The next evening Dylar came for Tacita and her friend to go with him and
hear a recitation of one of their story-tellers.
The place was a nook of the ravine leading to the kitchens, and was so
completely shut in by high rocks as to be quite secluded.
An irregular circle capable of admitting fifty persons had a shoal
alcove at one side, and all around it low benches on which were laid
thick straw mats stuffed with moss. In the alcove was a chair; and an
olive-oil lamp of four flames was set in a niche of the rock above.
These flames threw a strong, rich light on a score or two of men and
women in the circle, their faces shining out like medallions; but they
touched the man who sat in the chair only in some fugitive line on his
hair, or cheek, as he moved. His form was scarcely defined. He sat
there, a shadow, with his face bowed into his hands, splashes of black
and of gold all about him. He seemed to be waiting, and Dylar spoke.
“Here is one who waits to hear for the first time how Basil of the Dylar
lived and died.”
At that voice the story-teller lifted his face, rose, and having bowed
lowly, resumed his seat.
“How did Basil of the Dylar live and die!” he exclaimed. “Ask of the
poor and the sorrowing how he lived. Ask of the men and women who stood
at bay, facing a stupid and dastardly world. Ask, and they will answer
you: ‘He was a dove and a lion,—a dove to our hidden sorrow, a lion in
our defense.’ Ask of the heart bowed down with a sense of guilt so heavy
it fain would hide in the night, and follow it round the world; fly from
the light, and hide in the night forever around the world. They will
say, ‘Has the Christ come back? Can a mercy so overflowing be found in a
human soul?’ Ask of the children who clung to him when he stood white in
the gloaming. He was white, his hair and heard; his face and his robe,
they were white.
“The children coming from school cried out when they saw, and ran to
him. They ran, they flew, they clung around him like bees or
butterflies, joyous. They held the folds of his robe. They pressed to
hold his hand, and kissed it finger by finger.
“He lifted and tossed the smallest. ‘Reach up to heaven,’ he said, ‘and
pull me down a blessing. Stretch your innocent hands and gather it like
a star-blossom.’ And then would the little one, all wide-eyed, reach up
and wait till he said, ‘It is done!’
“‘How did the King come down?’ they asked him. ‘How was God made man?’
He answered them: ‘The sweetness of the Godhead dropped like honey from
a flower. The brightness of the Godhead fell like a star-beam from a
star.’
“And he would say to them: ‘Ask of your angels how God looks. How does
he smile and speak? For your angels, said the King’s Majesty, ever
behold his face. Mine has followed me out into a century’s shadows,
walked with me out through a century’s falling leaves. But ask your
angels to-night to whisper close to your pillow, or come in a dream and
tell you what are his hair and eyes, his voice and his smile. Ask one
time and ten times. Ask ten times and a thousand. Ask again till they
answer, “His face I behold no longer; for you are no longer a child.”’
“And then their mothers would hear them at night whispering on their
pillows.
“How did he die, our prince? How at last did we lose him?
“There was a thought that hovered, dove-like, over the people, that
Basil would stay till his coming, stay till the coming of Christ. It
hovered, coming and going, but never alighted in speech. Quieter grown,
but hale, he lived to a hundred years, lived in the midst of his people,
going no more abroad. He sat in the sun, or the shadow, judged, and
counseled, and pardoned, peacemaking, scattering blessings.
“But when, of the hundred years, the last few sands were sifting, he
girded him for a journey, and climbed the southern hills. After a week,
returning, ‘I bring you a message,’ he said, ‘from our ancient Mother,
the Earth.’
“He showed them a grain of gold as it comes up out of the mine, set in
the gray and white of a rock with clay in the crevices pressed. Pure and
sparkling it lay in its crude and worthless bed.
“Said Basil, ‘What pay you for bread? Is it dust? And for raiment, a
crumbling stone? For house and land, and a gift of love, do you offer
dust alone? A careless kiss is easy to give, and a careless word to say.
Will you fling your dust in the face of God? You have gold in your
hearts, my children. Cast your follies away like dust, and break your
pride like a stone. Dig for your gold, my children, says Earth, your
Mother. Deep in your hearts it lies hidden.’
“That gold that he brought is set at the foot of the throne, and the
words that he spoke there engraven:—
“‘Dig for your gold, my children, says Earth, your Mother. Deep in your
hearts it lies hidden.’
“He went to every house. Not a threshold but felt his footsteps.
Children passed by him in line for a touch of his hand, and old men
knelt for his blessing.
“He went to the house of the King, and walked with his head bent lowly,
walked to and fro in the rough new building, saying never a word. But,
standing without, he cried: ‘My heart for a step at the door! and my
soul for a lamp at the footstool!’
“He entered the dark ravine, he and the sun together. He was led by the
hand by a sunbeam over the stony way. He went to the place he had set
for the dead, where as yet no dead were sleeping. What he did, what he
said thenceforth, no creature knoweth.
“Basil, our prince, and the sun went to the ravine together. The sun
went in and came out; but Basil, our father, lingered. Twilight settled
and deepened; but Basil, the White Father, came not. The stars came out
in the night; the people gathered and waited. They whispered there in
the dark, and dared not search, nor question. They whispered and waited
and wept: ‘We shall nevermore behold him! He has bidden us all farewell,
and gone from our sight forever!’
“But at the dawn they said: Awake! Let us find him! Nor food nor drink
shall be ours till we know where his foot has faltered. Homes we have
none till Basil, our father, is found!
“The light was faint in the east; they could see but their own pale
faces. They entered, a crowd, the ravine; they covered its stones like a
torrent! Praying and weeping they went, but softly, not to disturb him.
“They reached the Mountain of Sleep that he had chosen to rest in. Only
one hall was finished, one bed made smooth for slumber. Basil, the
prince, was not there.
“But a lark sprang up outside, springing and soaring upward. They
followed his song and his flight; for he seemed heaven’s messenger to
them.
“They climbed the rough, steep rock; they wept no more, but they panted.
Wide and bright were their eyes with a solemn and high premonition. They
climbed to a verdant spot like an oasis in the granite.
“There, like a fountain of song, jetting and singing upward, climbing
from song to song, the larks were bursting and soaring out of the thick
fine grass all over-floated with blossoms.
“And, lo! a beam of the sun shot over the eastern mountains, touched the
grass where he lay, and seemed to say, Behold him! And beam after beam
shot over, seeming to say, We have found him! while the larks sang pæans
of joy.
“The people gathered around, and silently knelt in a circle; knelt, and
folded their hands, but wept not, spoke not, prayed not. Silent they
gazed and listened, as though on the threshold of heaven.
“There he lay, all white, in the hollow top of the mountain, straight
and peaceful and fair, his hands crossed on his bosom. All white, save
an azure glimmer seen ’twixt the snowy eyelids, he lay in the deep soft
grass with the lark-choir singing about him,—singing as if they saw the
dawn of the Resurrection.
“As they looked, his silvery whiteness grew bright in the sun of the
morning. Would he melt like frost, and exhale! Would he rise like a
cloud on the sunbeams!
“Thus stayed they an hour, the living as mute as the dead.
“Then one, not turning his eyes, spoke lowly: ‘He moves not, neither to
rise and speak, as we knew him; nor moves he to float away and be lost
in the air of the morning. Passive he lies, our prince, in a sweet
obedience to death. Passive and humble he lies, obeying the law of our
Maker. Is it not then that he waits for his people to bear him downward
where he has hollowed his bed, to his resting-place in the shadows?’
“Then said another lowly, his eyes still fixed on the dead: ‘Send we
messengers down to bring what is meet to bear him. And bring the
children to walk closest of all beside him. For their angels see the
face of the Heavenly Father.’
“Then he looked in their faces, and said: ‘We are fainting with thirst
and hunger. For a night and a day we have fasted and grieved and
searched. Let the strong among us bring bread and meat and a litter. I,
who am strong, will go.’
“So they went down, half a hundred, and brought a litter well woven,
hung on staves of ash wood strong and long and polished. They brought up
meat and drink; and the children, wondering, followed, knowing not what
death is, not being let to know. They gathered about him softly, seated
themselves in the grasses, decked their heads with the flowers. And in
the folded hands and on the pulseless bosom of Basil they warily slipped
sweet blossoms of white and blue.
“For the elders whispered them: ‘Hush! he is sleeping! Hush! he is
weary!’
“Then the people sat in a circle, and ate and drank in silence,
prayerful, as if they ate the Holy Bread of the altar. Ending, they rose
and gave thanks; and tender and reverent, laid their dead on the litter,
and took the staves on their shoulders.
“The children, wondering, ran, lifting questioning eyes, puzzled, but no
wise grieving, and clung to the edge of the litter. They were close to
his head and his feet, they pressed inside of the bearers, making a
flowery wreath all fluttering round his whiteness. And where a fold of
his garment wavered over the border, a dozen dimpled hands proudly bore
it along.
“So they went down the mountain, weeping, but not with sorrow. For they
felt a stir within them, a trembling, an unfolding, a lifting sense in
the temples, a glimmering sense of kindred to clouds where the sun is
calling the rainbow out of the rain.
“There was a woman among them, a singer of songs. Basil had named her
the Lark of San Salvador. As they went down, she made a song and sang
it; and to this day the song is sung by all the scattered children of
San Salvador. Later times have added penitence and supplication to the
one stanza that she sang to them that day. Our hymn suits the dark hours
of life: hers was all victory and exultation. She sang:—
‘San Salvador, San Salvador,
We live in thee!’
“While she sang, they laid him in the bed that he had chosen. And when
Dylar, the heir, came home to them, ‘You have done well!’ he said.
“Behold! Thus lived and died Prince Basil, the White Father of San
Salvador!”