, yet thrillingly near; and her face, as it was recurrently turned toward him in the turnings of the dance, had the spell of beauty alternately revealed and withdrawn into the magic shadows of memory. He felt the gaze of her dark eyes more poignantly in its absence than when turned upon him.

Once more the dancer halted suddenly, with arms uplifted, and the music sang its insistent song no more. There came a volley of staccato sounds, as of a startled nightingale, and the column of vapor was agitated and broken into revolving wreaths. These twisted themselves together, forming huge figures vaguely outlined, lit by fitful gleams from the embers in the font. Zarga turned and ran swiftly toward Jack, crouching, and pressing her fingers against her temples. "It is coming--it is coming!" she cried; "put your strength round me--let me come inside your arm! I am afraid of what I've done!"

Jack, disconcerted, drew himself erect on the bench; but the vaporous forms now shaping themselves above the font so commanded his attention that he hardly noticed how Zarga nestled against him, warm, panting, and tremulous, like a bird seeking refuge; how her head lay on his breast, and the flexible fingers of her hand touched his face and wound themselves in his hair. His arm was about her, and from an involuntary protecting impulse he patted her shoulder; but he was absorbed in the scene before him.

The smoke-figures, condensing, appeared no longer gigantic, but assumed the stature of life. Two human apparitions were together, a man and a woman. More than their sex could not at first be determined; they sat facing each other in a deep alcove, disclosed by a semblance of draperies that hung on either side. The coloring of life, faint in the beginning, gained depth, as if an artist were adding to his gray outline more vivid touches from his palette. The living picture acquired each moment greater definition; from point to point the outlines and contours settled into certainty; and Jack's lips grew dry as he recognized more and more unmistakably the proportions and movements of the woman he loved. For the other figure he had as yet no eyes, but he knew it could represent no other than Torpeon. His beloved, and his enemy, seated there face to face and hands in hands!

"It is false!" a voice spoke thus in the remote recesses of his soul; "a false profanation of what is sacred!" But the terrible persuasiveness of the vision overwhelmed him. The testimony of the sight, fallacious though it so constantly be, dominates the nobler assurances of the spirit; and the very struggle against the illusion causes it to take on outlines more convincing. Miriam's face was latest to be revealed. The look it wore was the look of love in its passion; and it was lavished not on him, but on another!

Torpeon had taken both her hands in his, and was speaking with imperious urgency. Unconsciously, Jack strained Zarga's hand in his, and his heart beat tumultuously against hers. Miriam's eyelids fell as Torpeon pressed his appeal; her deep bosom rose and subsided in irregular breathings; by an effort, she partly turned herself away; but it was the last struggle of resistance, and her lover would not be denied. Slowly she faced him again and lifted her eyes to him; Jack ground his teeth as he saw that look. Her body relaxed and was inclined toward the pleader, with the loveliness of yielding in her smile. With a proud gesture his arms went around her, and he drew her to him; his bearded mouth met her parted lips. Jack sank back in his seat with a groan. Clouds drifted in before the picture, and it faded out and was gone. The vapors melted away, and the black font's embers dulled into grayness. Zarga, her arms round Jack, had drawn herself up, so that her smooth cheek rested on his, and her breath touched his lips.

"Noblest and dearest," she whispered, "I would have saved you from this grief and shame; but her wickedness must be seen to be believed. It is better to know than to doubt; she is not worth your grieving; she was never worthy of you; she would have betrayed you, whether for Torpeon, or another. But if you will see what love is, forget her, and look at me!"

Jack's brain slowly awoke to the meaning of these words, as if he returned from a long and dreary journey. "What has happened to the world!" he muttered.

He raised himself deliberately, like a man who regains consciousness after a swoon. He took her wrists in his hands, and detached her arms from their embrace. He held her off and looked at her, sadly and searchingly.

"It is all illusion," he said; "this and the other!"

"There is no illusion in my love!" answered the girl, in a deep murmur. "I loved you from the first moment. Had her love held true, I would had died and kept silence. But she betrayed you and I have shown you the secret that is myself! Yes, look at me! Am I not beautiful? What happiness is there that I cannot give you? Take me--know me--love me! In this world there are a thousand joys that are not dreamed of on your earth! And our years are not few, like yours, nor can age dull and enfeeble us. My power is great; I will lead you through endless delights, blooming one after another, like roses from one stem of love. Or if you long for daring deeds, mighty works, or strange adventures, fame and worship, I can launch you on such a career as no tales of heroes tell! You are made for the highest things; do not let yourself sink down before the treason of one woman! Let us live and love together, and we need not wait for death to show us immortality, for our every moment shall be immortal!"

"I know nothing of all this," he said, in heavy tones. "What you think of me is all amiss. I'm a very ordinary creature. I love Miriam, and she loves me--that is the whole of my world and my life. We can have only one sorrow--to be separated from each other; and we want no other happiness than to be together. These visions that we have been seeing--they oppressed me for a moment; but they are gone, and they are nothing. Love is once and for all; after that, there can be no changing or choosing. It has taken what I am and given it to Miriam, and what she is, is in me. I could as soon become another man, as love another woman; I can see that you are beautiful, Zarga; but beauty is nothing to me, except as Miriam's beauty is a part of Miriam; and I love it as a part of her. And what are endless delights? For her and me there is only one delight--our love--and that is endless; we want no other. Works, adventures, fame? My love makes me a man; and no other adventure or achievement compares with that. Miriam's safety and happiness are my work and adventure; and for that I am here. Don't imagine such an insanity as that you can love me, or I, you! If you will be my friend, set me on my way to save Miriam from the trouble that has befallen her; neither you nor I are foolish enough to be deceived by a smoke-wreath, no matter what images some magic-lantern may throw on it!"

Zarga faced him with clenched hands and burning eyes. "I tell you once more, she does not love you; she does not even love Torpeon; she yields to him only because he has made her believe that he can make her queen of all the planets. Her heart is as cold as a burned-out cinder; will you, with your heart of molten gold, waste yourself on her?"

A frown began to gather on Jack's brow.

"You must not say these things," he told her, sternly. "They are not true, and I don't think you yourself believe them. I've been here too long; I will stay no longer. If you will help me to find Miriam, I will be very grateful; if not, let us part now!"

"No; you and I will never part," she replied, in a changed voice. "I have offered you myself, and I will never let you go forth to boast of it, or to find another woman. I have brought you to the center of this rock; none but I knows how to enter it, and none can pass out from it but by my leave. Here you shall stay until you die; and I will stay with you. You say I cannot love you; I love you, and hate you, enough for that! When the end of the world comes, and the graves are rent asunder, they will find our bones here, intertwined like lovers. Let Miriam make what she can of that!"

"You have not the power to do what you say," answered Jack. She stood between him and the entrance to the hall; he put her aside with his arms, and went forward.

But before he had advanced three paces, darkness sudden and absolute descended upon the cavern. It was like no other darkness; it was as if he had been all at once closed about by some black substance that molded itself to him like the matrix to which it holds. All sense of direction was lost; it even seemed as if he knew no longer which was below and which was above. There were whisperings in his ears; soft, mocking laughter, the padding of naked feet, long soughings of drafts through unseen crevices. He attempted to go on in the way he had started; but a few steps, carefully taken and measured, brought him up against the solid wall of the crystal rock. He set out to circumvent the chamber, remembering its circular form, and keeping one hand in touch with the wall; but after journeying for a thousand paces, more than enough to account for more than ten times the circumference of the chamber, he had arrived at nothing; there had been no interruption in the adamantine smoothness; for aught he could tell, indeed, he might have passed into some passage leading yet deeper into the heart of the butte. Again he tried to cross from one side to the other, in the hope of finding the black font, from which he might take a fresh departure; but after many minutes, with every precaution not to deviate from a straight line, he had come to no end; he might have been traveling across an empty and lightless desert. The sounds which he had at first heard had now died away, and an appalling silence had descended, like another darkness; and yet, dogging his footsteps, close behind him, invisible and inaudible, but felt something following him relentlessly; something hostile and formless. What was it? Starvation? Madness? Death? Once he wheeled suddenly and leaped with outstretched arms to grasp it. Nothing!

At length he ceased his futile efforts and stood still, with folded arms. He gathered up the forces of his will, and quieted the throbbing of his heart, which had become vehement and irregular. There was no escape; he would face that fact and accept it. Famine and death; but there should not be madness! The light of the body was gone; but the light of the mind should endure. No fear, or longing, or despair should banish from his thoughts the image of Miriam and his faith in their love. He had bought these at a great price, and he would never give them up. This was the end of his great adventure; he would meet it with the constancy of a true man.

Hark! A sound like the rising of a mighty wind; a rending and shuddering as of the throes of earthquake! The cavern rocked; the foundations of the mountain were shaken. A flicker of light divided the blackness, and at the same moment soft arms were thrown round him, and a bosom, palpitating with terror, pressed against his own. Zarga's bosom, and her arms!

Before he could free himself, she uttered a wild cry and staggered back, pressing her hands over her heart. She stared at him in amazement and dismay; was that blood upon her fingers? The sapphire talisman still hung round Jack's neck, and it sparkled vividly, sending forth rays like keen arrows.

Zarga sank down, and huddled with her face upon the floor. The butte was split in twain from summit to foundation, and tumbled in awful ruin to right and left. In the ragged jaws of the cleft stood the snow white figure of Lamara.

THE genius of the Torides had qualities which more affiliated them with the people of our own earth than did that of the Saturnians. Their desire for power had stimulated them to develop the material sciences, and to experiment with a view to the physical control of nature for personal ends; whereas the Saturnians sought knowledge for the sake of its inherent goodness and beauty, and therefore aimed to obliterate self as far as they might, in order to thus remove the obstruction to influx and render themselves obedient channels of the omnipotent force. They used no writing, because such records of the past as were spiritually useful were spontaneously present with them in each passing hour, and the source of their wisdom constantly supplied them to the limits of their capacity; they built no enduring structures, because they could immediately fashion their natural surroundings into the form of their thoughts; they gave no labor to food and protection, because the substances necessary to their bodily nourishment passed into them in measure as waste created the demand, on a principle analogous to the flow of vegetable sap; and for defense, should that be required, they could so modify the vibrations of reflected light as to render themselves invisible. They were wholly occupied with the concerns of the moment; and they were independent of space, by reason of their ability not only to appear and to act at a distance mentally, but also to effect almost immediate bodily transference. The general result of all this was, not a complicated but an extremely simple manner of existence on the physical plane, interrupted on special occasions only for some exceptional purpose; their ordinary life was as artless and na?ve as that of children; and they enriched their environment not otherwise than by establishing an increasing harmony between it and themselves. To this harmony was due the extension of their physical life to periods vastly beyond any imaginable limits of ours, accompanied throughout by a perfection of vigor and freshness which we ascribe to the prime of youth alone.

Among his many studies he had not neglected research into the nature of woman, and fancied himself no tyro in that far-reaching and ramifying mystery. Miriam's unexampled exile from her home and people would render her, he reflected, tenderly susceptible to influences that should seem to conciliate that estrangement, and to make her forget the violence and extraordinary circumstances of her seizure, and he took his measures accordingly.

After conducting her into the castle he waved aside the guards and attendants who assembled to do them honor, and led her through several halls and antechambers, massively built and furnished with austere dignity, to an upper floor where a corridor opened before them wainscoted with light-tinted and polished woods, the upper walls and ceilings colored in cheerful hues, with designs gracefully and tastefully conceived. At the end of the passage he flung open a door, and stood aside, with an obeisance, for her to enter.

Upon crossing the threshold she found herself in the outermost of a suite of rooms, the first glimpse of which almost betrayed her into an exclamation of astonishment. He was watching her closely and he smiled.

"Anything you wish is at your service here," he said quietly. "There are women at your call to wait upon you. You are mistress of this place and of this planet. If you should be disposed to see me I will come; otherwise your privacy will be inviolate."

The door closed and she heard his tread departing down the passage.

After standing for a few moments, looking interestedly about her, while the stern expression of her face gradually softened with pleased surprise, she walked slowly through the five or six rooms of the apartment. At every step some new object aroused her wonder and gratification. If this were magic it was admirable employed!

The site was a replica, apparently exact, of her own rooms in her father's house on the Long Island shore. Had skilled architects and upholsterers employed months in executing a careful reproduction their success could not have been greater than had been here achieved, as it seemed, instantaneously. It was home itself! Even familiar trifles--an inlaid hand-mirror, an ivory fan from Burma, a silver flask of Damascus perfume, a color photograph of her father--were in their accustomed places. The rugs on the inlaid floors were of her own selection; the embroidery on the silken bed-covering was of her own design. Entering the room on the left of the bedchamber, which she had had fitted up as a study and laboratory, she found all her paraphernalia apparently as she had left them when going on her last visit to Mary Faust. This discovery aroused in her something more than surprise. She examined various articles minutely; then, throwing herself into the study chair, she spent some time in grave meditation. If this apparatus were as genuine as it looked, Torpeon had, no doubt, unwittingly put in her hands potent means for defeating his own plans. Before leaving her earth she had nearly completed an invention, based upon atomic disintegration, which was capable of being applied in a manner to give unexpected significance to his statement that she was "mistress of Tor." If the result of her experiments answered their promise the words would become something more than an empty compliment.

"At any rate," she told herself, "science is science, in one part of the universe as much as in another. But, of course, all this wonderful reproduction is a clever device to put me off my guard--an expansion of the same principle used by Hindu jugglers to beguile the senses. I seem to be at home again, but I am a prisoner here, nevertheless; and probably under constant observation. If there were only some one here whom I could trust!"

As she uttered the wish an incongruous thought of the grotesque little cripple, Jim, slipped into her mind. It was one of those unaccountable vagaries which characterize memory. She had never given more than passing attention to him. The impression was probably due to the prevailing, if sometimes subconscious, presence of Jack in her reflections; the one would suggest the other. Jack! Where was he? What was he doing or planning? Doubtless he would attempt to follow her. Aided by the Saturnians--but would they aid him? And must not Torpeon have prepared for all such contingencies? Did not the very liberality with which he treated her indicate his conviction that he was safe from attack? Yes; she must not depend upon outside assistance. She must fight for herself!

But, once more, that impression of the cripple returned to her. She half resented it. But she dismissed that feeling; the poor little creature could not be responsible for the notion. It was odd how clearly he was presented before her mind's eye. She must have taken more exact note of him than she had supposed. Jim was the only one of the three who had undergone no outward alteration on his arrival on Saturn; the flame garments which she and Jack had assumed had not replaced, for him, the quaint, terrestrial jacket and trousers which he had worn in New York. Jim was too elementary in his simplicity to undergo change. And yet the soul of him, which was loyal, honest and affectionate, must be capable, like all true and loving souls of indefinite development. But he would always be Jim! Miriam smiled and sighed. Then she rose, with an impatient impulse, and returned to the bedroom.

Yonder was her dressing-table in the corner, with the cheval-glass standing beside it, inclined at the angle she had last given it. She walked up to it with a feminine curiosity, to see how she looked in Saturnian costume.

She was frankly startled when the reflection given back to her showed her to be wearing the same dove-colored flying-suit that was her usual dress when visiting the Long Island estate. The degree of pleasure which this gave her was perhaps not logically justifiable. It seemed to bring her real home nearer than had any of the other features of the production of her familiar surroundings--reproduction, illusion, or whatever it might be. Here she stood, as she was accustomed to see herself! It restored her self-possession. And she yielded to a genuine emotion of gratitude to Torpeon, whose foresight must have been something more than self-interested to inspire him to such a thought. It implied real interest in her.

"The creature does really care for me!" she said to herself. She seated herself in the chair before the dressing-table, and by the mere force of habit touched the bell-punch in the panel, by which she was wont to summon her personal maid, Jenny. Jenny was a New England girl, daughter of a farmer, who had been a chum of Terence Mayne before they emigrated to America. Old Mike, dying a widower in narrow circumstances, had left his daughter an orphan, and Terence, for old sake's sake, had brought her to New York to be Miriam's confidential attendant.

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