bring to the woman he loved was a crown of thorns. These he pressed on
her snowy brow where they rested, sharp and hard, amongst her silky
tresses, so that verily she resembled a martyred queen upon the bier of
a beggar.
In a circle around her coffin the gypsies had lighted blazing fires, and
now that their work was done they left the stranger standing in lonely
communion with that silent shape that never again would look upon the
light of day.
As he knelt beside her lowly bed, his face hidden on the heart that beat
no more, a sound of wings came wafted upon the wind, and there,
fluttering above the lifeless maiden, was his trusted companion the
milk-white hawk, holding in its sharpened beak the chain with the
moon-coloured diamond.
As Eric looked up with hopeless eyes, he saw how the beautiful creature
swooped down quite close, covering the lovely vision with its large soft
wings; and when it rose again, like foam against the darkening sky,
Gundian espied upon the heart of the maiden the magic diamond, shining
as if all her love were a last time bursting from her breast in mystic
rays of enchantment.
Night came down and still Eric knelt beside his shattered happiness. All
about him the fires burned and crackled, and the dismal chants of the
gypsies rose like curses to the heavens.
The wondrous face of the sleeper lived again in the glowing shine, but
Eric did not see this illusive light of life; when he looked up the
fires had burnt out; the gypsies had gone to rest.
The night had laid its darkness over the frowning solitude; no star
shone in the sky; the only spot of brightness was the twinkling diamond
that glowed there on Stella's bosom, where Eric had awakened her soul
with his first burning kiss of love!
XXVI
The grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps, the grey wind weeps. Dust
on her breast, dust on her eyes, The grey wind weeps.
FIONA MACLEOD.
Next day her grave was dug, there, upon that endless plain of silence.
Eric had strewn the gaping hole with a lining of withered leaves,
gathered from the weeping forest.
Before they hid her marvellous face out of sight he had passionately
covered its mask of beauty with desperate burning kisses. Zorka had
stood close by, guarding him from hostile glances, so that this
heartbroken lover might be for a last time alone with what had been the
dream of his life.
Then from his shoulders he took the torn black cloak he had worn during
all his wanderings and draped it round those rigid limbs that froze his
blood with their icy coldness.
"Mother, dear old mother," he cried, "I want to keep her warm; the night
before last she glowed in the arms of my passion, and now I must leave
her to the chill mercy of the frozen ground. How can I bear such
torture?"
Zorka laid her withered hand upon his shoulder.
"Son, my son, I feel that no ice can harm her more--she looked upon the
flames of Love, and died whilst they were folded round her; she closed
her eyes upon the vision of thy burning worship, and that wonderful
sweetness was the last thing she saw; now she is for ever happy."
So Eric wound her from head to foot in the dark folds of his mantle; he
hid away her white hands and her tiny feet. Then he pressed the wreath
of thorns over the dusky drapery, placing the gleaming gem in the centre
of her forehead. He fetched her dear violin and laid it so that her toes
just touched its polished wood.
Over the shabby black tissue of the weather-beaten vestment he spread
the faded wreaths that once had rested upon her rippling hair. And after
one long look of farewell he allowed the heavy lid to be shut down on
his hard-won happiness.
The damp earth was thrown with a hollow thud over the lid of the coffin,
the ground was beaten down smooth and flat on every side, so that no
wandering stranger should ever disturb her deep dark grave beneath its
covering of sombre soil.
The gypsies folded their tents with hasty rapidity, longing to steal
away from a place where silence brooded amongst the whispering winds.
Old Zorka came and stood upon the spot where her darling had been hidden
for ever away, and there she murmured all the prayers she could call
back to her flagging memory, whilst her streaming tears mixed with the
mould that lay over that past dream of beauty.
But no persuasion nor entreaty could make Eric move from that dark mound
in the barren lonely wild; he meant to remain there that first night
when she had been confided to the indifferent shadows that closed in
around her.
He promised Zorka he would follow next day, but this night he must lie
on Stella's cold grave, to protect it from the biting frost.
When all had gone and he was alone on that dreary vastness, he drew from
its sheath his treasured sword and planted it like a cross, there where
her eyes must be hidden away, never more to look upon the rising sun.
Dreary blasts of wind blew over the gloomy desert; darkness came down
and Eric stretched himself upon the frozen ground, his lips pressed upon
the spot where, far beneath the heavy covering of soil, her beautiful
mouth must have been.
There he lay, forsaken, the only breathing being in that cruel night of
sorrow. But not far off, amongst the dim shadows of the forest, the
snowy falcon was faithfully watching, though the glinting light no
longer shone on his breast, watching till day should mercifully break.
Through the heavy hours Eric never moved; he was fighting alone a dreary
battle against life and his God. Nor did he know, as his face lay hidden
in his clenched hands, that the magic hilt of the sword was glowing like
a shining promise far over the sleeping world. There it stood, a cross
of flame, burning with sacred light, watching over this desperate mortal
who longed to cast his life away.
The wind howled with voices of terror and storm; the dust was whirled in
clouds from the frozen waste, sweeping over the cross-shaped light and
over the weeping man, trying to blot them out of sight.
But deep down in eternal night, under the protecting arms of her lover,
rested Stella in stony quiet, bedded in the lap of old Mother Earth.
Beneath her closed lids her starry eyes were for ever guarding the last
dear vision her waking brain had looked upon.
XXVII
And in her two white hands like swans on a frozen lake,
Hath she not my heart, that I have hidden there for dear love's sake.
FIONA MACLEOD.
Morning dawned, and Eric rose from the ground, half-frozen from his long
night's vigil, his eyes hollow, staring with a desperate look.
The wan daylight was gradually spreading over the wilderness, on which
he stood like a wounded soldier whom his comrades had forsaken,
imagining he was dead. No, he was not dead, poor youth, he was alive,
crying, with broken heart and thirsting soul, for what could be no more.
He had lived his dream and shattered it all in one. Zorka had been
right, some flowers must not be plucked; and now his hands were
empty--empty. He himself had made the sweet petals fall, and no earthly
power could give them back their bloom.
Down there under the dark cold sod she lay, his dream of dreams, crushed
by his passion and love. He had held his soul's desire pressed against
his wildly beating heart, and she had left him in their hour of rapture;
had died beneath the fire of his kiss.
Once more he threw himself down upon the merciless earth that covered
her sacred beauty. He pressed his mouth upon the dust of the ground,
tracing the sign of the Cross with his lips, there where he guessed that
her snowy brow, her silent heart, and closed eyes lay hidden for ever
out of sight.
Then kneeling before the cross-shaped sword, Eric prayed in words of
glowing entreaty to the great Father above, that her sleep should be
sweet and the earth soft to that body he loved, that the weight of the
dark mould that wrapped her round should not be heavy to her delicate
limbs.
He cried to that silent brooding sky to be merciful towards that
creature of light and soon to call her from the damp dark grave to a
sunrise of glory and joy.
"God! my God! it cannot be that Thou lettest her slumber for ever in
that cold solitude and I not knowing if her sleep be sweet. She who was
like a ray from the sun--she who carried within her orbs the whole glory
of the summer skies, the entire mystery of the starry nights. She whose
music was the most exquisite rendering of the beauty of life; she whose
perfection was the gladness of each awakening day, whose soul and body
were like the spotless snow of mountain heights where no human foot has
ever passed. O God! O God! how can I leave her grave?" And again he lay
there, stretched upon the relentless soil, groaning and shedding tears
of blood, whilst the brooding silence of the naked wild lay over all,
hostile and unheeding, with Nature's stony indifference to the sorrow
and anguish of the human race.
Then at last he tore himself away, feeling how useless were his grief
and misery before those eternal laws of creation which for ever are, and
for ever shall be.
Now he was fleeing that silent wilderness, bending his head against the
driving wind and rain, against the storm of dust and sand that the wild
gusts were throwing in his face.
Several times he turned in hopeless yearning towards that lonesome spot
where his precious sword stood a lonely guardian of his lost happiness;
then, covering his face in an agony too deep for tears, on he rushed as
one who tries to escape from a sight he cannot bear.
His faithful friend the hawk flew beside him, occasionally caressing
his tear-stained face with the velvet touch of its wings.
For several hours he had thus fought his desperate way, when, on raising
his head, he saw a small cloud coming towards him out of the distance,
growing in size the nearer it came.
He stood still, vaguely wondering what it might be, when out of the
midst of the moving dust a young boy emerged, driven along by the storm
that strove to carry him off his feet.
The first thing Eric discerned was a high fur cap, a shaggy coat of
skins, into the wide sleeves of which the youth's hands had been deeply
thrust, whilst a thick staff was pressed in the hollow of his arm.
Behind this advancing figure came the pattering feet of innumerable
sheep, raising beneath their steps the thick cloud Eric had first of all
descried.
Suddenly, with a glad cry, both youths ran towards each other with
joyful recognition, for this was none other than Radu, the shepherd, who
was leading his flocks home from the mountains, driven thence by the
coming winter.
For a moment both remained speechless, hands clasped, staring into each
other's face that were wet and shining from the drizzling rain which had
not yet been able to turn into mud the thick coating of dust that lay
like powder on the roads. The one who spoke first was Radu, and it was
anxiously to ask:
"Where hast thou left thy cloak? Thou art quite wet; and thy sword, thy
beautiful sword, where hast thou left thy sword?"
Eric did not answer; he simply lifted both his hands, showing that they
were empty; then he let them fall again at his sides with the hopeless
gesture of one who has given everything up for ever more. Then only did
Radu come quite near and peer with frightened eyes more closely into his
face.
"What is it?" he cried. "What is it? What hast thou seen?"
"Heaven and Hell," answered Eric. "I have been in both!"
"And thy dream--didst thou find thy dream?" whispered the peasant.
"I found it and I lost it," was the answer he got. "It was mine for a
short hour of bliss--mine; but again God beat me down with my face to
the earth.
"I have been a dreamer of dreams, and it is not to be given to me to
keep what I clasp. God allowed me visions to lead me ever on; they
brought me to this land of promise.
"It was summer then; now thou seest what colour is over the earth. But I
touched my dream; I held it within my human arms; but as sayeth the
poet: 'How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may
touch,' so I killed my flower, killed it with my kiss."
"Can one kill with a kiss?" cried Radu, awe in his voice.
"One can kill with more things than with a sword. I found the face of my
vision, I followed it step by step. I hunted it down with sighs and
tears till at last it was mine. I held it one short moment in my arms, a
moment within which I lived the ultimate triumph of my desire. Then it
was gone. I myself destroyed it, consumed it, with the thirst of my
soul!"
"But was she happy?" queried Radu, with tears in his eyes.
"Was she happy! Good God! was she happy!" cried Eric, clenching his
fists towards the skies. "Yes, I believe she was happy! If I did not
believe that I could not live. She said to me to kiss her eyes so that
for ever she could keep the picture of what she had loved best in this
world! At that moment she died! My warm touch of love was death! Canst
grasp that frightful truth?... was death! My lips, my lover's lips
closed her eyes for ever!... for ever ... over the vision of my face!
"Before they laid her in the ground I wrapped her in my cloak; that is
why it is gone. I would not leave her thus thinly clad within the cold
shadow of her grave; and upon the spot where she lies I planted my
sword. There, where the eyes I followed so far are for ever closed, I
left my sword."
"Oh," sobbed Radu, "and now I shall never see that face!"
"Yes, thou shalt," answered his friend. "Come with me and thou shalt see
the fairest being God ever made!"
"Where?" asked the astonished peasant, "where?"
"Follow me and thou shalt know!"
"But my sheep,--they are tired; and see how tame are my dogs, exhausted
by the length of the way."
"It is not far from here--there thou canst rest; thou art not in a
hurry, and I would thou shouldst know the eyes of my dream."
Again Eric hid his face in his clasped hands, whilst a harsh dry sob
rose to his throat.
"Come, come! I, too, thirst for the sight of her face."
Towards the evening the two lads arrived at the gypsies' camp.
Along the dreary roadside several tall wooden crosses had been erected,
tall and gaunt, with curious shapes, decorated with archaic saints in
crudest colours.
These weird crosses stood in a line like silent spectres, some bending
sideways, as if tired of their vigil.
It was here that old Zorka had told Eric he would find their
halting-place. The fires had already been lit, the dark men and women
sat about in groups. The tents stood out, dismal shadows, against the
Western Bar.
Eric holding Radu by the hand led him to where Zorka was cooking her
evening meal in a blackened pot.
Radu's flock had followed pitter-patter in their wake, hardly
discernible in the dusk, their way-stained wool the colour of the ground
they trod.
When she saw her favourite the old seer ran forward and clasped him to
her breast, anxiously scanning his haggard face, but saying never a word
for fear of awakening his surging grief.
"Mother Zorka," he said, "here is a friend who has come to look upon her
face!"
Zorka went to her tent, brought out the wonderful picture, and put it
into the peasant's hands. He stared at it in enraptured silence. Then
very slowly he laid it on the ground and knelt before it, making the
sign of the cross over his brow, the tears flowing down his cheeks.
Zorka brought the boys food in a dish, urging her dear one to eat, but
Eric shook his head.
"Mother Zorka, willst thou tend him and give him a bed? for he was good
to me when I was in sore distress."
Then taking the picture he went off alone in the darkness of the night.
The wind howled, and the rain came down in heavier showers, beating upon
the miserable tents.
Zorka sat with the young shepherd in the shelter of her dwelling,
looking out upon the darkness into which the lonely mourner had
disappeared.
"Was she an angel?" asked Radu, who had finished his meal, and whose
face was still wet with tears.
"I think she was," said Zorka, nodding her head.
"Tell me," he continued, "why did she die?"
"Why did she die?" repeated the tired old woman. "Because it is given to
some never to wake from their dream of bliss, and those it is said are
loved of the gods."
"Why was he left alone? Do the gods not love him?"
Zorka sighed: "Because some must learn to the bitter end to overcome all
they reach; must learn to leave behind them both joy and pain; to rise
above all their desires, and hopes, and fears, till their souls are as
pure and bright as an archangel's sword; and those are the chosen of
God."
"But was she happy?" queried Radu, for the second time.
"Yes," answered Zorka, with a solemn voice. "Yes, she was happy. She
died of joy."
XXVIII
A star has ceased to shine in my lonely skies,
Sometimes I dream I see it shining in my heart.
FIONA MACLEOD.
Zorka could not bear to part from Eric of the golden locks, and begged
him to remain at her side.
He, too, for a while felt that he dared not leave the old woman who had
led him to his love; so all that winter he wandered about with the
travelling clan, from clime to clime, leaving far behind him the country
of his dream. Wherever he went the falcon followed, flying as near his
head as it could.
Radu had parted from Eric with tears in his eyes; both boys felt as they
joined hands for the last time that nothing could wipe out the deep
affection they had conceived for each other.
Radu had gone off on an endless road, playing a melancholy tune on his
wooden flute, his flock following him, his cowed dogs at his heels, his
feet splashing about in the mud, the patient sheep leaving thousands of
small footprints wherever they passed.
But Eric played no more, neither did he sing; and over the gold of his
locks the silver began to spread more and more, like foam on the sea.
Wherever he stopped he bought canvas and paint, but each of his pictures
showed always but the one and only face.
He painted the features of his dream in every form his heart could
remember.
He represented her as first he had seen her, crowned with a wreath of
bells, her old violin pressed under her cheek, her eyes full of the
visions she alone could see. He painted her seated in the dust of the
road with a circle of corn-ears round her delicate brow. He conjured up
her beauty against the setting sun, whilst the coronet she wore was of
autumn leaves all glowing as the blazing sky.
One of his sketches showed her shimmering and pale, lit by the rays of
the moon, and this time it was a halo he had painted round the pureness
of her heavenly face.
And once his restless fingers had created the picture of her marble
features as she lay motionless on her bier, her face still and white
under the brooding clouds, with the crown of thorns on her head, her
wonderful eyes closed beneath the heavy lids, a smile of peace and
happiness hovering like a blessing over her lips.
But one picture alone no human eye but his was ever allowed to see; on
that one he had awakened, for a second and last time, the look her eyes
had borne when he had closed them with his lips.
This sketch he kept jealously hidden beneath all the others, and it was
never shown--not even Zorka had the right to cast a glance upon that
expression which was too holy for mortal to look upon.
One of his pictures he had given to Zorka in sign of gratitude. It
represented the lost Luck of the wandering tribe. She stood on a lonely
plain, her hands joined behind her back, her eyes looking straight
before her, her head slightly raised as if listening for the coming of a
being she could not see.
A marvellous picture of unearthly beauty before which the old
fortune-teller daily said her curious prayers, prayers to a God who had
no form, but who lived in every breath of the wind, and who filled her
weary old soul with the hope of coming peace.
They wandered slowly from land to land, amidst scenes of beauty, and
often also through countries bleak and joyless; but the heart of the
painter was always yearning for a far-off desolate plain where he had
planted his shining sword over the face of his love.
When at night he closed his lids over his eyes heavy with unshed tears,
that wilderness always rose before him, cold and lonely, filling him
with a haunting dread that the sword might be slowly descending to
pierce her innocent heart. That vision would suddenly awake him out of
his sleep, and horror would stand at the foot of his wretched bed, till
he could bear it no more and would rush wildly out into the night.
Zorka knew all his suffering, and bowed her head always lower to the
ground.
When spring was covering the earth with a new smile of youth, Zorka felt
that the moment she dreaded had come, and that the loved wanderer would
soon leave her to go his way.
She had heard him speak of a wonderful picture he was one day to finish
in the palace of a mighty king. With her seer's certainty she knew that
the time was close at hand--had he not found the face of love,--and
slowly the desire must strengthen within him to terminate the work he
had begun.
She accepted the coming of this final suffering as one who knows that
her days are surely numbered.
One morning Eric Gundian, the last joy of her eyes, stood tall and slim
before her dimmed sight.
"Mother Zorka, I feel I must go. I thank thee for all thy bounteous
kindness, and I want thy blessing as once the dear master gave me his!"
He knelt down as a little child might have done, and laid the frosted
gold of his locks amongst the folds of her earth-coloured rags. She
placed her trembling hands upon his head and raised her quavering voice:
"Go in peace, my loved one, take up thy burden and finish thy great
work; it is thy duty to return to the kingly master who loved thee so
well, and when thy pain seems too heavy to bear, remember these words of
old Zorka the witch.
"Those who die of happiness are blessed, but thrice blessed is the man
who carries without complaint the burden of his broken heart. Thou hast
known the sublimest fulfilment of joy. Be for ever grateful for that
hour of bliss, and remember that she died at the moment of attainment,
which is given to so few; therefore do not mourn as if her lot had been
cruel. There are others who fall before winning the race; thou hast
known what it is to reach thy goal; so, thou must not weep. Go, and
carry joy with thee wherever thou treadest, because thou art a Chosen of
God. It is I, the old seer, who thus does speak."
She bent low over him and pressed her quivering lips to the silver
threads in his hair; then he rose, and stood with his head thrown back,
his arms reaching up towards the vault of blue, as one who longs to be
received within the far-off clouds.
"But, Mother Zorka, I can sing no more; God has drowned my voice in a
sea of tears!"
"My son, thou hast thy wonderful art. Go and live amongst those who
believe in thee. Thou hast a great work to complete, and the face of thy
love shall shine for ever upon the generations to come. This thou canst
still do for her memory's sake, and that power is given to few.
"There was a time when I believed I ought to guard our beautiful Stella
from all touch of mortal love; but now I know that thus it is best. Each
human being must fulfil his destiny, and Stella's destiny was to be the
realization of thy dream.
"The days of each man's life are counted, and not any of our poor
knowledge can add an hour to the length of time Fate has decreed we
should live.
"Thou didst not kill her with thy kiss; she lived as a flower from some
unknown land, yielding her sweet perfume to but one single being; then
God took her for His own, and thus her life was to end. Cry not out
against what had to be. Go thy way, and one day perhaps thou wilt know
the meaning which now our mortal mind cannot fathom. My blessing is with
thee. Go in peace."
And that day Eric Gundian left the dark wandering people and old Zorka
the witch.
When he had reached the crest of a hill he turned round and waved to the
trembling old woman who had been so faithful a friend.
Over his head his inseparable companion fluttered like a snow-white sail
caught by the wind.
Zorka stood leaning on her crooked staff, her hand raised to protect her
eyes, that were blinded with tears, against the glare of the rising sun.
She stood watching the departing youth she had so dearly loved, and it
seemed to her that he walked away from her straight into the glittering
sky.
XXIX