Part 18

Argathona marvelled at his speech and at the strange things he told her, and though she did not fully understand the import of much that he said, she understood that he was good and that he meant her well. Then the old pope asked the pagan maiden what she thought to do when her lover came to her, and she answered him that she and her lover would live forever in the greenwood. Then the old pope raised his hand in warning, and his voice was sad and stern as he told her that this thing could not be. If her tale were true, and she were indeed one of the old people permitted by the providence of God to dwell undying upon earth, such grace was now given to none other in the world, so that within a little while her lover must needs die and she be left alone.

Now the renewal of this assurance stabbed at Argathona's heart, and she knelt at the old man's feet and besought him, asking if there were no way by which her gift of abiding youth and enduring life could be given to a mortal. Boniface answered her that there was no such way, though poets had dreamed of a fountain of youth which blessed those that drank with renewed youth and length of years. But no such fountain existed in the world. Then Argathona began to weep, remembering her mother's sorrow, and seeing its renewal for herself, and for the anguish in her eyes the solitary strove to comfort her.

"I cannot give your lover endless life in this world," he said; "but I can give you the life of a mortal, with its grace beyond the grave." When Argathona stared at him wide-eyed in wonder, he told her that if she would embrace the true faith and be baptized a Christian, in that moment her birthright of immortality would depart from her and her gift of endless youth, and she would become a mortal woman with all a woman's cares and sorrows and a woman's certain death. He told her that if she did this her beauty would fade from her year by year, and ugly age would creep upon her, with many aches and pains in its company, till her time came to pass away. Then he painted the joys of paradise, and the fellowship of the saints and angels, and the endless pleasure of the elect. But only by baptism and acceptation of the burden of death could she hope to be happy with her lover, here for a little while, and hereafter forever.

Argathona mused a little while nursing her chin in the hollow of her hand, and after musing rose and thanked the anchorite gravely and discreetly for what he had told her, and so bade him farewell.

"I will abide for a while in my forest," she said, "and think upon these things that you have told me, and if it prove that my spirit shall see with your eyes, and my heart shall speak with your voice, then I will come to you again."

So she rose and went her way up the mountain path into the forest, and the old pope knelt at the feet of the Crucified and prayed.

XXVII

THE DREAM OF ARGATHONA

When Argathona left the ancient and pursued her homeward path, the fervor of the day was on the wane, and the sky flamed as with the conflagration of a hero's funeral pyre. The west was a medley of reds and yellows, peach color, gold color, rose color, copper color, orange color. All the splendid metals fused in that limbec; all the luxurious fruits and flowers wantoned in that garden. The sun had fallen behind the dark clouds that girdled the horizon; he had vanished as a king might vanish through dark, swiftly falling curtains, but his glittering retinue still lingered in the Occidental antechamber, brilliant in the liveries of their imperious king. High in heaven the moon swam in a space of unnamable, unthinkable sweetness; it was no more than a half moon, and showed like a shield held sideways when a knight rides down the lists. Far away the sea slumbered, steel-blue like a knight's sword, and its large, noiseless waves suggested the easy breathing of some fearful force asleep, and sleeping, lovely in its peace.

Argathona paused on the crest of a ridge and gazed in adoration at the majesty of the dusk. It seemed to her as if she could never weary of looking on such loveliness, and her heart grew cold at the new turn of her thoughts. Must she, indeed, set a term to her delight in life, to the joy of the dawn and the noon and the even and the night, joys renewable to her for ever and ever? She could not understand what it meant to say farewell to the sunlight and the moonlight and the stars, to be no longer a child of the bright earth, to fade away as her mother's essence had faded away, to live and love, and then, in a breath, to live and love no more. Faces of fear seemed to gibber at her through the tree-trunks, the hands of anguish seemed to clasp at her throat as if to strangle her; for the first time she felt and trembled at the horror of the forest. With a cry of pain she turned from the sunset and plunged into the wood, and made for her resting-place in the heart of the groves. There she flung herself upon the turf, and above her the sky was gray with stars, and, sobbing, she sought and found sleep.

So Argathona lay asleep in the greenwood, and for a wonder Argathona dreamed a dream. She knew in her sleep that she was in the spot where she lay, in that hollow place in the heart of the old forest where always, since her babyhood, she had loved best to linger. Here in the summer days it was sweet to lie awake and see the sunbeams dapple the grass with shadows, or to be lulled to slumber by the droning of the bees. Here in the summer nights it was sweet to lie awake and peep through the branches at the stars, or to be guided by the silence into the region of sleep. But now, in this unwonted dream of hers, she thought that all the winds of all the world were blowing softly through the lanes and alleys and avenues of the wood, and she believed that she, sleeping, stirred in her sleep to hear, and as she hearkened, it was as if the wailings of the winds grew stronger, till they took the tone of many differing sounds, as the beating of the wings of monstrous birds, and the galloping of huge horses, and the straining of great sails at sea. And as she, in her vision, lay and listened to the cunning of the wind, she was made aware that the place where she rested shone with a marvel of faces that she had not seen since she was a dryad child, and she felt that her wood was peopled once again with the presences of the gods of Greece.

She saw them all about her, between the trees and upon the grass, moving upon her like a circle of flakes of white fire, and at first the phantasms seemed to flicker as flame does, inclining this way and that, waxing and waning, but ever coming closer. Suddenly they stood very still, and it was as if she saw clearer and the flamy shapes took substance, and she knew that she was surrounded by the company of the Olympians, and that they showed as she had seen them long ago in her babyhood ere they rode to the hollow land.

Now while Argathona gazed in awe at the celestials, it appeared to her in her vision that behind these mightiest there congregated a throng of forms filling all the spaces of the wood as far as she could see, and she knew these to be the fellowship of the ancient faith. There clustered the lesser gods, the domestic gods, and the sylvan gods, the divinities of winds and clouds and waters, the beautiful sisters of the dooms and the seasons, and the charities and the arts, and the grim deities of the underworld, and the uncouth creatures that dwelled beyond the realm of night, and the demi-gods, that were men and were uplifted. Argathona beheld them all in a single glance, for all their number, each one individual and familiar, as if no other godlike thing waited there and watched in the moonlight, and yet they blended together even as the moonbeams blended. And now she thought as she lay there, sleeping yet waking, that the eyes of all the Olympians, and the eyes of the myriads beyond, were fixed upon her with a look of entreaty and a look of grief. And the ears of her sleep were quickened, and she heard the eternals speak to her one after one.

The first to speak was Zeus, the all-father, launcher of the levin. His hair was wreathed with a chaplet of oak-leaves, and his right hand grasped a staff upon whose head an eagle perched that fluttered its wings as if about to fly and stared around with fierce, unblinking eyes. And Zeus, the commander of the clouds and the tyrant of the thunder, spoke to Argathona, and said:

"Deathless daughter of a divine mother, do not desert your mother's people and your birthright, the gift of your kin. For though we no longer abide in Greece, you remain, and we may yet return. Wherefore be faithful to the old faith of the fruitful earth and await the coming of your kindred."

So Zeus, the all-father, spoke, and his face was compassionate and sad, and the eagle craned its head towards the sleeping girl and clapped its angry wings. The next to speak was Hera, consort of the monarch of the gods. She wore a queenly crown, and on the ball of her sceptre a cuckoo sat and preened its yellow plumes. And Hera spoke to Argathona, and said:

"Daughter of the consecrated forest, do not abandon its sanctuary at the call of a mortal for a mortal's god. That which has gone may come again, and if the time of our triumph arrive we should weep, indeed, were Argathona not here to welcome us."

And so she made silence, and the restless cuckoo cried its cry while the wife of the high-minded drew her veil about her face. And the next to speak was Poseidon, the sovereign of the sea, and Poseidon leaned upon his trident, and his voice was as the lapping of waves in a sunny bay.

"These plead for the fruitful earth. I plead for the fruitless sea. Fair as a maiden in its grace, fierce as a mænad in its rage. Unchanging, ever-changing, pitiful and pitiless, kind and cruel, ceaselessly beautiful. Surely you will not surrender companionship with the sight and the sound and the savor of the sea."

So Poseidon spoke, arrogant, and was silent, and it seemed to the sleeper that from afar, from the side of the sea, there rose unearthly music as from the breath of the sea-people blown through the curling conch. And the next to speak was the divine one with the crested head, she that carries a lance and bears the face of Medusa on her shield, Pallas Athena, protector of Athens. A wise owl rode on her shoulder and made as if it whispered in her ear. And Pallas Athena spoke to Argathona, and said:

"It is better to be wise in the wisdom of the woodlands than wise in the wisdom of mortals, for mortal man is born to trouble, and mortal woman is born to travail, and the life of each is like the puff of breath that an infant spends in a cry. The child of the wildwood lives idly, divinely, knowing neither cark nor care, and day succeeds day, delicious, and shall succeed till the new order changes and the gods return again."

And so she was silent, and the owl on her shoulder ruffled its neck-feathers and winked its eyes benignly at the sleeping child. And the next to speak was Hermes, the subtle contriver, the crafty, with the living wings upon his heels and the twisting snakes upon his staff, and he spoke to Argathona, and his voice entreated wheedlingly, and it had the persuasion of music rippling from the stringed shell of the tortoise. And Hermes spoke to her, and said:

"My kinswoman, put no faith in the words of man, for the lips that praised us yesterday praise another lord to-day, and who knows what such fluctuant minds may praise to-morrow. Mortal man is guileful and his speech is a snare, but thou, being warned, be wily and deny him and let him die."

So he spoke and was silent, and the wings on his heels ceased to quiver and the snakes stiffened about his rod. Then the girl-goddess Artemis glided over the grass, short-kirtled, the comely huntress, with her bow and arrows upon her, and some stray locks of her pale hair floating on her neck. And Artemis spoke to Argathona as she slept, and said:

"Sweet sister, living the life I loved to live in the dear woodways with the citizens of the wood, take heed to my speech and be cheered. Shun the love of mortal, for your lover will die as Endymion died, and you will remember him for a while and weep, as I remembered and wept for Endymion. But time can sweeten the grief that wrings for a season the deathless heart, wherefore be wise with time betimes, and abide our coming though it be long delayed; for while you wait you have endless pleasure in the changing days and the shifting seasons and the swelling years, in the sunshine and the moonshine and the shining of the stars."

So she spoke and was silent, and the night wind fluttered the fair curls upon her nape and the silver gray folds about her knees. Then the effulgent, the sun-god, moved from his fellows, Phœbus Apollo, with his lyre cradled in his left arm, and his right hand touched the strings, and what he spoke he seemed to sing, and his song was as the song of the wandering stars in heaven. And he spoke to Argathona, and said:

"Daughter of the gods, the gods forbid your unfaith. To be of us once is to be of us forever, and, though we linger in the hollow land, we are still the celestials, and still we desire the remembrance and the fidelity of our kin. It is nobler to hold to our memory than to surrender us for a mortal and a mortal's melancholy god. Wait in the greenwood, watch with the ancient faith, patient in the knowledge of endless youth."

So he was silent, and the sunlight of his words seemed to race all over her body and thread her veins with fire. And thereafter it seemed to Argathona, in her slumber, that god spoke after god innumerable, beautiful gods and grotesque gods in their attributes of benignant or terrible divinity, each appealing to her, or commanding her to stay with the ancient faith, and to shut her heart against the sons of men and the Son of Man. Their voices were eloquent as the rustling of leaves in the forest or the crisping of waves on the shore, so that she could have been content to rest there and to listen to them in gladness through the revolving years.

When it seemed to her that all had spoken, came from that fair company the fairest of them all, Aphrodite, the incomparable, lovelier than all women, loveliest of all goddesses, with her gray doves fluttering about her naked body, and as she moved across the grass red roses burgeoned at her feet. Aphrodite came very nigh to the sleeping dryad, and her eyes were shining with the passion and compassion of love, and her voice was wooing and winning with a music unheard out of dreams. Aphrodite spoke, and said:

"Argathona, I pity you, and I know not what to say, for I, like you, have known what it is to love a mortal, and in very truth I think it were better to love a mortal than never to know the meaning of love. Love, then, this mortal and let him die divinely, having kissed immortal lips and clasped immortal beauty. And when he is but as the dust of yesterday, there will still be comely mortals to love, and you can quench your passing hours of sorrow with golden years of joy. But do not forsake the old faith for the new god, for he that is by my side is still the greatest god in the world, and ever the master of mortal men."

As she spoke, Aphrodite moved a little ways and gave place, and Argathona saw the form and face of a beautiful, silent youth, and his countenance was grave and glorious, and Argathona beheld undazzled the splendor of the godhead of Eros. Eros spoke no word, but he lifted up his hands as if at once in blessing and command, and at that look and sign Argathona's heart seemed to melt within her and to need no other entreaties. But even then there loomed a mighty figure from the forest, making his way through the shining ranks of the divine, a shaggy, puck-nosed giant, with little horns sprouting from his forehead through his tangle of savage curls, and though he was made like a man-god he ran on goat shanks, and he held in his hand a strange pipe, framed of many pieces of reed of different measure bound together by withies. In his presence the other gods appeared to fade and show faint, and the power of the new-comer seemed to inform all the forest and to overshadow all the world.

Pan spoke no word as he fixed his fierce, friendly eyes upon Argathona, but he set his thick lips to the rims of his reeds and blew down them, and his breath made such melody in their channels as Argathona ached with fear and longing to hear, and all the other gods stood spellbound. The piper piped of the red earth and the green grass and the blue sky and the yellow corn, of the straight passions and the simple pleasures of men, of love and pursuit and triumph, of hunger with meat a-nigh, of thirst with the wine-skin between the fingers, of sleep and waking, of jollity and horror, the mirth and the fear of things. He piped of the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, the humming of bees and the buzzing of flies, the flowing of streams and the growing of flowers, the singing of shepherds and the dancing of the nymphs upon the green. He piped till his piping came to a burden, and the burden of his piping seemed to be, "Keep the Faith."

Then all the Olympians cried out in chorus: "Wait, watch, keep the faith." And behind the circle of the greater gods all that populous multitude of the lesser gods took up the call and voiced it, ringing through the forest and filling the sky, and stretching to the ends of the world: "Watch, wait, keep the faith."

And with that cry there arose again the sound of the beating of wings and the trampling of horses and the straining of sails and the wailing of great winds, and then in a breath the Olympians vanished, the vision faded, and Argathona awoke in the strong morning sunshine to find her lover looking down upon her.

XXVIII

LOVER AND LASS

When Simon carried Rainouart senseless out of the slough where his comrades perished, he made as hard as his horse could fare on the way to the Eleusinian wood. While the flying forces of the dead duke kept on the main way to Athens, he sought to strike a trail that would lead him more directly to his goal, and, ignorant though he was of the country in which he found himself, the native sense of a war-worn campaigner, acting like a kind of instinct, guided him aright. But the business was slow, first from the unfamiliarity of the region and next from the fact that the good horse could go at no continuance of a steady pace with two heavy men upon his back. Indeed, when they came to the mountainous places, there was much picking of the way and no little stumbling and sliding in the act. So that it happened that the May daylight was fairly spent before Simon felt confident that he was well within the precincts of the Eleusinian wood, and that the purpose of his journey was so far accomplished.

He had been too much occupied for thought of other matter than escape from danger up to this moment, but now, when so many leagues lay behind him and the bloody swamp, now, when what pursuit must have been was afoot in quite another direction on the heels of the Athenian army, Simon decided that the time had come to rest awhile and to consider the case of the young prince, who still lay inanimate before him. Reining his steed, he dismounted. Then, still holding the bridle of the horse, he lifted Rainouart from the saddle and carried him with little difficulty to a shady place a little way removed from the narrow track they had for some time been following. Here Simon laid the unconscious youth on his back beneath a tree, and tethered the horse to another at a little distance.

Now Simon felt very keenly the wisdom of that provision of wine and victual which he had made before riding from Athens, and which he had the presence of mind to preserve in the midst of all the agony of the murderous slough. Unstopping his flagon, he parted Rainouart's lips with the gentle firmness of a strong, sure hand, and tilted some of the red liquor down his companion's throat. After a little while Rainouart began to show signs of returning consciousness. The color rekindled in his cheeks, his lips began to move to a more easy breathing, and presently he opened his eyes with a sigh, and looked around him with the dazed regard of those that wake from sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. Soon his wandering regard fixed itself on the face of Simon, who was looking steadily at him, and, recognizing a known countenance, Rainouart struggled to a sitting posture and clapped his hands to his humming head.

"What are you staring at me for?" he asked first, fretfully. Then, as he glanced about him and saw the carpet of grass that he lay on and the thicket of trees that encompassed him, he continued in amazement, "Where, in Heaven's name, are we?"

To this question Simon answered, solemnly, "In safety, thanks be to Heaven."

Rainouart, with his wits still wool-gathering, wondered. "Safety from what?" Then, suddenly, memory swooped back into her temple, and the young man sprang to his feet swiftly and advanced upon Simon.

"Where are the rest of us? Where is the duke? Where are my comrades?"

To the which hot questions Simon could do no more than render cold answer.

"I hope their souls are in paradise by now, for, indeed, their bodies are no longer quick, and we are the leave of that fellowship."