OVER the sea went the birds, flying southward to their other home where
the sun was. The rustle of their wings, high overhead, could be heard
down on the water; and their soft, shrill twitterings, and the thirsty
nibbling of their beaks; for the seas were hushed, and the winds hung
away in cloud-land.
Far away from any shore, and beginning to be weary, their eyes caught
sight of a white form resting between sky and sea. Nearer they came,
till it seemed to be a great white bird, brooding on the calmed water;
and its wings were stretched high and wide, yet it stirred not. And the
wings had in themselves no motion, but stood rigidly poised over their
own reflection in the water.
Then the birds came curiously, dropping from their straight course, to
wonder at the white wings that went not on. And they came and settled
about this great, bird-like thing, so still and so grand.
On to the deck crept a small child, for the noise of the birds had come
down to him in the hold. "There is nobody at home but me," he said; for
he thought the birds must have come to call, and he wished to be polite.
"They are all gone but me," he went on; "all gone. I am left alone."
The birds, none of them understood him; but they put their heads on one
side and looked down on him in a friendly way, seeming to consider.
He ran down below and fetched up a pannikin of water and some biscuit.
He set the water down, and breaking the biscuit sprinkled it over the
white deck. Then he clapped his hands to see them all flutter and crowd
round him, dipping their bright heads to the food and drink he gave
them.
They might not stay long, for the water-logged ship could not help them
on the way they wished to go; and by sunset they must touch land again.
Away they went, on a sudden, the whole crew of them, and the sound of
their voices became faint in the bright sea-air.
"I am left alone!" said the child.
Many days ago, while he was asleep in a snug corner he had found for
himself, the captain and crew had taken to the boats, leaving the great
ship to its fate. And forgetting him because he was so small, or
thinking that he was safe in some one of the other boats, the rough
sailors had gone off without him, and he was left alone. So for a whole
week he had stayed with the ship, like a whisper of its vanished life
amid the blues of a deep calm. And the birds came to the ship only to
desert it again quickly, because it stood so still upon the sea.
[Illustration]
But that night the mermen came round the vessel's side, and sang; and
the wind rose to their singing, and the sea grew rough. Yet the child
slept with his head in dreams. The dreams came from the mermen's
songs, and he held his breath, and his heart stayed burdened by the deep
sweetness of what he saw.
Dark and strange and cold the sea-valleys opened before him; blue
sea-beasts ranged there, guarded by strong-finned shepherds, and fishes
like birds darted to and fro, but made no sound. And that was what
burdened his heart,--that for all the beauty he saw, there was no sound,
no song of a single bird to comfort him.
The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of
the waves they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the land
below. They offered him the sea-life: why should he be drowned and die?
And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat
abroad in the wind, and the ship made great way. And the mermen swam
fast to be with her, and ceased from their own song, for the wind
overhead sang loud in the rigging and the sails. But the child lifted
his head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was eased of the mermen's
song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds singing in a
far-off land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint
and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.
In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking one
by one, were singing their story of him to the soft-breathing tamarisk
boughs. And none of them knew how they had been sent as a salvage crew
to save the child's spirit from the spell of the sea-dream, and to
carry it safely back to the land that loved him.
* * * * *
But with the child's body the white wings had flown down into the
wave-buried valleys, and to a cleft of the sea-hills to rest.