Julie was entering again the Arabian Nights' city. It lay emblazoned
in the light of a blood red torrid sun fast sinking behind a towering
mountain that uprose out of wide stretching plains already shadowy
under the first sprinkling of dusk. Through the streets of the City,
the many races of the earth were moving in slow crooked currents. Back
in the charmed City to stay! Back in the midst of the Empire-builders
and the destiny of the enigmatic East!
Julie expected to go to one of the hostelries of the City. There
were a number of them, of which the Oriente was by far the best
known and most brilliant. It harbored under its palmy roof people
from all corners of the world, and was the stage for a great deal
of the drama of the East. There were Australians and New Zealanders,
come up to see what the Americans were making of things and to have
a bit of fun nearer than Europe; Hindoo rajahs with their trains,
who had unaccountably found their way here; Chinese and Japanese
officials bound, in silence, on their inconjectural errands. Manila
was glitteringly cosmopolitan. It was just now attracting the eye
of all the East, and picturesque people coursed in and out of it
like a strange spice. Almost all of this throng found refuge in the
Oriente. Not foreigners alone made lively this resort. There was
the City's own strange population; and exiles from the bosque were
there seeking nepenthe for their souls in the dancing and music of
its plaza, in its life and love. No old colonial of to-day can pass
the still gates of this closed pavilion of pleasure without a pang
for the vivid era of the past.
But this glittering khan Julie would be forced to pass by. Aside
from the prices, high in those prodigal days of the Empire, the great
hostelry, while respectable, held a much too vivid representation of
Anglo-Asian life for a solitary girl.
The ship was wharfing. Julie perceived a conspicuous equipage waiting
on the pier. Beside its white-liveried coachman sat an unbelievably
small figure which was turning its strange miniature individuality
about on the box. Isabel's queer dwarf! He must have seen Julie, for
in an instant he was burrowing his way through the travelers. Soon he
was standing before her, extending a letter and nodding his uncanny
little face up at her.
The note was from Isabel. She had written it just before setting out
on some enterprise, and as she had intimated before would not be at
home to receive Julie; but she had made all arrangements for Julie
to remain in her house.
The dwarf gesticulated towards the carriage with one of his elfin
hands. Delphine looking about him at all the wonder uttered an
exclamation. The dwarf, glancing at him quickly, spoke to him in the
same dialect. They began to chatter to each other.
The mannikin, Delphine excitedly informed Julie, had been born on
the Island of Nahal.
The village of Guindulman--did they know it? the dwarf asked. Julie
told him that she had lived there for some time. It was from there
that he had been stolen as a child, and made a slave.
Guindulman remained as a bright spot in his memory; his little nut
of a face transformed under the glow of reminiscences.
He and his mother and his sister had all been scattered in the raid
of a band of Moros, and he had never seen either of them again.
A recollection seized on Julie. "What was your sister's name?"
"Nemecia Victoria--she was a child."
"Oh!" Delphine joyously put in, "she is there now--a pretty lady;
and very rich--with so many friends!"
Julie gave Delphine an arresting look.
The dwarf trembled a little. "My sister is alive!--and well off!" he
murmured.
"Yes," Julie replied. To her relief, he did not ask any more questions.
"Will you then go back to her?"
The dwarf turned away. "What is to be, will be. I have been everywhere
with my mistress--even to England. I will not leave--" he muttered
to himself.
Julie drew Delphine aside, and cautioned him what he should say of
Nemecia. Delphine listened attentively under the shadow of a dreadfully
civilized little derby hat, which had evidently accompanied the new
camisa, and demanded permission to tell his new friend of the Peace
that had come about in Nahal and of the part his Maestra and Nemecia
had played in it.
Julie sat back comfortably in the carriage, with a feeling of gratitude
toward Isabel. The hotels other than the Oriente were neither good
nor picturesque, and from one of these Isabel had saved her. Her
reflections were cut short by the sight of an urgent face making its
way toward her through the crowd--though it was not until a black
habit appeared in conjunction with the face that Julie recognized
the painfully emaciated features of Father Hull.
"I'm late!" he exclaimed, extending his hand to her, and taking in
the carriage with a dissatisfied glance. "They misinformed me at the
steamship office as to the arrival of the boat.
"I had a carromata waiting for you," he suggested. "I have also
made arrangements with some Spanish-Mestizo friends of mine for
your lodging. Suitable accommodations are always hard to procure
in Manila, and I strongly advise you to take advantage of this
opportunity--especially as it is in the district to which you will
probably be assigned.
"Unfortunately," he added, knitting his brows at the carriage, "the
Reredos are not immediately prepared--and an unprepared Spaniard is
a serious thing. One cannot walk in and out of their households after
the fashion we have at home. They lack the quality of casualness.
"In the meantime, I know of a very good hotel where you can pass a
few days at a very reasonable rate."
Julie informed him that the carriage she was in belonged to
Mrs. Armistead, a friend of hers, who had invited her to remain in her
house till its owner returned from a trip. She believed it would be
ungracious not to accept the hospitality offered. Part of her baggage,
moreover, was installed in the carriage, and arrangements made for
the rest of it. Privately Julie had no desire to go to a cheap hotel
when a chance at that wonderful house was offered.
The priest appeared to consider, in troubled thought. Rather
reluctantly, Julie thought, he consented to the arrangement. He said
he would communicate later with her concerning the school. Then he
lifted his hat and moved away.
Julie had wanted to ask him about Barry, but had not found the
opportunity.
As the carriage drove away, the dwarf and Delphine--who was clutching
Balthazar, too stupefied from the trip to be troublesome--sat close
together, talking rapidly. The dwarf occasionally stole a shyly
appreciative glance at Julie.
Julie passed across the city, coursing through its dusky streets, in a
mood of subtle excitement. Everywhere she was met by the Change! Not
a change that assailed the physical senses, but one that transcended
them: a subtle, widespread intimation that quivered on some inner
receptivity. Not the altered streets, the new buildings, the material
renovation, gave it forth so much as the peculiar quickening of
the atmosphere through which the soul of these people seemed to
suspire. How can one trace the leaven in the bread or follow through
the far filaments of thought a psychic metamorphosis? Yet there it
was. The very stones of the pavement proclaimed it. The Resurrection
was stirring through the worn kingdoms of men, and the blood of the
Builders coursed beneath it all like the rivers of life!
Every moment Julie thrilled deeply to what she saw. The Builders were
beginning to fulfil. Here in this single corner the stagnant spirit
of the East was awaking to life. Wars might be fought in the future,
and races degraded and aggrandized, but the spreading influences of
this endeavor would reach far into the future of men.
Again she found herself in that perfumed garden before the sweep of
Babylonian pillars with the shimmering palace lifting like a jeweled
Taj Mahal out of the mystery of the thick, soft night--and the giant
trees and scented shadows, and the bamboo chanting to the forthcoming
stars. The mansion of the Caliph!
She stepped softly up the flights of stairs into the great lengths
of chambers, glowing under dim lights with the rich acquisitions
of strange lands. The house was all sheer beauty, exquisitely
compiled. The river came up to the verdant banks on its rear. Mystical,
shadow-banked, it set the senses quivering. The surroundings stirred
Julie like the confused beauty of Eastern music, and brought up dim,
poetic suggestions of Queens of Sheba and Scheherezades and the
unending dynasties of kings--of the poetry and the romance of old,
unchanging things.
She ate her dinner, a solitary figure, at a huge banquet table of
shining nara set forth with Indian silver, delicately carved with
the loves and conquests of maharajahs and goddesses. After dinner,
she wandered about fascinated. What a triumph Isabel had made of the
house. What a marvelous woman, indeed, she was!
She stopped short in a chamber of shining carvings, slow wrought
wonders of a land where hands were cheaper than tools, and life was the
cheapest of all. From the midst of the labor of these unvalued hands,
she caught the glimmer of a strange little figure with bent head,
shining stilly out of the dusk. The Green God! Beautiful, terrible,
Lord of the Eastern universe--to whom myriads of souls were fastened
in supreme faith. With what awful power he was invested by their
belief! She had walked upon him unawares, and now hurried to get away.
As she emerged disquieted into the main sala, a head thrust itself
softly, like a projected shadow, above the old Spanish balustrade
of the stairs. The body did not appear and the head paused only long
enough to startle Julie. A dark, aged human vision. In the fleeting
look she could not tell whether it was the face of a man or a woman;
but there had been a flash from the depths of that being that had
frightened the girl. It was gone, and she calmed again. After all, in
the East, all sorts of unexpected faces peer at one from odd corners.
Later Julie tried to question the dwarf. Who was the old being she
had seen? Did it pop in and out of people's houses at will? Did his
Mistress know anything about her? Dicky-Dicky, the dwarf, looked at
her with inscrutable eyes, and knew nothing. Julie decided to say no
more about it.
The next day Isabel appeared. Vividly beautiful like some bright houri,
she came smiling to the gallery where Julie was sitting. "I am happy
to see that you have found your way back to us!" She kissed Julie
with her perfumed lips. Then she stood back and regarded her. "Ah, my
poor little friend, you have changed! A hard time is written all over
you, and you are too thin for your clothes. Poor little dust-covered
Atlas! Tell me about it. I love all brave journeys. But first we will
have lunch. I am starved. I have had a long trip."
"From your letter, I thought you would be gone longer."
"I have been off on a secret glorious errand to a place of which
you shall never dream. You would have to have the East in you for
that. I have been building paradise to suit myself, bit by bit. The
kind of paradise you think of is made for every one, for all sorts
of people you couldn't get along with on earth--so why, I ask, repeat
the experiment in the courts of God?
"Nor is paradise for one alone, my friend. It is for the comrades of
our souls, scattered sometimes as far as the ends of the rainbow. There
are a few golden beings that in some eternal citadel we should hold
fast. Do you think--" she exclaimed suddenly--"that if I climbed to
the arch of Heaven by my nails I could capture the one great friend
of my soul?"
Her tone changed. "I came back. I hungered for Manila. It holds the
world for me."
"It is Scheherezade's city--full of wonderful adventures!" Julie
declared with shining eyes. "I wonder," she mused, "what it holds
for me?"
They seated themselves at the table before golden iced mangoes. The
huge silver bowl in the center was loaded with great scarlet blossoms
whose perfume saturated the Air. They seemed to faint under their
own fragrance, for Julie observed that while dewily fresh at the
commencement of the meal, they were all but dead at the close.
"Nothing here lives an hour after you pick it," Isabel dissatisfiedly
remarked. "But the quick new buds replace the blossoms almost in a
breath. I am glad I have no children, to crowd me out. I like the
flowers of Europe. You can wear them all day and then keep them on
in water. Life is longer over there. Here we have only our hour. But
such an hour! Take you and me at thirty-five! You will be young--a cold
storage sort of youth--and I, well, it is written in the stars and the
heart of the Green God where I shall be--but I shall have lived, oh,
very splendidly little Atlas, while you will only have drawn breath."
After luncheon she put on a négligé of lustrous silk and flung
herself on a couch, her splendid black Malay hair loosened about her,
a cigarette in her lips.
"There is a water carnival at the Palace to-morrow night, and the
question of your costume must be settled at once. It is late, and
all the tailors are over-crowded with orders. I am afraid too that I
may not be able to get you into a boat. I might take you in my float,
but that would necessitate darkening you up, and it would not do to
obscure your little ray of light.
"You might be gotten up as Saturn, with filmy rings. But the nebulæ
would prevent you from dancing. I have it! You shall be a Pleiad. I
have seen a picture of them leaning over the edge of the world, out
of the mists of the sky, and you look like that! You can be a Pleiad
quite conveniently, too, with folds of moonlight mist, some sandals,
and a star. It only involves buying a roll of gauze from an East
Indian. I have a star among my things, and we can find some sandals.
"And now--" she urged, laying lightly compelling fingers on Julie's
arm, "tell me about it! Tell me everything that took place down
there--and afterwards, forget it forever. There are no memories in
Scheherezade's city."
This was Julie's first opportunity to unburden her soul, and she was
still surcharged with what had happened. Some one else might be able to
understand; some one else might be able to make things clear. So under
the stimulus of Isabel's fragrant liqueur her innermost amazements
and hurts burst into speech.
Isabel's blue eyes lost their dreamy expression, and came acutely
awake, her cigarette burned unheeded, while Julie's sorrows,
perplexities, and final confoundment of soul passed in array before
her. When the girl had finished and had sunk back into the old stupid
questioning wonder, Isabel exclaimed:
"Great is the Green God! Never say he is not kind. Surely he led you
out of it. Don't regret the stone image that let you starve under
its eyes! There was more to come, little Atlas. You have something
different in you--something very nearly divine. I feel it at my
finger's ends; though I don't want it to come any nearer than that
poetical distance. It is bringing you some place, and it was not
meant that your destiny should halt where you perhaps believe it
should. I am a prophet, you see. If I were not Empress of the East,
as they say, I should travel as a prophetess through the land--like
my mother. You have heard of her--how she gave up her wealth to wander
and foretell? She too dreams of the Victorious East."
Julie regarded this magnificence of mood with wonder. All manner of
men, it was said, had loved Isabel; and in some peculiar way their
lives had seemed to be bound up in her colorful personality--as if
her sphinx-like spirit had devoured and assimilated their souls. Her
mood was always an extravagant expectation of more than could be
reasonably aspired to by any one person.
"Ah, what do you know about men?" Isabel suddenly exclaimed. "To
hear you is like listening to the forgotten primer of one's
childhood. Nevertheless, there was long ago just such another as
yourself, one as piteously credulous and blind."
Suddenly an alien Isabel rose before the girl, an apparition of which
the suppressed terribleness frightened her as if some strange phoenix
had risen from its ashes before her eyes.
"You have told me your story. Now I shall tell you one of mine--a
buried story of my old, old self. There are perhaps many turns yet
in the course, but long after I shall have forgotten everything else,
this one memory somehow shall remain.
"Maybe I had the promise of a soul then. I was a little Eurasian, with
the happy blood of both races charging gayly through my veins. And
I believed tremendously, Atlas, just like you. Ah--!
"I was born in this house of my ancestors. My father was a Scotchman,
of their best clan; my mother was of the East. All its bloods flowed
in her veins. I was taken young to England--and there," Isabel said
slowly, "my mother disappeared. I came to love my father's land. I
went to the schools there, and dreamed great things. Sometime I too
should play a fine part in the world. Every man, I thought, had his
destiny in his own hands.
"It was all a long time ago. Of the seasons I remember vividly only the
time when the primroses open and the English hedge-lark is aboard." A
fierce blue mist veiled the flashing eyes. "Life dies and resurrects
itself in England. Every year one is born anew.
"The man was an officer in an English regiment--fair as the
daylight. On my knees I used to worship him as a god. Nobody suspected
what I was, and I did not myself understand. He loved me, too--with
the kind of love the English understand. No fire, no poetry in it--the
love that is just strong enough to manufacture a few pink-cheeked
children for their tidy British homes. I loved him as we of the East
know how to love.
"In Europe one marries not merely a man, but a family. How
different from my mother's land, where mates find each other under
the sun! Yet they call it civilization over there. Well, his family
grew suspicious. They had heard tales of my father's wild youth in
strange parts of the world. It sometimes happens that one must pay
a very heavy price for one's father's youth.
"The only retort my father could make was a bigger dowry. But I was
different. I had then sublime ideas of honesty of soul. My lover, I
believed, would love me the more exaltedly for them. I acknowledged
my Malay blood--all the bloods of the East that ran through me. I
stood up against the wall and did it in a great splendor of mood.
"Ah! You know the rest. When they, when he--that European matrimonial
compound threw me off, I did everything that a woman of your race
would not have done. I threw myself in his path at every turn--offered
myself to him on any terms; for I knew now that never could I exact
terms at all.
"And he took me on the lowest. West--East; it is always the same. He
got himself ordered to India. That last night!" Isabel sat up
straight. "I crept along the brush of the lane into which he was to
turn. An Igorotte from the Mountains had taught me how to catch my
foe. I slid out when he came! I would have killed him, but the knife
was poor. I only wounded him. I had meant to kill us both, but--"
Isabel nonchalantly threw open the négligé, and exposed a large
scar--"we go on, do we not, Green God of the Universe?" She turned
her head toward the room where the preposterous idol lived.
To this narrative, told with oriental fervor, of things quite as
beyond her experience of existence as the pits of Erebus, Julie had
listened in a conflict of emotions.
"The priest will tell you many things about me--among them that
a young man killed himself here for me not long ago. Men may have
killed themselves because of me, but not Grahaeme. He killed himself,
not because he was in love with me, but because he couldn't alter the
universe to an Englishman's idea--because I was what I shall eternally
remain--an Eurasian, a mongrel! You see, your Englishman can gloriously
destroy himself, but he can't sacrifice his caste. Grahaeme was jaded
by the East, and he took me to die for. I would never again accept
low terms. A Ghengis Khan, perhaps--or--" She stopped short. "Yes,
I will be unchangeably I, till the end. It is so decreed. There is
something about you, though, that stirs me, and makes me wish that
one died like the English summer and came up anew with the spring."
Julie rose, and in a surge of feeling looked down upon the recumbent
figure. For a bare moment Isabel had opened the very secret gate and
let her glimpse in. The girl laid her hand on the olive shoulder.
"Those things--make no difference to me," she said diffidently. "We
will always be friends."
Isabel glanced up at her ironically. "Is that a covenant? Go away,
little friend, with your spring insistence! There is no resurrection
here. And Europe shall never see me again! Once I wrote quaint
lyrics, full, they said, of the magic and mystery of the East; now
I am preparing a volume that is not written on pages--of things that
must shortly stir the race of men. 'Waters dried up that the way of
the Kings of the East shall be prepared!' Alpha and Omega. Here the
struggle of man began, and here it will end! And 'he who shall come,
taking the peace from the earth, and making kings'! Great resurrected
Ghengis Khan! Where is he? In what recess of Asia is he making ready
to sweep the East to victory? Him my soul awaits. He will put the
sun and moon under my feet!
"Half of this world will not sleep forever. The sleepers of the East
will touch their bonds and find them rotten--the senile hold of their
foreign masters! Then there shall be such a conflagration as will
scatter the very stars."
Isabel coming suddenly back from her feverish flight, looked up at
Julie. "Are you ill?" she demanded.
Julie put her hands to her head and pressed it hard, her lids drawing
together with pain. "I had a sunstroke in Nahal, and ever since I've
had a headache. Sometimes it aches as if it would split my brain."
Isabel pointed to the adjoining room. "Go and lie down! When you get
up the sunlight will be dimmed, and you will be better."
Julie dropped down on a bed that was a mass of crawling teakwood
dragons. All over the walls, from queer prints etched as with a
single hair, gazed fantastic human apparitions wearing their limbs
and features in most extraordinary ways, all supremely triumphant
over space and perspective. Draperies of embroidered landscapes,
fine as old etchings, disclosed temples of woven gold, rivers as
fantastic as dreams, and blue mountains over which the mysticism of
the East hung like dew.
She drowsed, and presently the temples of gold threads expanded into
pavilions like the markets she had seen in the city, and millions of
people, thick as flies, passed in and out.
She awoke, and her eyes rested on Isabel, who had so agitated her
brain with strange prophecies and visions. The long hair, black as
the jungle at night, lay curved over her beautiful body; the blue
eyes that judged etchings and old prints were closed, curtained by
heavy lids. The soul seemed to be withdrawn to inaccessible retreats,
afar off perhaps beating its wings against inexorable walls. Only the
mask of the East looked out from the inert form. The Malay woman lay
there asleep--the woman that could track her enemy, and kill.