THE GALLERY OF ANCIENT MEMORIES
With every one, of course, the measurement of time depends largely upon
the state of the emotions, but in Jimbo's case it was curiously
exaggerated. This may have been because he had no standard of memory by
which to test the succession of minutes; but, whatever it was, the hours
passed very quickly, and the evening shadows were already darkening the
room when at length he got up from the mattress and went over to the
window.
Outside the high elms were growing dim; soon the stars would be out in
the sky. The afternoon had passed away like magic, and the governess
still left him alone; he could not quite understand why she went away
for such long periods.
The darkness came down very swiftly, and it was night almost before he
knew it. Yet he felt no drowsiness, no desire to yawn and get under
sheets and blankets; sleep was evidently out of the question, and the
hours slipped away so rapidly that it made little difference whether he
sat up all night or whether he slept.
It was his first night in the Empty House, and he wondered how many more
he would spend there before escape came. He stood at the window, peering
out into the growing darkness and thinking long, long thoughts. Below
him yawned the black gulf of the yard, and the outline of the enclosing
wall was only just visible, but beyond the elms rose far into the sky,
and he could hear the wind singing softly in their branches. The sound
was very sweet; it suggested freedom, and the flight of birds, and all
that was wild and unrestrained. The wind could never really be a
prisoner; its voice sang of open spaces and unbounded distances, of
flying clouds and mountains, of mighty woods and dancing waves; above
all, of wings--free, swift, and unconquerable wings.
But this rushing song of wind among the leaves made him feel too sad to
listen long, and he lay down upon the bed again, still thinking,
thinking.
The house was utterly still. Not a thing stirred within its walls. He
felt lonely, and began to long for the companionship of the governess;
he would have called aloud for her to come only he was afraid to break
the appalling silence. He wondered where she was all this time and how
she spent the long, dark hours of the sleepless nights. Were all these
things really true that she told him? Was he actually out of his body,
and was his name really Jimbo? His thoughts kept groping backwards, ever
seeking the other companions he had lost; but, like a piece of stretched
elastic too short to reach its object, they always came back with a snap
just when he seemed on the point of finding them. He wanted these
companions very badly indeed, but the struggling of his memory was
painful, and he could not keep the effort up for very long at one time.
The effort once relaxed, however, his thoughts wandered freely where
they would; and there rose before his mind's eye dim suggestions of
memories far more distant--ghostly scenes and faces that passed before
him in endless succession, but always faded away before he could
properly seize and name them.
This memory, so stubborn as regards quite recent events, began to play
strange tricks with him. It carried him away into a Past so remote that
he could not connect it with himself at all, and it was like dreaming of
scenes and events that had happened to some one else; yet, all the time,
he knew quite well those things had happened to him, and to none else.
It was the memory of the soul asserting itself now that the clamour of
the body was low. It was an underground river coming to the surface, for
odd minutes, here and there, showing its waters to the stars just long
enough to catch their ghostly reflections before it rolled away
underground again.
Yet, swift and transitory as they were, these glimpses brought in their
train sensations that were too powerful ever to have troubled his
child-mind in its present body. They stirred in him the strong emotions,
the ecstasies, the terrors, the yearnings of a much more distant past;
whispering to him, could he but have understood, of an infinitely deeper
layer of memories and experiences which, now released from the burden of
the immediate years, strove to awaken into life again. The soul in that
little body covered with alpaca knickerbockers and a sailor blouse
seemed suddenly to have access to a storehouse of knowledge that must
have taken centuries, rather than a few short years, to acquire.
It was all very queer. The feeling of tremendous age grew mysteriously
over him. He realised that he had been wandering for ages. He had been
to the stars and also to the deeps; he had roamed over strange mountains
far away from cities or inhabited places of the earth, and had lived by
streams whose waves were silvered by moonlight dropping softly through
whispering palm branches....
Some of these ghostly memories brought him sensations of keenest
happiness--icy, silver, radiant; others swept through his heart like a
cold wave, leaving behind a feeling of unutterable woe, and a sense of
loneliness that almost made him cry aloud. And there came Voices
too--Voices that had slept so long in the inner kingdoms of silence that
they failed to rouse in him the very slightest emotion of
recognition....
Worn out at length with the surging of these strange hosts through him,
he got up and went to the open window again. The night was very dark and
warm, but the stars had disappeared, and there was the hush and the
faint odour of coming rain in the air. He smelt leaves and the earth and
the moist things of the ground, the wonderful perfume of the life of the
soil.
The wind had dropped; all was silent as the grave; the leaves of the
elm trees were motionless; no bird or insect raised its voice;
everything slept; he alone was watchful, awake. Leaning over the
window-sill, his thoughts searched for the governess, and he wondered
anew where she was spending the dark hours. She, too, he felt sure, was
wakeful somewhere, watching with him, plotting their escape together,
and always mindful of his safety....
His reverie was suddenly interrupted by the flight of an immense
night-bird dropping through the air just above his head. He sprang back
into the room with a startled cry, as it rushed past in the darkness
with a great swishing of wings. The size of the creature filled him with
awe; it was so close that the wind it made lifted the hair on his
forehead, and he could almost feel the feathers brush his cheeks. He
strained his eyes to try and follow it, but the shadows were too deep
and he could see nothing; only in the distance, growing every moment
fainter, he could hear the noise of big wings threshing the air. He
waited a little, wondering if another bird would follow it, or if it
would presently return to its perch on the roof; and then his thoughts
passed on to uncertain memories of other big birds--hawks, owls,
eagles--that he had seen somewhere in places now beyond the reach of
distinct recollections....
Soon the light began to dawn in the east, and he made out the shape of
the elm trees and the dreadful prison wall; and with the first real
touch of morning light he heard a familiar creaking sound in the room
behind him, and saw the black hood of the governess rising through the
trap-door in the floor.
"But you've left me alone all night!" he said at once reproachfully, as
she kissed him.
"On purpose," she answered. "He'd get suspicious if I stayed too much
with you. It's different in the daytime, when he can't see properly."
"Where's he been all night, then?" asked the boy.
"Last night he was out most of the time--hunting----"
"Hunting!" he repeated, with excitement. "Hunting what?"
"Children--frightened children," she replied, lowering her voice.
"That's how he found you."
It was a horrible thought--Fright hunting for victims to bring to his
dreadful prison--and Jimbo shivered as he heard it.
"And how did you get on all this time?" she asked, hurriedly changing
the subject.
"I've been remembering, that is half-remembering, an awful lot of
things, and feeling, oh, so old. I never want to remember anything
again," he said wearily.
"You'll forget quick enough when you get back into your body, and have
only the body-memories," she said, with a sigh that he did not
understand. "But, now tell me," she added, in a more serious voice,
"have you had any pain yet?"
He shook his head. She stepped up beside him.
"None _there_?" she asked, touching him lightly just behind the shoulder
blades.
Jimbo jumped as if he had been shot, and uttered a piercing yell.
"That hurts!" he screamed.
"I'm so glad," cried the governess. "That's the pains coming at last."
Her face was beaming.
"Coming!" he echoed, "I think they've _come_. But if they hurt as much
as that, I think I'd rather not escape," he added ruefully.
"The pain won't last more than a minute," she said calmly. "You must be
brave and stand it. There's no escape without pain--from anything."
"If there's no other way," he said pluckily, "I'll try,--but----"
"You see," she went on, rather absently, "at this very moment the doctor
is probing the wounds in your back where the horns went in----"
But he was not listening. Her explanations always made him want either
to cry or to laugh. This time he laughed, and the governess joined him,
while they sat on the edge of the bed together talking of many things.
He did not understand all her explanations, but it comforted him to hear
them. So long as somebody understood, no matter who, he felt it was all
right.
In this way several days and nights passed quickly away. The pains were
apparently no nearer, but as Miss Lake showed no particular anxiety
about their non-arrival, he waited patiently too, dreading the moment,
yet also looking forward to it exceedingly.
During the day the governess spent most of the time in the room with
him; but at night, when he was alone, the darkness became enchanted, the
room haunted, and he passed into the long, long Gallery of Ancient
Memories.