There was music in Cyrus. As a boy, however, he could never get it out.
With no voice for singing his main relief was in whistling and humming
and in drumming with his fingers. Which, of course, made him more
or less of a nuisance at times. When he grew up his voice improved.
Not enough to outshine the nightingales, but it served for domestic
purposes. At church, for instance, he joined the congregation in the
hymns. His voice, in speaking, was low, with a pleasant quality, and
was more than satisfactory for ordinary human intercourse. But as a
musical instrument it aroused no enthusiasm. His father had said, on
one occasion: "The louder you sing, Cyrus, the less noise you make."
But music had always moved him, and in a singular way; much as many
others are affected, perhaps, but more profoundly. It touched strange
chords, deep within him. It inspired him, and seemed to bring a keener
edge to his capacity for pain or pleasure; lifting him, at times, far
away from himself, to a world where other people are not too real;
where beauty and virtue, power, glory and justice are at one's own
command. Music brought these things to Cyrus--also other things for
which a young man's soul is thirsting.
One evening in May there was a service in the church in which the
congregation--Cyrus included--had joined in the singing. After the
service he walked home alone. As he entered his own grounds the
music of the last hymn echoed in his brain. Still humming it, he
stopped and looked up at the stars. The solemn stillness of the night
brought memories of his father. And as he stood there, gazing at
the stars, he felt in the night air itself an unfamiliar element;
something that awakened within him emotions unrelated to his outward
senses. There was no moon, but from countless stars came flickering
beams--faint greetings from other worlds. He seemed alone in the Great
Silence--alone in the universe itself; in closer communion with hidden
things. From out the darkness, mingling with the silence, yet almost
silence itself, there came to him a breath--a murmur. It was not the
evening breeze among the branches of the maples. It was the gentlest
music, but not the echoes in his brain of the evening hymn. No--it
came from far away. It seemed personal--directed to himself. For a
time he stood without moving, every faculty alert. Not with his ears
did he listen, but with a deeper sense, as of one spirit striving for
communion with another. At last the music, the voice, the indefinable
melody died away, gently, into the silence of the night.
Patiently he waited. Then, after a time, when nothing came, he opened
his eyes and lowered his face. In the continued silence about him he
began to suspect that his own brain might have been deceiving him; that
the message was from his own imagination. And was it a message? It had
told him nothing. So far as he could divine it was a call--a prayer,
but clearly to himself. Still wondering, he entered the house, did his
customary little chores, then went upstairs to bed.
For a time he lay awake, thinking, but once asleep his sleep was sound.
From this sleep, however, he was awakened by what seemed a whispered
voice within the room. He sat up in his bed, and spoke.
"Who is it?"
Then came--as before, when he was standing beneath the stars--the
almost inaudible, far-away echo of a song. He listened, with every
sense alert. And, as before, it seemed addressed distinctly to
himself--an appeal to come. But where? So real was the entreaty that
he obeyed an impulse, arose from his bed and prepared to dress. As he
stood at his eastern window a few moments later, he heard again--or
thought he heard--the alluring voice.
A faint, cool light at the horizon was creeping slowly upward, along
the edges of the earth.
Yes, it came from off there. And he would follow it. Why not? His
father was gone. What held him in Longfields--or anywhere else?
Moreover, he had power to travel as was not given to other men.
Besides, it pleased him to believe in this need for himself, this call
to danger, death or sacrifice--or whatever it might be. To him it had
become a prayer from one soul to another. And he felt that he and the
other soul were not strangers.
So, an hour later, Cyrus in his machine rose high above the earth and
steered his course toward the spreading light in the East. Now it was a
warmer tint, and growing rosier as it spread.
Guided only by the rising sun and by some subtle sense which he did
not pretend to define, he sailed--or darted--over the waste of water
between Cape Cod and Portugal. Far below him, on this deep blue ocean,
specks were moving. Some were white; others darker, shedding smoke. But
all moved so slowly, compared with himself, that they seemed at anchor.
For, with him, any speed was possible and unfailing.
This was his first trip by daylight across the Atlantic. When out of
sight of land, with the level, dark blue line of the horizon on every
side, he began to have the same sensation as when flying through space;
a sensation of aimless wandering. Also, there being no land marks,
nothing by which to measure progress, he found his only way of gauging
speed was by the amount of electric power he applied to his machine.
He had, of course, the sun to go by: and he knew the difference in
time between Boston and Lisbon was about four hours. Six hours he had
allowed for reaching Europe but he was startled by the rapidity with
which the morning sun was sliding westward across the heavens. It
helped him to guess at his velocity when he found the morning sun had
become, somewhat suddenly, an afternoon sun, and was well behind him.
Across the ocean he shot his machine, more like a cannon ball than a
passenger craft. Over the first piece of land--which must be Spain--he
hovered a few minutes for a hasty lunch; also for a supply of fresh
air. His oxygen cylinder was so large and with such enormous pressure
to the square foot that with the attendant apparatus for supplying
breathable air it could keep him alive for several days. But now he
took good long breaths of the outer air as a matter of both economy and
luxury.
Then along the Northern end of the Mediterranean, still guided by Faith
alone for the spot whence came the summons.
Now Cyrus, in his knowledge of geography, was about like the rest of
us. He had learned it, but details were not fresh in his mind. The two
great islands off to his right he guessed were Corsica and Sardinia.
Over Northern Italy he sped, where local showers were hiding, for
a time, the land beneath. One city on the western coast, with its
countless canals, was unmistakably Venice. On he sped across the
upper end of the Adriatic--the narrow part. Here, as he approached
the eastern shore, guidance forsook him. He slowed his machine, then
stopped. Thus far his intuition, whether right or wrong, had led him
without wavering. Now, and suddenly, all guidance ceased--his intuition
vanished. A sudden need, he felt, for knowledge he did not possess.
A sense of helplessness came upon him, intensified, perhaps, by the
reaction from his previous confidence. In fear of straying from his
course he decided to alight. If fortune favored him the voice might
come again, and he could start afresh. So he descended, slowly, toward
the summit of a towering hill whose western sides were steep and
thickly wooded.
He landed in a cypress grove, beside a garden.
[Illustration]