_THE LAST FLIGHT_
As the evening twilight came earlier and the trees were burnished
a deeper scarlet and gold, a strange mood came over Yasma. She was
no longer her old frolicsome self; she would no longer go dancing
light-heartedly among the woods and fields; she would not greet me
with laughter when I returned to our cabin, nor play her little games
of hide-and-seek, nor smile at me in the old winsome whimsical way.
But she was as if burdened with a deep sorrow. Her eyes had the look
of one who suffers but cannot say why; her actions were as mechanical
as though her life-interest had forsaken her. She would sit on the
cabin floor for hours at a time, staring into vacancy; she would stand
with eyes fastened upon the wild birds as their successive companies
went winging southward; she would gaze absently up at Yulada, or would
mumble unintelligible prayers; she would go off by herself into the
forest, and when she returned her cheeks would be moist.
At times, indeed, she struggled to break loose from this melancholia.
For a moment the old sweet untroubled smile would come back into her
eyes, and she would take my hand, and beg me not to mind her queer
ways; but after a few minutes the obsession would return. Now and then
she would be actually merry for a while, but I would fancy that in her
very gaiety there was something strained; and more than once her jovial
mood ended in tears. I could not understand her conduct; I was more
deeply worried than she could have known; and often when she sat at my
side, wrapped in some impenetrable revery, I would be absorbed in a
bleak revery of my own, wherein Yasma would have the central place.
Yet, even at this late date, it would have been possible to avert
catastrophe. Dimly I recognized that I had only to release Yasma from
her promise, and she would be once more her buoyant, happy self. But I
could not bring myself to the necessary point. In part I was restrained
by the very urge of self-preservation, by the threat of madness if I
must live alone winter after winter; in part I was held back by sheer
stubbornness, the determination not to surrender the prize on which
I had set my heart. And in part I was misled by my own blindness. I
still felt that I had only to win this one victory, and happiness would
shine for me again; that once I had weaned Yasma from her long yearly
absences, neither of us would have anything more to fear.
Had my eyes only been open, I would have been warned not by Yasma's
attitude alone, but by the hints of her kinsmen. Not until later did I
take note of the gradually changing attitude of the villagers, and link
together a multitude of signs, each slight in itself, which testified
to the unspoken reproach I had aroused. But what I did observe even at
the time, yet did not properly weigh or fathom, was the uneasiness and
even alarm in the manner of Yasma's father and brothers. When Karem
bade farewell before disappearing for the winter, he mentioned Yasma in
scarcely veiled tones, bidding me not to "clip her wings"; when Barkodu
bade farewell, he adjured me not to try to adapt the Ibandru to my own
nature. And when Abthar came to say good-bye, it was with the manner of
one who suffers a great sorrow; the grizzled face became tender and the
stern eyes soft when he counselled me to take good care of his child.
But he had the air of one who reluctantly bows to the inevitable, and
spoke as though knowing that his words would be without effect.
I had hoped that after Abthar and Karem and the other tribesmen had
gone, Yasma would recover from her despondency. But, if anything, her
depression grew as the days went by. It was as though the departing
ones took with them her slight remaining joy in life; with each of
her kinsmen that disappeared, some new corner of her small universe
crumbled away. Her eyes would now travel toward the south as if to seek
there some great and glorious good hidden from her forever; and it gave
me many a pang to see how she craved what was not to be. But still my
purpose held firm.
Eventually there came a day when all but a few of the cabins were
empty; then a day when even those few were vacant--when all except
our own were deserted. The evening before had still seen two or three
belated men strolling about the village; but now we were alone, utterly
alone except for the screaming wild things in the woods and the
unperturbed figure of Yulada above. And now at last Yasma and I were
face to face with our fate.
And now the long-incipient revolt flamed forth. It was a wild, chilly
day of wind and flying cloud, reminding me of that other day, a year
before, when Yasma had left me. All morning she had been in a somber
mood, and I had been unable to break through her silence; all afternoon
she had been standing, like one in a daze, peering up at the dreary
gray curtain of clouds. My remarks to her, my questions, my pleas, my
soft-toned phrases of affection, were all without effect; she heard me
only as one in a dream may hear murmurs from the waking world. Never
before had I been so far from her; she could hardly have been more
remote had she joined her kinsmen on their mysterious flight!
Late that afternoon I was busying myself in the cabin, lighting a fire
and preparing some simple articles of food, for I could not let myself
spend all my time brooding like Yasma. A brilliant light gleamed in her
eyes; ecstasy and longing and terror and furious enthusiasm convulsed
her features; she seemed a living blaze of vehemence and desire.
Urgently she seized my hand, and led me unresisting into the open; then
passionately pointed upward, upward to a triangle of black dots darting
across the gray heavens.
"See!" she cried. "See, the birds fly south! The last birds fly south!"
I glanced skyward, but first peered at her in fright, for it occurred
to me that brooding and excitement might have deranged her mind. But
except for her extreme agitation, she appeared quite normal; her eyes
flashed with a beautiful flame, and her old animated, fiery self had
revived.
"Let me go from here!" she pleaded, almost in a transport. "Let me go,
oh, let me go the way of the birds!"
I stood as if paralyzed by the force of her words; and if she had made
a motion to leave, I might not have been able to detain her.
"Oh, let me go the way of the birds!" she repeated. "Do not hold me, my
beloved! I want to go far from here, across the mountains, the way the
birds go!"
But dread of losing her was beginning to possess me, and I made my
first defense against the wild power of her appeal. "No!" I forbade.
"You shall not go! You shall stay here with me!"
"No, I must go! Yulada calls! For now the last birds fly south, the
last birds fly south! Oh, I must go, my beloved!"
In these words there was an intensity of longing that was almost
pitiable. But my own longing was at storm pitch; and desperately I
reiterated what I had just said.
"But Yulada orders me to go! I cannot resist her call! It is burning
away in me like a torment!" she wailed, and raised her arms imploringly
toward the gray skies, across which another band of winged travelers
was careering. "Oh, I must not be late! Good-bye, my beloved!"
And she started away from me, and in a moment might have been obscured
amid the shadows.
But terror of losing her filled my heart; and I darted after her, and
an instant later had her in my arms.
"Yasma! You shall not go! You shall not!" I found myself crying, in a
frenzy that equalled her own. And my arms clung about her, and forced
the quivering form closely to me. "You must not go! You cannot! You
promised to stay! I will not let you go, I will not, will not!" And
what more I said I cannot now recall; but I held her to me tenaciously,
distractedly, in an abandon of fear and passion; and she could not
struggle free from my clasp.
And as the darkness deepened, and a red rift in the clouds like a fiery
omen marked the way of the setting sun, my madness subsided, and hers
subsided too; and she lay in my arms, a limp, huddled mass.
"Let it be as you wish. I will not go," she was saying, in tones
wherein there seemed to be scarcely a trace of life. "I will not go. I
will stay with you here--if Yulada permits."
And she buried her face against my breast, and her whole form shook and
shuddered. And as I reached out a trembling hand to comfort her, there
came a weird querulous calling from the deep gloom above; and I knew
that still another flying thing, perhaps the last, had gone gliding on
its way beyond the mountains.