IX

And so it was that he no longer saw this thing pictorially, nor in the

little detached reports the individual senses brought, but knew it in

himself complete, as a man knows love and passion. Memory afterwards

translated these vast central feelings into pictures, but the pictures

touched reality without containing it. Like a vision it happened all

at once, as a room or landscape happens, and what happens all at once,

coming through a synthesis of the senses, is not properly describable

later. To instantaneous knowledge mere sequence is a falsehood. The

sequence first comes in with the telling afterwards. That kneeling

form, he understood, was the empty vessel to which conventional life

had hitherto denied the heat and air it craved. The breath of life

now poured at full tide into it, the fire of deity lit its heart of

touchwood, wind blew into desire; and later flame would burst forth in

action, consuming opposition. He must let it fill to the brim. It was

not salvation, but creation. Then thought went out, extinguished by a

puff of something greater....

For beyond the smoke and sparks, beyond the space the men had occupied,

a new and gentler movement, lyrical with bird-like beauty, ran suddenly

along the ridge. What Hendricks had taken for branches heaped in rows

for the burning, stirred marvellously throughout their whole collective

mass, stirred sweetly, too, and with an exquisite loveliness. The

entire line rose gracefully into the air with a whirr as of sweeping

birds. There was a soft and undulating motion as though a draught of

flowing wind turned faintly visible, yet with an increasing brilliance,

like shining lilies of flame that now flocked forward in a troop,

bending deliciously all one way. And in the same second these tall

lilies of fire revealed themselves as figures, naked above the waist,

hair streaming on the wind, eyes alight and bare arms waving. Above the

men’s deep pedal bass their voices rose with clear, shrill sweetness on

the storm. The band swept forwards swift as wind towards the kneeling

boy. The long line curved about him foldingly. The women took him as

the south wind takes a bird.

There may have been--indeed, there was--an interval, for Hendricks

caught, again and again repeated, the boy’s great cry of passionate

delight above the tumult. Ringing and virile it rose to heaven, clear

as a fine-wrought bell. And instantaneously the knitted figures of

flame disentangled themselves again, the mass unfolded like an opening

flower, and, as by a military word of command, dissolved itself once

more into a long thin line of running fire. The women advanced, and the

waiting men flowed forward in a stream to meet them. This interweaving

of the figures was as easily accomplished as the mingling of light

and heavy threads upon some living loom. Hands joining hands, all

singing, these naked worshippers of fire and wind passed in and out

among the blazing piles with a headlong precision that was torrential

and yet orderly. The speed increased; the faces flashed and vanished,

then flashed and passed again; each woman between two men, each man

between two women, and Lord Ernie, radiantly alive, between two girls

of rich, o’erflowing beauty. Their movements were undulating, like

the undulations of fire, yet with sudden, unexpected upward leaps as

when fire is partnered abruptly by a cantering wind. For the women were

fire, and the men were wind. The imitative dance was in full swing. The

marvellous wind and fire ritual unrolled its old-world magic.

It was awe-inspiring certainly, but for Hendricks, as he watched, the

terror of big conflagrations was wholly absent: rather, he felt the

sense of deep security that rhythmic movement causes. Bathed in a sea

of elemental power, he burned to share the pagan splendour and the

rush of primitive delight. It seemed he had a cosmic body in which

new centres stirred to life, linking him on to this source of natural

forces. Through these centres he drew the chaotic energy into nerves

and blood and muscle, into the very substance of his thought, indeed,

transmuting them into the magic of the will. Abundant and inexhaustible

vigour filled the air, pouring freely into whatever empty receptacle

lay at hand. Sheets of flame, whole separate fragments of it, torn at

the edges, raced, loudly, hungrily flapping on vehement gusts of wind;

curved as they flew; leaped, twisted, flashed and vanished. And the

figures closely copied them. The women tossed their bodies aloft, then

dipped suddenly to the earth, invisible, till the rushing men urged

them into view again with wild impetuous swing, so that the entire line

stretched and contracted like an immense elastic band of life, now

knotted, now dissolved.

Yet, while of raging and terrific beauty, there was never that mad

abandon which is disorder; but rather a kind of sacred natural revel

that prohibited mere licence. There was even a singular austerity in

it that betrayed a definite ritual and not mere reckless pageantry.

No walls could possibly have contained it. In cathedral, temple, or

measured space, however grand, it could only have seemed exaggerated

and apostate; here, beneath the open sky, it was beautiful and true.

For overhead the stars burned clear and steady, the constellations

watching it from their immovable towers--a representation of their own

leisured and hierarchic dance in swifter miniature. And indeed this

relationship it bore to a universal rhythm was the key, it seemed, to

its deep significance; for the close imitation of natural movements

seduced the colossal powers of fire and wind to swell human emotions

till they became mould and vessel for this elemental manifestation

in men and women. Golden yellow in the blaze, the limbs of the women

flashed and passed; their hair flew dark a moment across gleaming

breasts; and their waving arms tossed in ever-shifting patterns through

the driving smoke. The fires boiled and roared, scattering torrents of

showering sparks like stars; and amid it all the slim, white shoulders

of the boy, his clothes torn from him, his eyes ablaze, and his lips

opened to the singing as though he had known it always, drove to and

fro on the crest of the ritual like some flying figure of wind and fire

incarnate.

All of which, instantaneously yet in sequence, Hendricks witnessed,

painted upon the wild night sky. A volcanic energy poured through

him too. He knew a golden enthusiasm of immeasurable strength, of

unconquerable hope, of irresistible delight. Wind set his feet to

dancing, and fire swept across his face without a trace of burning.

Nature was part of him. He had stepped inside. No obstacle existed that

could withstand for a single second the torrential energy that fired

his heart and blood. There was lightning in his veins. He could sweep

aside life’s difficult barriers with the ease of a tornado, and shake

the rubbish of doubt and care from the years with earthquake shocks.

Empires he could mould, and play with nations, drive men and women

before him like a flock of sheep, shatter convention, and dislocate the

machinery time has foisted upon natural energies. He knew in himself

the omnipotence of the lesser elemental deities. Yet, as sympathetic

observer, he can but have felt a tithe of what Lord Ernie felt.

‘We are the whirlwind and we are the fire!’ he cried aloud with the

rushing worshippers. ‘We are unconquerable and immense! We destroy the

lukewarm and absorb the weak! For we can make evil into good by bending

it all one way!...’

The roar swept thunderingly past him, catching at his voice and body.

He felt himself snatched forward by the wind. The fire licked sweetly

at him. It was the final abandonment. He plunged recklessly towards the

surge of dancers....

X

What stopped him he did not know. Some hard and steely thing pricked

sharply into him. An opposing power, fierce as a sword, stabbed at his

heart--and he heard a little sound quite close beside him, a sound that

pierced the babel, reaching his consciousness as from far away.

‘Keep still! Cling tight to this old rock! Hold yourself in, or else

they’ll have you too!’

It was as if some insect scratched within his ear. His arm, that same

instant, was violently seized. He came down with a crash. He had been

half in the air. He had been dancing.

‘Turn your eyes away, away! Take hold of this big tree!’ The voice

cried furiously, but with a petty human passion in it that marred the

world. There was an intolerable revulsion in him as he heard it. He

felt himself dragged forcibly backwards. He lost his balance, stumbling

among loose stones.

‘Loose me! Let me go!’ he shouted, struggling like a wild animal, yet

vainly, against the inflexible grip that held him. ‘I am one with the

fire that lights but does not burn. I am the wind that blows the worlds

along! Damnation take you.... Let me free!...’

Confusion caught him, smothering speech and blinding sight. He fell

backwards, away from the heat and wind. He was furious, but furious

with he knew not whom or what. The interference had destroyed the

rhythm, broken it into fragments. Violent impulses clashed through

him without the will to choose or guide them. For power had deserted

him and flowed elsewhere. He stood no longer in the stream of energy.

He was emptied. And at first he could not tell whether his instinct

was to return himself, to rescue his precious boy, or--to crush the

interfering object out of existence with what was left to him of raging

anger. He turned, stood up, and flung the Pasteur aside with violence.

He raised his feet to stamp and kill ... when a phrase with meaning

darted suddenly across his wild confusion and recalled him to some

fragment of truer responsibility and life.

‘... There’ll be only violence in him--reckless violence instead of

strength--destructive. Save him before it is too late!’

‘It _is_ too late,’ he roared in answer. ‘What devil hinders me?’

But his roar was feeble, and his ironed boots refused the stamping.

Power slipped wholly out of him. The rhythm poured past, instead of

through him. Interference had destroyed the circuit. More glimmerings

of responsibility came back. He stooped like a drunken man and helped

the other to his feet. The rapidity of the change was curious, proving

that the spell had been put upon him from without. It was not, as with

the boy, mere development of pre-existing tendencies.

‘Help me,’ he implored suddenly instead, ‘help me! There has been

madness in me. For God’s sake, help me to get him out!’ It seemed the

face of the old Marquess, stern and terrible, broke an instant through

the smoky air, black with reproach and anger. And, with a violent

effort of the will, Hendricks turned round to face the elemental orgy,

bent on rescue. But this time the heat was intolerable and drove him

back. The hair, hitherto untouched, now singed upon his head. Fire

licked his very breath away. He bent double, covering his face with

arms and cloak.

‘Pray!’ shouted Leysin, dropping to his knees. ‘It is the only way. My

God is higher than this. Pray, pray!’

And, automatically, Hendricks fell upon his knees beside him, though

to pray he knew not how. For no real faith was in him as in the other,

and his eye was far from single. The fast fading grandeur of what he

had experienced still left its pagan tumult in his blood. The pretence

of prayer could only have been blasphemy. He watched instead, letting

the other invoke his mighty Deity alone, that Deity he had served

unflinchingly all his life with faith and fasting, and with belief

beyond assault.

It was an impressive picture, fraught with passionate drama. On his

knees behind a sheltering boulder, a blackened pine-tree tossing

scorched branches above his head, this righteous man prayed to his God,

sure of his triumphant answer. Hendricks watched with an admiration

that made him realise his own insignificance. The eyes were closed,

the leonine big head set firm upon the diminutive body, the face now

lit by flame, now veiled by smoke, the strong hands clasped together

and upraised. He envied him. He recognised, too, that the elements

themselves, with all their chaos of might and terror, were after all

but servants of the Vastness which dips the butterflies in colour

and puts down upon the breasts of little robins. And, because the

Pasteur’s life had been always prayer in action, his little human will

invoked the Will of Greatness, merged with it, used it, and directed

it steadily against the commotion of these unleashed elements. Certain

of himself and of his God, the Pasteur never doubted. His prayer set

instantly in action those forces which balance suns and keep the stars

afloat.

Thus, trembling with terror that made him wholly ineffective, Hendricks

watched, and, as he watched, became aware of the amazing change. For

it seemed as if a stream of power, steady and in opposition to the

tumult, now poured audaciously against the elemental rhythm, altering

its direction, modifying gradually its stupendous impetus. There were

pauses in the huge vibrations: they wavered, broke, and fled. They knew

confusion, as when the prow of a steel-nosed vessel drives against

the tide. The tide is vaster, but the steel is--different. The whole

sky shivered, as this new entering force, so small, so soft, yet of

such incalculable energy, began at once its overmastering effect.

Signs of violence or rout, or of anything disordered, had no part in

it; excess before it slipped into willing harness; there was light

that sponged away all glare, as when morning sunshine cleans a forest

of its shadows. Some little whispering power sang marvellously as of

old across the desolate big mountains, ‘Peace! Be still!’ turning

the monstrous turbulence into obedient sweetness. And upon his face

and hands Hendricks felt faint, delicate touches of some refreshing

softness that he could not understand.

Yet not instantly was this harmony restored; at first there was the

stress of vehement opposition. The night of wind and fire drove roaring

through the sky. There were bursts of triumphant tumult, but convulsion

in them and no true steadiness as before. The human figures hitherto

had danced with that fluid appearance which belongs to fire, and with

that instantaneous rush which is of wind, the men increasing the women,

and the women answering with joy; limbs and faces had melted into each

other till the circular ritual looked like a glowing wheel of flame

rotating audibly. But slowly now the speed of the wheel decreased;

the single utterance was marred by the crying of many voices, all at

different pitch, discordant, inharmonious, dismayed. The fires somehow

dwindled; there came pauses in the wind; and Hendricks became aware of

a curious hissing noise, as more and more of these odd soft touches

found his face and hands. Here and there, he saw, a figure stumbled,

fell, then gathered itself clumsily together again with a frightened

shout, breaking violently out of the circle. More and more these

figures blundered and dropped out; and although they returned again,

so that the dance apparently increased, these were but moments in the

final violence of the dispersing hurricane. The rejected ones dashed

back wildly into the wrong places; men and women no longer stood

alternate, but in groups together, falsely related. The entire movement

was dislocated; the ceremony grew rapidly incoherent; meaning forsook

it. The composite instrument that had transmuted the elemental forces

into human, emotional storage was imperfect, broken, out of tune. The

disarray turned rout.

And then it was, while Leysin continued without ceasing his burning and

successful prayer, that his companion, conscious of returning harmony,

rose to his feet, aware suddenly that he could also help. A portion of

the powers he had absorbed still worked in him, but in a new direction.

He felt confident and unafraid. He did not stumble. With unerring tread

he advanced towards the lessening fires, feeling as he did so the cold

soft touches multiply with a rush upon his skin. From all sides they

came by hundreds, like messengers of help.

‘Ernest!’ he cried aloud, and his voice, though little raised, carried

resonantly above the dying turmoil; ‘Ernest! Come back to us. Your

father calls you!’

And from threescore faces hurrying in confusion through the smoke,

one paused and turned. It stood apart, hovering as though in air,

while the mob of disordered figures rushed in a body along the ridge.

Plunging like frightened cattle below the farther edge, then vanishing

into thick darkness, they left behind them this one solitary face. A

final dying flame licked out at it; a rush of smoke drove past to hide

it; there was a high, wild scream--and the figure shot forward with a

headlong leap and fell with a crash at Hendricks’ feet. Lord Ernie,

blackened by smoke and scorched by fire, lay safe outside the danger

zone.

And Hendricks knelt beside him. Remorse and shame made him powerless

to do more as he pulled the torn clothing over the neck and chest

and heard his own heart begging for forgiveness. He realised his own

weakness and faithlessness. A great temptation had found him wanting....

It was owing to Leysin that the rescue was complete. The Pasteur was

instantly by his side.

‘Saved as by water,’ he cried, as he folded his cloak about the

prostrate body, and then raised the head and shoulders; ‘saved by His

ministers of rain. For His miracles are love, and work through natural

laws.’

He made a sign to Hendricks. Carrying the boy between them, they

scrambled down the slope into the shelter of the trees below. The cold,

soft touches were then explained. The _joran_ had dropped as suddenly

as it rose, and the torrential rain that invariably follows now poured

in rivers from the sky. Water, drenching the fires and padding the

savage wind, had stopped the dancers midway in their frenzied ritual.

It was the element they dreaded, for it was hostile. Rain soused the

mountain ridge, extinguishing the last embers of the numerous fires.

It rushed in rivulets between their feet. The heated earth gave out a

hissing steam, and the only sound in the spaces where wind and fire had

boomed and thundered a little while before was now the splash of water

and the drip of quenching drops.

In the cover of the sheltering trees the body stirred, lifted its head,

and sat up slowly. The eyes opened.

‘I’m cold. I’m frightened,’ whispered a shivering voice. ‘Where am I?’

Only the pelt and thud of the rain sounded behind the quavering words.

‘Where are the others? Have I been away? Hendricks--Mr. Hendricks--is

that you----?’

He stared about him, his face now a mere luminous disc in the thick

darkness. No breath of wind was loose. They spoke to him till he

answered with assurance, groping to find their hands with his own, his

words confused and strange with hidden meaning for a time. ‘I’m all

right now,’ he kept repeating. ‘I know exactly. It was one of my big

dreams ... I suppose I fell asleep ... and the rain woke me. Great

heavens! What a night to be out.’ And then he clambered vigorously to

his feet with a sudden movement of great energy again, saying that

hunger was in him and he must eat. There was no complaint of heat or

cold, of burning or of bruises. The boy recovered marvellously. In ten

minutes, breaking away from all support, he led, as they descended

through the dripping forest in the gloom and chill of very early

morning. It was the others who called to him for guidance in the

tangled woods. Lord Ernie was in the lead. Throughout the difficult

woods he was ever in front, and singing:

‘Fire that lights but does not burn! And wind that blows the heart to

flame! They both are in me now for ever and ever! Oh, praise the Lord

of Fire and the Lord of Wind...!’

And this voice, now near, now distant, sounding through the dripping

forest on their homeward journey, was an experience weird and

unforgettable for those other two. Leysin, it seemed, had one sentence

only which he kept repeating to himself--‘Heaven grant he may direct it

all for good. For they have filled him to the brim, and he is become an

instrument of power.’

But Hendricks, though he understood the risk, felt only confidence.

Lord Ernie’s regeneration had begun.

Soaked and bedraggled, all three, they reached the village about two

o’clock. The boy, utterly unmanageable, said an emphatic No to spirits,

soup, or medical appliances. His skin, indeed, showed no signs of

burning, nor was there the smallest symptom of cold or fever in him.

‘I’m a perfect furnace,’ he laughed; ‘I feel health and strength

personified.’ And the brightness of his eyes, his radiant colour, the

vigour of his voice and manner--both in some way astonishing--made all

pretence of assistance unnecessary and absurd. ‘It’s like a new birth,’

he cried to Hendricks, as he almost cantered beside him down the road

to their house, ‘and, by Jove, I’ll wake ’em up at home and make the

world go round. I know a hundred schemes. I tell you, sir, I’m simply

bursting! For the first time I’m alive!’

And an hour later, when the tutor peeped in upon him, the boy was

calmly sleeping. The candle-light, shaded carefully with one hand, fell

upon the face. There were new lines and a new expression in it. Will

and purpose showed in the stern set of the lips and jaw. It was the

face of a man, and of a man one would not lightly trifle with. Purpose,

will, and power were established on their thrones. To such a man the

entire world might one day bow the head.

‘If only it will last,’ thought Hendricks, as, shaken, bewildered, and

more than a little awed, he tiptoed out of the room again and went

to bed. But through his dreams, sheeted in flame and veiled in angry

smoke, the face of the old Marquess glowered upon him from a heavy sky

above ancestral towers.