Soft as the light shed from Beyond, a breeze blew over the inner
fields of Elysium. Soft also was the whispered gratitude of the olive
trees and palms; soft the smiles of the flowers of lilies and of
Lebanon, of celestial roses, of amorant and of rustling immortelles.
The ribbon-like stream that bounded the emerald velvet skirts of the
meadow-land fluttered from the buoyant breath.
Of the trees, only a spruce atop a nearby knoll failed to sway. Too
heavy was it with birds. Although its branches down-hung dejectedly,
from its tip waved skyward a tuneful panegyric. So full was the chorus,
it seemed that every songster must be voicing a heart full of joy. Yet
one there was that did not sing, a yellow, strongly visible atom of
immortality perched upon a low-swung twig.
His head was perked to one side. His round, quick eyes were fixed on
the glittering hazes that hung, like veils of silver-mesh veiling
countless finer veils of golden threads, before the Source of Light.
He was looking and listening. An excited chirp escaped him. With the
motions of a bird unused to the exercise of his wings, he half hopped,
half flew from his branch to the sward and started with what speed he
might across the greening pastures.
One spiritualized to follow the hope of so small a shade would have
seen turning back from a company of spirits, then advancing into the
radiant distances, the form of a child--a boy-soul of some nine years.
With an odd, slithering sort of walk, he retraced his steps. Now and
then he would stop and, shading his eyes, would peer in the general
direction of the Mystery Gate. He, too, appeared to be listening and
looking.
Although Jack Cabot still limped, he had out-progressed any pain of
consciousness over his deformity. Knowing that except for the imperfect
union of his parents, he would have been born perfect in love, he
believed that the visible of him would be straightened at his second
birth. Adjudged an innocent offspring of righteousness, he had been
unhampered by the curse of the world; indeed, had been given benefit
of every doubt. His movements had gained freedom and his features
had beautified. On closer view, however, his expression showed to be
disconsolate. His sigh was repeated in that of another back-gazing
_manes_ whom he passed.
“Don’t you belong to anybody, too?” Jack asked him. “Mors told me I was
assigned to bliss. I walk so much easier now, I know I ought to go on.
But, oh, I am so lonely!”
“I know. I know”--the stranger-shade. “It is hard to be blissful alone.”
At the moment Jack espied the tiny yellow creature fluttering toward
him. An eager chirp started him toward it, at first hesitantly, then
as fast as he could go. Thus met the two passionate spirits which had
been caged together on Earth--the one passionate in his resentment, the
other in the determination, instinct, or whatsoever may be called the
will of a bird, to teach the joy of life.
In his hurry, Jack stumbled and fell, both hands outstretched. Into
them flew the yellow mite; twittered ecstatically; billed the boyish
lips that quivered into sobs and laughter.
“You look like--You _are_! Oh, Dick, you flew into the Light after me?
You have been hunting for me? I’m ashamed of the way I used to treat
you, Dickie bird. But you understand now, don’t you, that it was only
because I didn’t ’preciate that there’s a heart in every living thing,
sometimes the biggest in the littlest? I had my eyes so set on a dog
that I didn’t see how precious you were! I wonder did the gold-fish
like me, too? It means something when a boy’s bird will die to follow
him. I’m ashamed, Dick. Honest, I’m awful ashamed.”
The canary’s response was a burst of the song which he had not sung
when sitting upon the spruce tree, bereft of companionship although
in the company of so many of his kind. Perched upon the boy-shade’s
shoulder, he revealed his secret in sound. Higher and freer and more
poignantly sweet than ever fluted songster of Earth, he gave out on the
Elysian air the theme of selfless love.
Inspirited, Jack continued on his return over the fields. He
walked evenly that he might not dislodge his pet. And he chatted
appreciatively in the intervals of the song, to atone for his
unappreciative past.
“There are all sorts of musicians as you go nearer the Light, they
tell me. There are pipers and harpers and trumpeters and countless
choir-singers that almost make you long to die again for joy. But I’ll
bet there’s none will sing so sweet as you, Dick. Once I’m satisfied to
go on, I’ll take you with me and give you the chance you never had on
Earth.”
By now the two were well over the crest of the stream-skirted knoll.
Toward them, from the direction of the gate, spirits fluttered like
leaves in a wind. Voices called out through the spaces--glad cries of
greeting and wails of disappointment worn weak from repetition.
As before, Jack shielded his eyes with one hand and peered about. And,
as he peered, he vented a cry that was the aggregate of all certitude.
His left hand he lifted to guard the bird, then started down the hill.
From out the nether hazes a man-shade came climbing toward them. That
he lately had arrived from Earth showed in the anxiety of his dark,
strong face. When he saw who was shuffling toward him and recognized
the excited, childish voice hailing him, he increased his pace. When
they met, father and son:
“Greetings, John Cabot!”
“Jack Cabot, greetings!”
The large and small hands gripped.
“I had a feeling you were due,” explained the boy, conquering the first
incoherency of his delight. “I guess Dick must have felt the same way.
Did you hear him sing as we came over the hill? Oh, John, I’m so glad
you’ve come! This is a wonderful place to be happy in. But you can’t be
happy alone. I’ve come back ever so often, hoping that you or----”
“Then you haven’t seen her yet?”
“You mean?” For a moment the child-soul stared up at his father’s
emotionful face. He stood on tip-toe to whisper his interpretation,
lest the joy-jealous zephyrs snatch it away. “Not her--not _’Lores_!”
“She came a month since. I am sure she would have been on the lookout
for you, Jack. Strange you have not met.”
“Maybe----” Jack shuddered. “It’s an awful journey over. Maybe she got
so afraid of the snakes and the owls and the wild asses----”
“There’s no stopping along the highway, son. Every soul survives the
dread of death, they tell me. In reality, the transition between the
two phases of existence is brief. At the gate they told me that she had
passed through, but they refused so much as a hint at the direction she
had taken. I’ve covered the border fields thoroughly since I came. Had
concluded she must have found you and gone on.”
His concern lowered like a shadow to Jack’s face. “It don’t seem like
’Lores to forget me. I’d never give up trying to find her.”
“She may not have known that I was on the way.” John appeared to be
advising himself. “But she did seem so close to me that morning above
the sea. Her voice sounded so clear--so near. I was sure she had called
me. If I could hear her with ears of clay, it seems as though she---- I
tried to answer her. I wonder----”
Neither father nor son had noticed two small clouds which had appeared
on the horizon line above the nether world. Mere fluttering specks
at first, they had developed color and form in a rapid approach. They
settled upon the sward and hurried forward. He in advance was of
up-standing form, his face beautiful and ardent, despite its lines of
care. By one hand, he led a fair girl spirit whose head hung as if from
shame and whose eyes, on close approach, showed to brim with tears.
Boldly enough the youth lined up before the two Cabots.
“I am Amor and this is Innocentia. You know us well, although on Earth
you could not see us. In a way we belong to you as well as to our dear
Dolores.”
“Dolores?” John snatched at the name. “You can tell us where she is?”
“Let me prepare you”--in pity, Amor. “I owe my life to you, John Cabot.
I was, in fact, born of your heart beats that day you first saw her in
Seff’s shop. Not consciously--of course mortals realize only the half
of what they do--you sent me to her side to guide her. I have done what
I could. But earthlings have no care for love. They never think to
spare it until after it is dead.”
The shy girl spirit was moved by her comrade’s self-depreciation to
speak. “Amor has been splendid. He was close beside her when she heard
the news that you had been sent to the Fields. He proposed our search
for you. And he held me up with sheer strength when I felt that I must
swoon from exhaustion. Always he has tried to protect me even as--as
you.”
“As I?” John asked.
“Don’t you recognize me yet?” She brushed the moisture from her eyes
and lifted them to his, twin blue anemones. “I am what you loved best
in your love. Although you could not see me as now, you knew that I was
there. You held me dearer than her beauty, than her youth--yes, even
than her passion for you.”
“In mercy’s name, don’t taunt me!” John’s voice was a sort of groan. “I
did value you. I tried to save you from myself. God knows how hard I
tried. It seems incredible to me now that I should have torn you from
her--trampled on you----”
“Trampled me? You never did that.” Her timidity conquered by sight of
his suffering, Innocentia touched his arm. “Not for one minute was I
really afraid of you. A great love, such as yours, could not harm me.
Amor often told me that. I stayed close to her on Earth and crossed
with her into Shadow Land.”
“Even down there we’ve been with her most of the time,” Amor added.
“_Down there?_” Startled out of his shame, John Cabot peered into the
care-worn faces of the guardian pair. “You mean--she is assigned----”
He read the answer in their distressed, averted looks. His mind was
quickly made.
“Lead on--and down!”
“But, John----” Young Jack clung tight to one of the knotted fists that
hung at his father’s side--“you can’t go into Gehenna. You and I are
assigned to the Fields. It is a rule here that we can go on, but never
back.”
“Go on--without her?” John laughed in a short, hard way. “There is no
right in a rule that assigns me to Elysium and her to Gehenna. I’ll
find a way to prove that one man feels responsible for a woman’s fall.
Son, I am going to bring her back with me.”
“If you could, John--if only you could!” Afraid, yet brave to believe
in the power of his god of Earth, the boy-soul gazed into his father’s
face. “You’ll look for me, John, first thing when you come back? A
little way on there are bowers and villas that the shades build to live
in while their eyes and minds are getting used to the Light. They leave
them empty for anyone to take when they’re ready to progress nearer the
Source. You’ll know the one I’m in if you listen to hear Dick sing.
I’ll be waiting for you and--and _her_, John Cabot.”
“Jack Cabot, until we meet again!”
In time the boy had remembered his lameness, so did not plead to
go along. The best way to expedite his hero’s return was to let him
proceed unencumbered. Striving for courage, he watched the tall form
follow Amor and Innocentia across the fields. A twitter reminded him
that he was not entirely deprived. Gulping back his disappointment, he
declared manfully:
“We’ll get a nice place ready for her, Dick--my other mother. He says
he’ll bring her back, so we know he will. John can do anything. It
_will_ be fun being happy!”
* * * * *
Across the mystery wastes that lie between the mortal world and Shadow
Land looms a redoubtable wall. Through its gateway any from Earth may
pass at will. But none may return.
Just within, the two head ushers slumped upon their bench and gazed
over the familiar, but incogitable scene. The well-worn inward path
soon divided, its lower half to drop over a declivity, whence it sloped
“easily” into Avernus, its upper to wind away and away until lost in
that incalculably distant glow.
“Queer set this”--the first usher.
“Queer is right--or wrong”--his fellow. “I’d like to know, for
instance, what makes that Light.”
“I, too. Can’t be either sun or moon, because it never sets.”
The chief’s eyes fixed on a verdant slope, from whose hazes a female
figure sped with apprehensive manner toward the base of the wall. He
shrugged on seeing a unit of the boundary patrol return her into the
Fields, but gently, with never a threat of spear.
“One of the yearning mothers, I suppose. Strange how they’re possessed
to slip back to their children!”
“Children who likely aren’t wasting a worry on them,” the associate
sighed. “Why won’t mothers let bad enough alone?”
A wail like the lament of a lost zephyr drew their attention to the
rim.
“That fool woman in love trying to descend again,” the second usher
continued to grumble. “She’s not the first who’s insisted that she’d
rather be in Hell with him than in Heaven without. Quaint, isn’t it,
considering that we don’t have any trouble with men in vice-versa
cases?”
“Hi, guardsmen! You asleep? What’s wrong over there?”
With his cry, the chief sprang up and hurried toward the down path.
Ahead of him ran the spear-carrier whom he had called to task. Behind
came his fellow.
From the brume of the upper distances a group of three spirits had
emerged and were rushing downward, regardless of the shade patrol.
Through the array of spears leveled against them they darted as though
impervious to wounds of fear.
On the rock-strewn cliff the reinforcements found themselves facing an
aroused man-_manes_ whose like they never had seen. Clothed in an armor
of light was John Cabot, “his eyes as lamps of fire ... and the voice
of his words like the voice of a multitude.”
“What matter the judgments of men, after man’s little day is done? Make
way. I am going through.”
“Drive him back,” commanded the chief usher. “All together now!”
Against the row of leveled spear points, John hurled himself.
“Right is might and I am right,” he cried.
“You can’t pit one will against hundreds and win,” the chief contended.
“Stop a second. Realize how foolish----”
“And what is folly but a riotous expenditure of will?” At his
application of the memory flash, John laughed. “This is--to will--and
to have--my will,” he panted as he fought the united determination
to stay him. “You witness the end--of my social ideas--my immoderate
desires--my excesses--my pleasures that--have ended--in death. A laugh
for--your hundreds--of wills!”
Perhaps by his rashness, perhaps by force of the wind now rousing in
strength from over the Fields, the light forms of Amor and Innocentia
were snatched up and borne through the ranks of the guard. At sight of
their disappearance into the abyss, John’s eyes blazed like lit torches.
“Since mind is more than matter up here--since this is a world of
will--let the stronger will prevail!”
From the grasp of the nearest of the patrol, he wrenched a torch-lit
spear. Waving it on high, he rushed their resistance; engaged them;
smote their thoughts with his thoughts. The two ushers fell back,
powerless to contend against him.
“He must be a madman,” gasped the chief.
“Or a god”--his associate.
Both shook in the greatening gale. Both paled to see that the mystery
Light, which had abided since their entrance into Shadow Land, was
being eclipsed by Stygian clouds. So dark grew the air that they
scarcely could discern the form of the man-_manes_ outlined against the
rim. But his battle-cry came back to them.
“_Make way--make way for my mind!_”
Into the thunders that rocked the clouds merged his voice. Lightnings
lit his victory. Madman or god, he plunged over the rim.