IN THE DARK.
There is not one upon life's weariest way,
Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.
SWINBURNE.
The grim sentinels by the pathway, who had been so reluctant to let
Cecil pass the day before, were still more reluctant this evening. One
of them planted himself in the trail directly in front of Cecil, and
did not offer to let him go on, but stood sullenly blocking the way.
Cecil touched the warrior's arm and bade him stand aside. For an
instant it seemed that he would refuse, but his superstitious respect
for the white _tomanowos_ overcame his obstinacy,--and he stepped
unwillingly back.
But as Cecil went on he felt, and felt rightly, that they would not
let him pass again,--that the last act, be it what it might, in his
love drama, was drawing to a close.
A few moments' walk, and he saw in the dark the little figure awaiting
him under the trees. She came slowly forward to meet him. He saw that
her face was very pale, her eyes large and full of woe. She gave him
her hands; they felt like ice. He bent over her and kissed her with
quivering lips.
"Poor child," he said, putting his arms around her slender form and
drawing it close in his embrace, "how can I ever tell you what I have
to tell you to-night!"
She did not respond to his caress. At length, looking up in a
lifeless, stricken way, she spoke in a mechanical voice, a voice that
did not sound like her own,--
"I know it already. My father came and told me that to-morrow I
must--" She shuddered; her voice broke; then she threw her arms around
his neck and clung to him passionately. "But they can never tear me
away from you; never, never!"
How could he tell her that he came to put her away from him, that he
came to bid her farewell? He clasped her the tighter in his arms. For
an instant his mind swept all the chances of flight with her, only to
realize their utter hopelessness; then he remembered that even to
think of such a thing was treachery to the resolves he had just made.
He shook from head to foot with stormy emotion.
She lifted her head from his breast, where it was pillowed.
"Let us get horses or a canoe, and fly to-night to the desert or the
sea,--anywhere, anywhere, only to be away from here! Let us take the
trail you came on, and find our way to your people."
"Alas," replied Cecil, "how could we escape? Every tribe, far and
near, is tributary to your father. The runners would rouse them as
soon as we were missed. The swiftest riders would be on our trail;
ambuscades would lurk for us in every thicket; we could never escape;
and even if we should, a whole continent swarming with wild tribes
lies between us and my land."
She looked at him in anguish, with dim eyes, and her arms slipped from
around his neck.
"Do you no longer love Wallulah? Something tells me that you would not
wish to fly with me, even if we could escape. There is something you
have not told me."
Clasping her closely to him, he told her how he felt it was the will
of God that they must part. God had sent him on a sacred mission, and
he dared not turn aside. Either her love or the redemption of the
tribes of the Wauna must be given up; and for their sake love must be
sacrificed.
"To-day God took away the words from my lips and the spirit from my
heart. My soul was lead. I felt like one accursed. Then it came to me
that it was because I turned aside from my mission to love you. We
must part. Our ways diverge. I must walk my own pathway alone
wheresoever it leads me. God commands, and I must obey."
The old rapt look came back, the old set, determined expression which
showed that that delicate organization could grow as strong as granite
in its power to endure.
Wallulah shrank away from him, and strove to free herself from his
embrace.
"Let me go," she said, in a low, stifled tone. "Oh, if I could only
die!"
But he held her close, almost crushing the delicate form against his
breast. She felt his heart beat deeply and painfully against her own,
and in some way it came to her that every throb was agony, that he was
in the extremity of mental and physical suffering.
"God help me!" he said; "how can I give you up?"
She realized by woman's intuition that his whole soul was wrung with
pain, with an agony darker and bitterer than her own; and the
exceeding greatness of his suffering gave her strength. A sudden
revulsion of feeling affected her. She looked up at him with infinite
tenderness.
"I wish I could take all the pain away from you and bear it myself."
"It is God's will; we must submit to it."
"His will!" Her voice was full of rebellion. "Why does he give us such
bitter suffering? Doesn't he care? I thought once that God was good,
but it is all dark now."
"Hush, you must not think so. After all, it will be only a little
while till we meet in heaven, and there no one can take you from me."
"Heaven is so far off. The present is all that I can see, and it is as
black as death. Death! it would be sweet to die now with your arms
around me; but to _live_ year after year with him! How can I go to
him, now that I have known you? How can I bear his presence, his
touch?"
She shuddered there in Cecil's arms. All her being shrunk in
repugnance at the thought of Snoqualmie.
"Thank God for death!" said Cecil, brokenly.
"It is so long to wait," she murmured, "and I am so young and
strong."
His kisses fell on cheek and brow. She drew down his head and put her
cheek against his and clung to him as if she would never let him go.
It was a strange scene, the mournful parting of the lovers in the
gloom of the forest and the night. To the east, through the black
net-work of leaves and branches, a dull red glow marked the crater of
Mount Hood, and its intermittent roar came to them through the
silence. It was a night of mystery and horror,--a fitting night for
their tragedy of love and woe. The gloom and terror of their
surroundings seemed to throw a supernatural shadow over their
farewell.
"The burning mountain is angry to-night," said Wallulah, at last.
"Would that it might cover us up with its ashes and stones, as the
Indians say it once did two lovers back in the old time."
"Alas, death never comes to those who wish for it. When the grace and
sweetness are all fled from our lives, and we would be glad to lie
down in the grave and be at rest, then it is that we must go on
living. Now I must go. The longer we delay our parting the harder it
will be."
"Not yet, not yet!" cried Wallulah. "Think how long I must be
alone,--always alone until I die."
"God help us!" said Cecil, setting his teeth. "I will dash my mission
to the winds and fly with you. What if God does forsake us, and our
souls are lost! I would rather be in the outer darkness with you than
in heaven without you."
His resolution had given way at last. But in such cases, is it not
always the woman that is strongest?
"No," she said, "you told me that your God would forsake you if you
did. It must not be."
She withdrew herself from his arms and stood looking at him. He saw in
the moonlight that her pale tear-stained face had upon it a sorrowful
resignation, a mournful strength, born of very hopelessness.
"God keep you, Wallulah!" murmured Cecil, brokenly. "If I could only
feel that he would shelter and shield you!"
"That may be as it will," replied the sweet, patient lips. "I do not
know. I shut my eyes to the future. I only want to take myself away
from you, so that your God will not be angry with you. Up there," she
said, pointing, "I will meet you sometime and be with you forever. God
will not be angry then. Now farewell."
He advanced with outstretched arms. She motioned him back.
"It will make it harder," she said.
For a moment she looked into his eyes, her own dark, dilated, full of
love and sadness; for a moment all that was within him thrilled to the
passionate, yearning tenderness of her gaze; then she turned and went
away without a word.
He could not bear to see her go, and yet he knew it must end thus; he
dared not follow her or call her back. But so intense was his desire
for her to return, so vehemently did his life cry out after her, that
for an instant it seemed to him he _had_ called out, "Come back! come
back!" The cry rose to his lips; but he set his teeth and held it
back. They _must_ part; was it not God's will? The old pain at his
heart returned, a faintness was on him, and he reeled to the ground.
Could it be that her spirit felt that unuttered cry, and that it
brought her back? Be this as it may, while he was recovering from his
deadly swoon he dimly felt her presence beside him, and the soft cool
touch of her fingers on his brow. Then--or did he imagine it?--her
lips, cold as those of the dead, touched his own. But when
consciousness entirely returned, he was alone in the forest.
Blind, dizzy, staggering with weakness, he found his way to the camp.
Suddenly, as he drew near it he felt the earth sway and move beneath
him like a living thing. He caught hold of a tree to escape being
thrown to the ground. There came an awful burst of flame from Mount
Hood. Burning cinders and scoria lit up the eastern horizon like a
fountain of fire. Then down from the great canyon of the Columbia,
from the heart of the Cascade Range, broke a mighty thundering sound,
as if half a mountain had fallen. Drowning for a moment the roar of
the volcano, the deep echo rolled from crag to crag, from hill to
hill. A wild chorus of outcries rang from the startled camp,--the
fierce, wild cry of many tribes mad with fear yet breathing forth
tremulous defiance, the cry of human dread mingling with the last
echoes of that mysterious crash.