that his creed, whatever it was, must cover all that; it must provide
some sort of a philosophy for it; must neither apologize nor ignore it.
The heaven that it promised must be a man's heaven. The Christian heaven
made no appeal to him, he could not believe in it. The ritual must be
simple and direct. He felt that in some dim way he understood why those
old people had thrown their captives from the Crag. The sacrifice of an
animal victim that could be eaten afterwards with due ceremonial did not
shock him. Such methods seemed simple, natural, effective. Yet would it
not have been better--the horrid thought rose unbidden in his inmost
mind--better to have cut their throats with a flint knife ... slowly?
Horror-stricken, he sprang to his feet. These terrible thoughts he could
not recognize as his own. Had he slept a moment in the sunlight,
dreaming them? Was it some hideous nightmare flash that touched him as
he dozed a second? Something of fear and awe stole over him. He stared
round for some minutes into the emptiness of the desolate landscape,
then hurriedly ran down to the road, hoping to exorcize the strange
sudden horror by vigorous movement. Yet when he reached the track he
knew that he had not succeeded. The awful pictures were gone perhaps,
but the mood remained. It was as though some new attitude began to take
definite form and harden within him.
He walked on, trying to pretend to himself that he was some forgotten
legionary marching up with his fellows to defend the Wall. Half
unconsciously he fell into the steady tramping pace of his old regiment:
the words of the ribald songs they had sung going to the front came
pouring into his mind. Steadily and almost mechanically he swung along
till he saw the Stone as a black speck on the left of the track, and the
instant he saw it there rose in him the feeling that he stood upon the
edge of an adventure that he feared yet longed for. He approached the
great granite monolith with a curious thrill of anticipatory excitement,
born he knew not whence.
But, of course, there was nothing. Common sense, still operating
strongly, had warned him there would be, could be, nothing. In the waste
the great Stone stood upright, solitary, forbidding, as it had stood for
thousands of years. It dominated the landscape somewhat ominously. The
sheep and cattle had used it as a rubbing-stone, and bits of hair and
wool clung to its rough, weather-eaten edges; the feet of generations
had worn a cup-shaped hollow at its base. The wind sighed round it
plaintively. Its bulk glistened as it took the sun.
A short mile away the Blood Tarn was now plainly visible; he could
see the little holm lying in a direct line with the Stone, while,
overhanging the water as a dark shadow on one side, rose the cliff-like
rock they called "the Crag." Of the house the landlord had mentioned,
however, he could see no trace, as he relieved his shoulders of the
knapsack and sat down to enjoy his lunch. The tarn, he reflected,
was certainly a gloomy place; he could understand that the simple
superstitious shepherds did not dare to live there, for even on this
bright spring day it wore a dismal and forbidding look. With failing
light, when the Crag sprawled its big lengthening shadow across the
water, he could well imagine they would give it the widest possible
berth. He strolled down to the shore after lunch, smoking his pipe
lazily--then suddenly stood still. At the far end, hidden hitherto by
a fold in the ground, he saw the little house, a faint column of blue
smoke rising from the chimney, and at the same moment a woman came out
of the low door and began to walk towards the tarn. She had seen him,
she was moving evidently in his direction; a few minutes later she
stopped and stood waiting on the path--waiting, he well knew, for him.
And his earlier mood, the mood he dreaded yet had forced himself to
recognize, came back upon him with sudden redoubled power. As in some
vivid dream that dominates and paralyses the will, or as in the first
stages of an imposed hypnotic spell, all question, hesitation, refusal
sank away. He felt a pleasurable resignation steal upon him with soft,
numbing effect. Denial and criticism ceased to operate, and common sense
died with them. He yielded his being automatically to the deeps of an
adventure he did not understand. He began to walk towards the woman.
It was, he saw as he drew nearer, the figure of a young girl, nineteen
or twenty years of age, who stood there motionless with her eyes fixed
steadily on his own. She looked as wild and picturesque as the scene
that framed her. Thick black hair hung loose over her back and
shoulders; about her head was bound a green ribbon; her clothes
consisted of a jersey and a very short skirt which showed her bare legs
browned by exposure to the sun and wind. A pair of rough sandals covered
her feet. Whether the face was beautiful or not he could not tell; he
only knew that it attracted him immensely and with a strength of appeal
that he at once felt curiously irresistible. She remained motionless
against the boulder, staring fixedly at him till he was close before
her. Then she spoke:
"I am glad that you have come at last," she said in a clear, strong
voice that yet was soft and even tender. "We have been expecting you."
"You have been expecting me!" he repeated, astonished beyond words, yet
finding the language natural, right and true. A stream of sweet feeling
invaded him, his heart beat faster, he felt happy and at home in some
extraordinary way he could not understand yet did not question.
"Of course," she answered, looking straight into his eyes with welcome
unashamed. Her next words thrilled him to the core of his being. "I have
made the room ready for you."
Quick upon her own, however, flashed back the landlord's words, while
common sense made a last faint effort in his thought. He was the victim
of some absurd mistake evidently. The lonely life, the forbidding
surroundings, the associations of the desolate hills had affected her
mind. He remembered the accident.
"I am afraid," he offered, lamely enough, "there is some mistake. I am
not the friend you were expecting. I----" He stopped. A thin slight
sound as of distant laughter seemed to echo behind the unconvincing
words.
"There is no mistake," the girl answered firmly, with a quiet smile,
moving a step nearer to him, so that he caught the subtle perfume of her
vigorous youth. "I saw you clearly in the Mystery Stone. I recognized
you at once."
"The Mystery Stone," he heard himself saying, bewilderment increasing, a
sense of wild happiness growing with it.
Laughing, she took his hand in hers. "Come," she said, drawing him along
with her, "come home with me. My father will be waiting for us; he will
tell you everything, and better far than I can."
He went with her, feeling that he was made of sunlight and that he
walked on air, for at her touch his own hand responded as with a sudden
fierceness of pleasure that he failed utterly to understand, yet did not
question for an instant. Wildly, absurdly, madly it flashed across his
mind: "This is the woman I shall marry--_my_ woman. I am her man."
They walked in silence for a little, for no words of any sort offered
themselves to his mind, nor did the girl attempt to speak. The total
absence of embarrassment between them occurred to him once or twice
as curious, though the very idea of embarrassment then disappeared
entirely. It all seemed natural and unforced, the sudden intercourse as
familiar and effortless as though they had known one another always.
"The Mystery Stone," he heard himself saying presently, as the idea rose
again to the surface of his mind. "I should like to know more about it.
Tell me, dear."
"I bought it with the other things," she replied softly.
"What other things?"
She turned and looked up into his face with a slight expression of
surprise; their shoulders touched as they swung along; her hair blew in
the wind across his coat. "The bronze collar," she answered in the low
voice that pleased him so, "and this ornament that I wear in my hair."
He glanced down to examine it. Instead of a ribbon, as he had first
supposed, he saw that it was a circlet of bronze, covered with a
beautiful green patina and evidently very old. In front, above the
forehead, was a small disk bearing an inscription he could not decipher
at the moment. He bent down and kissed her hair, the girl smiling with
happy contentment, but offering no sign of resistance or annoyance.
"And," she added suddenly, "the dagger."
Holt started visibly. This time there was a thrill in her voice that
seemed to pierce down straight into his heart. He said nothing, however.
The unexpectedness of the word she used, together with the note in her
voice that moved him so strangely, had a disconcerting effect that kept
him silent for a time. He did not ask about the dagger. Something
prevented his curiosity finding expression in speech, though the word,
with the marked accent she placed upon it, had struck into him like the
shock of sudden steel itself, causing him an indecipherable emotion of
both joy and pain. He asked instead, presently, another question, and a
very commonplace one: he asked where she and her father had lived before
they came to these lonely hills. And the form of his question--his voice
shook a little as he said it--was, again, an effort of his normal self
to maintain its already precarious balance.
The effect of his simple query, the girl's reply above all, increased in
him the mingled sensations of sweetness and menace, of joy and dread,
that half alarmed, half satisfied him. For a moment she wore a puzzled
expression, as though making an effort to remember.
"Down by the sea," she answered slowly, thoughtfully, her voice very
low. "Somewhere by a big harbour with great ships coming in and out.
It was there we had the break--the shock--an accident that broke us,
shattering the dream we share To-day." Her face cleared a little. "We
were in a chariot," she went on more easily and rapidly, "and father--my
father was injured, so that I went with him to a palace beyond the Wall
till he grew well."
"You were in a chariot?" Holt repeated. "Surely not."
"Did I say chariot?" the girl replied. "How foolish of me!" She shook
her hair back as though the gesture helped to clear her mind and memory.
"That belongs, of course, to the other dream. No, not a chariot; it was
a car. But it had wheels like a chariot--the old war-chariots. You
know."
"Disk-wheels," thought Holt to himself. He did not ask about the palace.
He asked instead where she had bought the Mystery Stone, as she called
it, and the other things. Her reply bemused and enticed him farther,
for he could not unravel it. His whole inner attitude was shifting
with uncanny rapidity and completeness. They walked together, he now
realized, with linked arms, moving slowly in step, their bodies
touching. He felt the blood run hot and almost savage in his veins. He
was aware how amazingly precious she was to him, how deeply, absolutely
necessary to his life and happiness. Her words went past him in the
mountain wind like flying birds.
"My father was fishing," she went on, "and I was on my way to join him,
when the old woman called me into her dwelling and showed me the things.
She wished to give them to me, but I refused the present and paid for
them in gold. I put the fillet on my head to see if it would fit, and
took the Mystery Stone in my hand. Then, as I looked deep into the
stone, this present dream died all away. It faded out. I saw the older
dreams again--_our_ dreams."
"The older dreams!" interrupted Holt. "Ours!" But instead of saying the
words aloud, they issued from his lips in a quiet whisper, as though
control of his voice had passed a little from him. The sweetness in him
became more wonderful, unmanageable; his astonishment had vanished; he
walked and talked with his old familiar happy Love, the woman he had
sought so long and waited for, the woman who was his mate, as he was
hers, she who alone could satisfy his inmost soul.
"The old dream," she replied, "the very old--the oldest of all
perhaps--when we committed the terrible sacrilege. I saw the High Priest
lying dead--whom my father slew--and the other whom _you_ destroyed. I
saw you prise out the jewel from the image of the god--with your short
bloody spear. I saw, too, our flight to the galley through the hot,
awful night beneath the stars--and our escape...."
Her voice died away and she fell silent.
"Tell me more," he whispered, drawing her closer against his side. "What
had _you_ done?" His heart was racing now. Some fighting blood surged
uppermost. He felt that he could kill, and the joy of violence and
slaughter rose in him.
"Have you forgotten so completely?" she asked very low, as he pressed
her more tightly still against his heart. And almost beneath her breath
she whispered into his ear, which he bent to catch the little sound: "I
had broken my vows with you."
"What else, my lovely one--my best beloved--what more did you see?" he
whispered in return, yet wondering why the fierce pain and anger that he
felt behind still lay hidden from betrayal.
"Dream after dream, and always we were punished. But the last time was
the clearest, for it was here--here where we now walk together in the
sunlight and the wind--it was here the savages hurled us from the rock."
A shiver ran through him, making him tremble with an unaccountable touch
of cold that communicated itself to her as well. Her arm went instantly
about his shoulder, as he stooped and kissed her passionately. "Fasten
your coat about you," she said tenderly, but with troubled breath,
when he released her, "for this wind is chill although the sun shines
brightly. We were glad, you remember, when they stopped to kill us, for
we were tired and our feet were cut to pieces by the long, rough journey
from the Wall." Then suddenly her voice grew louder again and the
smile of happy confidence came back into her eyes. There was the deep
earnestness of love in it, of love that cannot end or die. She looked up
into his face. "But soon now," she said, "we shall be free. For you have
come, and it is nearly finished--this weary little present dream."
"How," he asked, "shall we get free?" A red mist swam momentarily before
his eyes.
"My father," she replied at once, "will tell you all. It is quite easy."
"Your father, too, remembers?"
"The moment the collar touches him," she said, "he is a priest again.
See! Here he comes forth already to meet us, and to bid you welcome."
Holt looked up, startled. He had hardly noticed, so absorbed had he been
in the words that half intoxicated him, the distance they had covered.
The cottage was now close at hand, and a tall, powerfully built man,
wearing a shepherd's rough clothing, stood a few feet in front of
him. His stature, breadth of shoulder and thick black beard made up a
striking figure. The dark eyes, with fire in them, gazed straight into
his own, and a kindly smile played round the stern and vigorous mouth.
"Greeting, my son," said a deep, booming voice, "for I shall call you my
son as I did of old. The bond of the spirit is stronger than that of the
flesh, and with us three the tie is indeed of triple strength. You come,
too, at an auspicious hour, for the omens are favourable and the time of
our liberation is at hand." He took the other's hand in a grip that
might have killed an ox and yet was warm with gentle kindliness, while
Holt, now caught wholly into the spirit of some deep reality he could
not master yet accepted, saw that the wrist was small, the fingers
shapely, the gesture itself one of dignity and refinement.
"Greeting, my father," he replied, as naturally as though he said more
modern words.
"Come in with me, I pray," pursued the other, leading the way, "and let
me show you the poor accommodation we have provided, yet the best that
we can offer."
He stooped to pass the threshold, and as Holt stooped likewise the girl
took his hand and he knew that his bewitchment was complete. Entering
the low doorway, he passed through a kitchen, where only the roughest,
scantiest furniture was visible, into another room that was completely
bare. A heap of dried bracken had been spread on the floor in one corner
to form a bed. Beside it lay two cheap, coloured blankets. There was
nothing else.
"Our place is poor," said the man, smiling courteously, but with that
dignity and air of welcome which made the hovel seem a palace. "Yet it
may serve, perhaps, for the short time that you will need it. Our little
dream here is wellnigh over, now that you have come. The long weary
pilgrimage at last draws to a close." The girl had left them alone a
moment, and the man stepped closer to his guest. His face grew solemn,
his voice deeper and more earnest suddenly, the light in his eyes seemed
actually to flame with the enthusiasm of a great belief. "Why have you
tarried thus so long, and where?" he asked in a lowered tone that
vibrated in the little space. "We have sought you with prayer and
fasting, and she has spent her nights for you in tears. You lost the
way, it must be. The lesser dreams entangled your feet, I see." A touch
of sadness entered the voice, the eyes held pity in them. "It is, alas,
too easy, I well know," he murmured. "It is too easy."
"I lost the way," the other replied. It seemed suddenly that his heart
was filled with fire. "But now," he cried aloud, "now that I have found
her, I will never, never let her go again. My feet are steady and my way
is sure."
"For ever and ever, my son," boomed the happy, yet almost solemn answer,
"she is yours. Our freedom is at hand."
He turned and crossed the little kitchen again, making a sign that his
guest should follow him. They stood together by the door, looking out
across the tarn in silence. The afternoon sunshine fell in a golden
blaze across the bare hills that seemed to smoke with the glory of the
fiery light. But the Crag loomed dark in shadow overhead, and the little
lake lay deep and black beneath it.
"Acella, Acella!" called the man, the name breaking upon his companion
as with a shock of sweet delicious fire that filled his entire being, as
the girl came the same instant from behind the cottage. "The Gods call
me," said her father. "I go now to the hill. Protect our guest and
comfort him in my absence."
Without another word, he strode away up the hillside and presently was
visible standing on the summit of the Crag, his arms stretched out above
his head to heaven, his great head thrown back, his bearded face turned
upwards. An impressive, even a majestic figure he looked, as his bulk
and stature rose in dark silhouette against the brilliant evening sky.
Holt stood motionless, watching him for several minutes, his heart
swelling in his breast, his pulses thumping before some great nameless
pressure that rose from the depths of his being. That inner attitude
which seemed a new and yet more satisfying attitude to life than he had
known hitherto, had crystallized. Define it he could not, he only knew
that he accepted it as natural. It satisfied him. The sight of that
dignified, gaunt figure worshipping upon the hill-top enflamed him....
"I have brought the stone," a voice interrupted his reflections, and
turning, he saw the girl beside him. She held out for his inspection a
dark square object that looked to him at first like a black stone lying
against the brown skin of her hand. "The Mystery Stone," the girl added,
as their faces bent down together to examine it. "It is there I see the
dreams I told you of."
He took it from her and found that it was heavy, composed apparently
of something like black quartz, with a brilliant polished surface that
revealed clear depths within. Once, evidently, it had been set in a
stand or frame, for the marks where it had been attached still showed,
and it was obviously of great age. He felt confused, the mind in him
troubled yet excited, as he gazed. The effect upon him was as though a
wind rose suddenly and passed across his inmost subjective life, setting
its entire contents in rushing motion.
"And here," the girl said, "is the dagger."
He took from her the short bronze weapon, feeling at once instinctively
its ragged edge, its keen point, sharp and effective still. The handle
had long since rotted away, but the bronze tongue, and the holes where
the rivets had been, remained, and, as he touched it, the confusion and
trouble in his mind increased to a kind of turmoil, in which violence,
linked to something tameless, wild and almost savage, was the dominating
emotion. He turned to seize the girl and crush her to him in a
passionate embrace, but she held away, throwing back her lovely head,
her eyes shining, her lips parted, yet one hand stretched out to stop
him.
"First look into it with me," she said quietly. "Let us see together."
She sat down on the turf beside the cottage door, and Holt, obeying,
took his place beside her. She remained very still for some minutes,
covering the stone with both hands as though to warm it. Her lips moved.
She seemed to be repeating some kind of invocation beneath her breath,
though no actual words were audible. Presently her hands parted. They
sat together gazing at the polished surface. They looked within.
"There comes a white mist in the heart of the stone," the girl
whispered. "It will soon open. The pictures will then grow. Look!" she
exclaimed after a brief pause, "they are forming now."
"I see only mist," her companion murmured, gazing intently. "Only mist
I see."
She took his hand and instantly the mist parted. He found himself
peering into another landscape which opened before his eyes as though it
were a photograph. Hills covered with heather stretched away on every
side.
"Hills, I see," he whispered. "The ancient hills----"
"Watch closely," she replied, holding his hand firmly.
At first the landscape was devoid of any sign of life; then suddenly it
surged and swarmed with moving figures. Torrents of men poured over the
hill-crests and down their heathery sides in columns. He could see them
clearly--great hairy men, clad in skins, with thick shields on their
left arms or slung over their backs, and short stabbing spears in their
hands. Thousands upon thousands poured over in an endless stream. In the
distance he could see other columns sweeping in a turning movement. A
few of the men rode rough ponies and seemed to be directing the march,
and these, he knew, were the chiefs....
The scene grew dimmer, faded, died away completely. Another took its
place:
By the faint light he knew that it was dawn. The undulating country,
less hilly than before, was still wild and uncultivated. A great wall,
with towers at intervals, stretched away till it was lost in shadowy
distance. On the nearest of these towers he saw a sentinel clad in
armour, gazing out across the rolling country. The armour gleamed
faintly in the pale glimmering light, as the man suddenly snatched up a
bugle and blew upon it. From a brazier burning beside him he next seized
a brand and fired a great heap of brushwood. The smoke rose in a dense
column into the air almost immediately, and from all directions, with
incredible rapidity, figures came pouring up to man the wall. Hurriedly
they strung their bows, and laid spare arrows close beside them on the
coping. The light grew brighter. The whole country was alive with
savages; like the waves of the sea they came rolling in enormous
numbers. For several minutes the wall held. Then, in an impetuous,
fearful torrent, they poured over....
It faded, died away, was gone again, and a moment later yet another took
its place:
But this time the landscape was familiar, and he recognized the tarn. He
saw the savages upon the ledge that flanked the dominating Crag; they
had three captives with them. He saw two men. The other was a woman. But
the woman had fallen exhausted to the ground, and a chief on a rough
pony rode back to see what had delayed the march. Glancing at the
captives, he made a fierce gesture with his arm towards the water far
below. Instantly the woman was jerked cruelly to her feet and forced
onwards till the summit of the Crag was reached. A man snatched
something from her hand. A second later she was hurled over the brink.