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Page 48
So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness began
to steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries across
the deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chill
mist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom.
Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped my
oars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, and
screening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would be
moving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell
asleep.
I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the sound
of voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance
unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with
eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and
still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before
me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone
house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed
upon the cliff by the waterside.
All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had
descended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; the
white dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in the
thick arbours.
I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright and
burning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlasting
shadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of
keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry woke
many, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness.
How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers as
thick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vague
fashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to this
same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life?
I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath the
reflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadow
might be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from all
land its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, and
these were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the little
arches.
So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirring
groves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villa
on the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin,
the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orange
trees, with their unripe fruit upon them.
But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking the
sea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green,
unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossing
above the yellow sands.
Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approaching
and the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were now
regarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet.
"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man so
softly?"
Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade!
I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled the
deeper out of her baffling eyes.
"If you could guess," she said presently, "how my heart leapt in me,
as if, poor creature, any oars of earth could bring it ease, you would
think me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream,
Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of the
Greeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, is
the world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet that
madness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued race
sleep at last, nodding no more at me?"
I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, that
earth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And the
madness mirth calls Life flickers yet," I said; "and the little race
tosses on in nightmare."
"Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' tales. I too once trusted
to seem indifferent. But you, if shadow deceives me not, may yet
return: I, only to the shades whence earth draws me. Meanwhile," she
said, looking softly at the fountain playing in the clear gloom
beyond, "rest and grow weary again, for there flock more questions to
my tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The gardens are green with
flowers, Traveller; let us talk where rosemary blows."
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