I FIND MYSELF A DEMI-GOD
Yet I did not die. While I lay waiting to do so the insistent ache of my
bones, the racking of my wound and the sodden numbness of my brain,
slowly blurred me into apathy. That passed and the delirium came on a
swelling tide of temperature. Centuries trampled roughshod over me and
demons of pain scourged me through the seven hells of fever. Scorching
wastes of time were broken at long intervals by little oases of lucidity
when I crawled to the opening and drank, but even these were clouded by
shreds of nightmare horror, and remembered hallucinations.
Once, waking to momentary sensibility, I found the narrow cave still
ringing with the echoes of my tortured and delirious shrieks.
When, at last, I came fully to myself, painfully weak and scalded with
the fever, but sane, I could see the stars spangling my scrap of sky. My
adventure had occurred in the morning, but whether hours or days had
played out their scores I did not know. I drank and slept again. I next
woke to the glare of forenoon. The clouds in my brain had been swept
away, and the hand I lifted fell weakly back on a forehead which was
cool and moist. The battling life spark had triumphed over the native
poison. But when I tried to drag myself to the mouth of my grotto, my
weak head began rambling again, so that real and unreal things wandered
strangely together. My side was lacerated by the pistol which had been
at my belt as I tossed in the fever. A twist in the fissure brought me
to the point where I, still concealed in the dark shadow, could see the
primitive terrace of my plateau, and there were such things as brought
back upon me an avalanche of terror, rage and violence.
The lady still smiled from her post of honor with her gracious and
fearless eyes. The curved damascus daggers still held the enamelled
sheet in place, but beyond her I saw death. Against a background of
intense sea and sky under the glare of a fiercely brilliant sun, stood
grouped a human ensemble of indescribable color and savagery. Upon
scores of black and sweating torsos; upon gorgeously dyed feather work
and shell ornaments, the light fell in color gone mad. They stood massed
and silent, their spears and bows and clubs for the moment idle. Their
faces mutilated with spiked ears and nose ornaments and dyed teeth, were
unspeakably hideous. Every eye was just now intent on the portrait of my
lady. At the front stood the three whom I had supposed to be priests at
the amphitheatre, and with them was a man very aged and white haired,
but erect and gorgeously appareled.
Slowly one of the priests approached the portrait and put out an
ulcerous hand to touch the face. A tidal wave of unspeakable fury caught
me up and swept me back into the realm of insanity. I was transplanted
in an instant to the nightmares of my delirium. I saw instead of a
lifeless picture the slender, breathing figure of the woman I worshiped
contaminated by this profane touch. I attempted to rush out and die like
some Mad Mullah devotee in fanatical battle with her assailants, but my
strength was not equal to my impulse. I stumbled to my knees and my
right hand fell upon the hilt of my pistol. I whipped it out and fired.
In my agued hand it should have been harmless enough, but the range was
short and I had once been a marksman. I saw the man crumple forward with
a short, strangled groan. I saw those at the back crowding one another
over the cliff in the panic of their disordered flight. They had not
seen me. They knew only that bolts of death were striking them down. I
heard endless thunders as the pistol report sent its echoes beating and
rebounding against the confined walls of the fissure. Blue and slender
lines of spiraling smoke went drifting out into the air. I caught a
glimpse of two bolder spirits stopping to drag away their dead. Then I
collapsed and lay for hours where I had fallen.
Once more I awoke with a moist forehead and a hunger which gnawed at the
pit of my stomach. Only the gods knew how long I had been without food.
The air fanned me with the soft, reviving breath of night. The moon,
riding up the east made an irregular diagram of silvered light across
the ledge, and fell with a reassuring touch of ivoried white, on the
newspaper sheet and the portrait.
I was too famished and spent to stand, but I made the journey down to
the beach on hands and knees, and when I had eaten my fill of unsavory
crabs I lay for a time in the grateful coolness of the wet sand and drew
new strength from its healing. My sickness was ended. The pitiable
weakness that had made the downward journey a torture was the heritage
of hunger. I had needed no medicine but food, and now I found myself
able to walk back upright. That night I slept sweetly and dreamed once
again of the familiar door beyond which lay luxury and security.
The sun was high when I awoke with a sense of great refreshment and
recovery. The slit of sky framed in the rift was not yet hot, but
tenderly blue with a color of promise. The fronds of fern and palm
stirred to the land breeze. I went down to my surf bath and breakfast
with an almost buoyant step. A half-hour after my return, when I turned
to look at the jungle edge a sight greeted me which demonstrated the
decision of the natives that our intercourse was not so soon to become a
closed incident.
This time, however, their coming was characterized by a more gratifying
element of respect. They swarmed out of the bush, not in paltry dozens
nor scores, but in their panoplied hundreds. Gorgeously decked chiefs
and the club-bearing warriors smeared with indigo halted in the open,
leaving a satisfying interval between their position and mine. With
great and conspicuous show of peace the warriors discarded their spears
and shields and raised their weaponless hands for me to behold as I
looked down from my high place. The white-haired king broke a spear,
gazing up at me the while, then dropping the pieces knelt and bowed his
slanting forehead to the sands. At his back bent the priests, trailing
their bright feathers in the dust. No one could misunderstand their
pantomime. Men of their tribe had offended the deities. A nation had
come in humility and supplication for forgiveness.
While they made obeisance in relays a group of young men approached the
priests, bearing armfuls of orchids. The king and priests and
orchid-bearers moved forward for a few steps and halted, gazing up
inquiringly at me. This performance was several times repeated before I
understood that they were seeking my consent to approach nearer. Then I
bowed and pointed inward. A rigorous order of precedence was observed,
the aged king keeping his place at their head and his followers their
positions of relative rank. The weight of his years made the royal steps
so slow that the colorful pageant crept like an army of snails.
Suddenly it dawned upon me that if I were to be a god receiving a
delegation of mortals, I should receive it in some suitable degree of
state. They were sending to me the mightiest men of their villages. The
kinky head of their king was abased. Aged Merlins were coming on their
marrow bones, resplendently trailing their feathered finery along the
white and flaring sands. I stood awaiting them in a raveled, mud-smeared
suit of pajamas which at their best had never been ostentatious. The
thing seemed unfit. Evidently these folk inclined to the splendor of
pomp. Jeffersonian simplicity would be lost on them. Their pageant
should be met with pageantry. There had been some who had doubted and
denied me. Of a surety if I were to play this nabob from the skies; if I
were to turn the averted tragedy into a screaming and cheerful farce,
it was my duty to dress the part.
With a signal of raised hands, I signified that they were to await my
reappearance. Then I bowed with profound dignity, and stepping from
their view, disappeared.
A few minutes later I emerged from my cave, a transmogrified being. I
was no longer the derelict of rags and tatters. Mine was the opulent
splendor of a High Mandarin of China. About my fever-wasted frame fell
and flapped the gorgeous folds of the embroidered kimono. In my hands I
carried a violin and bow. It is true I was unshaven, and through holes
in my canvas shoes protruded eight or ten toes, but what mortal can
assume to criticise such eccentricities as may be the part of godhood?
When I took my stand once more on my pedestal of mountain, I found them
patiently awaiting the nod of deity. The sun fell resplendently on my
silver storks and gold dragons and silk poppies. The lessening land
breeze fluttered the embroidery-crusted folds and splintered light from
my person. I listened with satisfaction to the incoherent sound that
went up from many throats; a chorused gasp of profound awe and
admiration and wonderment.
I signaled my immortal readiness to receive them. As the ludicrousness
of the farce broke over me I had to bite back unsolemn roars of
laughter. A spirit of deviltry and vaudeville possessed me. As their
high priests in deadly earnest marched on all fours with faces as rapt
and fanatically sober as those of Mecca pilgrims, I drew the bow across
the catgut and, lifting my voice, proclaimed myself in ragtime.
I informed them in the words which were new only to them and solemn only
to them that I had rings on my fingers and bells on my toes, and as I
sung they became hushed with awe and approached with a deeply moved
sense of their great honor and responsibility.
When they were only a little way off, I went down to meet them, and with
a condescension which I trusted would not injure my prestige, lifted the
aged chieftain to his feet and permitted him to walk. He, however,
remained deferentially two paces in my rear. It was evident from their
straining upward gazes, that deeply as they were moved to reverence by
my own exalted spectacle, there was some greater revelation which they
awaited above. This disquieted me since I had in reserve no added climax
to offer. I had given them a display savoring of the circus but I had no
grand spectacle to advertise in the main tent after the regular
performance.
When we had reached the plateau, however, I understood and was relieved.
To me they had come kneeling, but before Her portrait they threw
themselves on their faces and groveled. They sprinkled sand and pebbles
upon their hair and their voices, even to me who understood no syllable,
carried such depth of humility and supplication as filled me with
wonder.
They would rise from their suppliance only long enough to glance at the
face of the picture, then fall again and renew their paroxysms of
ungainly prayer. From the hands of the orchid-bearers they took the
heaps of blooms, and piled them at a distance from the shrine. The young
men who had been so signally honored withdrew from the holy of holies.
Only the high priests and the king were left with me in the sacred
arena.
For a time I stood dumbly looking on, then the idea percolated into my
confused understanding. I realized that at best I was only a demi-god,
perhaps a sort of super-high-priest, but no god. These ambassadors
extraordinary had come not to me but to The Lady of the Portrait.
I lifted up my voice for attention, and from their kneeling postures
they regarded me with grave reverence. I took my place, with bowed head,
before the portrait and addressed the lady in tones of deep solemnity.
It seemed to me that her delicate mouth line quivered with amusement, as
though she and I had between us a delicious secret.
"Frances! Frances! Frances!" I declaimed with the deep profundity of a
ritual. "I have failed totally and signally at the god job. There is in
all this world of sky and sea and of my heart but one deity. It was you
who struck down with a thunderbolt the sacrilegious, false priest. It
was you who saved me from death and raised me to the high estate of your
vicegerent." I paused and went on more seriously: "It is you whom these
people worship with idolatry--and of them all, none worships you so
wholly as I, your priest!" And though I was declaiming before a lifeless
image to impress ignorant cannibals, I meant it. When I had finished
there rose a devout murmur from the blacks, and with a motion to them to
remain, I went into the cave and came out again with the small Japanese
burner and a taper of incense. As the heavy fragrance of the burning
stuff spread itself upon the air, their wonder grew.
[Illustration: "Frances! Frances! Frances!" I declaimed with the deep
profundity of a ritual.]
At length I wheeled and pointed back to the jungle. Slowly, reluctantly,
but with perfect obedience, the wild bush men took up their backward
journey to relate the unbelievable tale of their reception.