_THE SECOND FLIGHT BEGINS_
Whenever I recall my sorrows and misfortunes in Sobul, I am tormented
also by happy memories that wound like fresh trials. And foremost
among those memories I place my first few months with Yasma. If a
cloud hovered over our betrothal and a deeper cloud descended upon our
marriage day, the skies became immediately blue again once the wedding
festival was over. The consternation produced in Yasma's mind by the
meteor proved to be only temporary; if she ever remembered it again,
she did not mention the fact; and if she had any remaining scruples
regarding Yulada and the righteousness of our marriage, she kept her
doubts to herself. To me she was all sweetness, kindness and devotion;
a new radiance seemed to have overspread her countenance, and her face
shone with a richer and more beautiful light than ever; while all
her movements were imbued with the grace and airiness of one at once
perfectly carefree and perfectly unspoiled.
So potently had Yasma woven her spell over me that for the time I was
a convert to the ways of Sobul. As the Ibandru lived, so I lived;
momentarily I had almost forgotten that I was the son of civilized
lands. Each morning I would go forth with Karem and Barkodu to till
the fields; and each noon and evening I would return to a home where
skilled feminine hands had prepared a tasteful meal. Sometimes, when
the work on the farms was not too pressing, I would join the tribesmen
in day-long expeditions across the mountains, expeditions in which
Yasma would always take part; sometimes there would be holidays when
I would go fishing with Karem or roaming the woods with Yasma; and
in the evenings, except in the infrequent event of rain, I would take
part with the others in the village sports, running and wrestling,
dancing and singing, competing in the games, or merely sitting about
the campfire exchanging reminiscences.
Now at last I was accepted almost as a native of Sobul. My marriage
to a daughter of the tribe apparently made the people think of me
as an Ibandru by adoption; yes, even though in some ways I was
still a stranger, and though the people still were silent when I
questioned them as to their autumnal flight. If any of them recalled
Hamul-Kammesh's original prophecy, and in particular the omen of the
fireball, they were careful to keep their recollections quiet; and even
if they had their fears, they cherished no personal resentment--for was
it not Yulada herself who had showed me the way to Sobul? Was it not by
her will that I was remaining?
Certainly, it seemed to suit the pleasure of Yulada that I should
linger here indefinitely. The way to the outer world was still unknown;
no visitors came to Sobul, and in my wanderings among the mountains I
had discovered no sign of human life and no road that gave promise of
leading toward civilization. Not that I would have left if I could; to
go away without Yasma would have been unthinkable; and to go with her
would have been as difficult as it was dangerous. Yet I kept wondering
if I was to spend my remaining days in this primitive valley; and I had
more than an occasional day-dream of finding some previously unobserved
mountain pass and making my way with Yasma toward some civilized
settlement.
But as yet, in the happiness of my young wedded life, such thoughts
troubled me very little. No one in my country was half so dear to me
as Yasma; and all the friends I had left, the habits I had abandoned
and the work I had lost could not weigh in the scales against her. And
so for a while I merely toyed with the thought of escape; and even had
it seemed possible to extricate myself from the wilderness of Sobul, I
should scarcely have stirred to make the attempt. Months passed, and
all remained as it had been; the hot days came, and the woods were
densely green again with the summer foliage; the fruit of the orchards
swelled and ripened, the plum was dyed a rich purple, and the face
of the peach was delicately pink. But Yasma and I, in our enchanted
retreat, scarcely noted the passing of the weeks, scarcely were aware
that we were drifting on a slow tide toward the end of bliss. At
times, indeed, some prematurely yellowing leaf or some field newly
prepared for the harvest, would bring an uncomfortable premonition of
autumn; at times the sight of Yulada perched inscrutably upon the peak
would awaken unpleasant reminders of the past winter and still more
unpleasant reminders of the winter to come. But mostly I managed to
thrust such thoughts from me, to live in the enjoyment of the present
moment, and to feel that the present moment was to endure. I was only
deceiving myself with phantoms!--alas, I did not succeed in deceiving
myself completely!--and now and then, when the veil was momentarily
lifted, I was aware that a shadow still brooded above me, that for the
moment it was dim and far-away, but that it would return, return as
certainly as the days would grow frosty and the birds fly south once
more!
* * * * *
I had been in Sobul more than a year when my worst forebodings seemed
about to be fulfilled. The days were again on their decline; the
unharvested fields once more lay ripe before the reaper; a chill began
to creep into the air of evenings, and the landscape was occasionally
blurred with mist; the wild fruits and nuts were falling in the forest,
and the squirrels were laying up their winter supplies; the woods began
to take on a ragged lining of brown and yellow and premature golden,
and more than an occasional leaf was fluttering down in early deference
to the fall.
Then came October; and with October I grew aware, as a year before, of
an undercurrent of excitement in the village. Once more the youths and
maidens had seemingly lost interest in their noisy evening pastimes;
once more the people were growing restless and uneasy; once more they
bore the aspect of waiting, of waiting for some imminent and momentous
event.
Even Yasma did not escape the general anxiety. At times I observed a
far-away look in her eyes, a melancholy that I could not quite fathom;
and at such moments she would seek to avoid my presence. At other times
she would burst without apparent cause into fits of weeping, and would
cling to me, and beg me to forgive her if she could not do her duty and
were not a good wife. But always it seemed futile to question her; for
did I not surmise what the trouble was? Could I forget that the season
of cold winds was at hand?
Not until the first southward flight of the birds did my fears
crystallize. It was as if this event, the occasion for wild rejoicing
among the Ibandru, signalized the close of my idyllic life with Yasma.
On a day of wind and gathering cloud, when the first triangle of living
dots came soaring from across the mountains and out of sight beyond
Yulada, it seemed as if the birds were speeding away with my hopes.
Just as a year before, the entire village became tumultuously excited,
and abandoned all other occupations to watch the winged travelers; and,
as a year before, a great firelight celebration was held, in which
all the tribe participated, and over which Abthar and Hamul-Kammesh
presided.
But although the ceremonies of a year ago were almost duplicated, I did
not find this festival so interesting as the former. Rather, I found it
terrifying, for it brought me visions of deserted cabins and snow-clad
mountainsides, and seemed to impose a dismal gulf between Yasma and me.
To reassure myself, I sought to stay at Yasma's side during the
celebration. But somehow she slipped away, much as last year; and I
could find no trace of her until late that night I discovered her
in our cabin with moist face, and eyes that even by the flickering
firelight seemed swollen and red.
"Yasma!" I cried. "What is the matter?"
For a moment she did not reply, but looked at me with large smoldering
eyes. Then tenderly she came to me, placed her hands upon my shoulders,
and murmured, "I was thinking of you, my beloved, thinking of you here
all alone when the cold winds blow and the days grow gray and empty,
and there is no one, no one to take care of you!"
Overcome by her own words, she gave way to sobbing.
And I, faced with the inevitable, could only put the question I had
put so many times before. "But could you not stay with me here, Yasma?
Could you not--"
"No, no, no!" she interrupted, in the midst of her tears. "I could not,
could not! Yulada would not permit it!"
"Not even for me?" I entreated, as one might entreat a favor of a
refractory child.
"Not even for you! Could I make my heart stop beating for you? Could I
cease breathing and still live because you wished it of me? No, no,
no, do not ask me to change my nature!"
"I would not ask you to change your nature, Yasma," I assured her
gently, as I took her again into my arms. "But I love you so much, my
dearest, so much that I can hardly bear to think of being parted from
you."
"Or I to be parted from you!"
Mastered once more by her emotion, she turned from me, wringing her
hands.
A long, silent moment intervened before she faced me again. But when
she did turn to me, her face was more composed, and her eyes shone with
new resolution.
"Let us try to be brave, my beloved," she urged. "I will stay with you
here a while yet; will stay as long as Yulada permits. And what if,
after I go, the winter must come?--it will pass, and the green leaves
will grow again, and the snow will melt on the mountainsides; and I
will come back, come back with the first northward-flying birds!"
She paused, and smiled in melancholy reassurance. But I did not reply,
and the smile quickly faded; and she continued, pleadingly, "Remember,
my beloved, when you asked me to marry you, you said you were willing
to lose me half the year. You promised, or I could never have
consented. So why are you not willing now?"
"Yes, I did promise," I admitted, with a groan. "I did promise, and I
know I should be willing. But how different things seemed then! How
much harder to lose you after all these months together! Why, Yasma, I
must lose you without even knowing where you're going! At least, you
might tell me that! How would you feel if I went away and you didn't
know where?"
As always before, my pleas had no effect except to bring the tears to
Yasma's eyes.
"Do you not think I would tell you if I could?" she asked, gently and
sadly. "But Yulada would not permit it, and I dare not lift my voice
against her. I could not if I would. For there are things we cannot
describe, and things that can be known only to those that share in
them. Could you expect the wild dove to tell you of its flight? Could
you expect the eagle to make known the joy it feels when it sails into
the sun?"
"Oh, but you are not as the eagle or the dove!" I protested.
"Why do you think we are not?" she returned, with a curious smile.
At this query I was struck by a fancy so wild that even now I hesitate
to mention it: the thought that Yasma and her people were not wholly
human! that for half the year they walked the earth as men and women,
and for the other half sailed the sky as birds! Nor did this notion
seem quite so absurd as it would have appeared before my arrival in
Sobul. Here in this world-forsaken valley, with its periodically
migrating inhabitants, anything at all seemed possible; even the
supernatural appeared to lose its remote and fabulous glow. And so, for
an instant, I had the impression that something unearthly enveloped
Yasma, even Yasma, my wife! And once again, as on first coming to
Sobul, I experienced the sense of otherworldly forces at work all about
me, forces that had Yasma in their keeping and were bound to wrest
her from me, no matter how I might groan and struggle, no matter how
I might cry out and entreat and reach forth my arms and call and call
after her dwindling form!