The Wind Bloweth Part 19

"But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country--"

The intuition of seamanship. The flash. How modern! Oh, Paul lived in that sea. His ghost and memory were forever there, as were the ghosts of the Lion-heart; and of Sappho, singer of songs; and of the stout Phenician sailing men; and of the doges of Venice, lovers and husbands of the sea. On the tideless Mediterranean beauty still abided, as nowhere else; would abide, when nowhere else--

Would it, though? Would it abide anywhere? A pang came into Campbell's heart. Off Finisterre he had been pa.s.sed by Robert Steel of Greenock's _Falcon_, every sail drawing, skysails and moonrakers set, a pillar of white cloud she seemed, like some majestic womanhood. And while boats like the _Fiery Cross_ and the _Falcon_ tore along like greyhounds, there were building tubby iron boats to go by steam. The train was beating the post-chaise with its satiny horses, the train that went by coal one dug from the ground. And even now de Lesseps and his men were digging night and day that the steamboat might push the proud clipper from the seas. Queer! Would there come a day when no topgallants drew?

And the square-rigged ships would be like old crones gathering f.a.gots on an October day. And what would become of the men who built and mastered great racing ships? And would the sea itself permit vile iron and smudgy coal to speck its immaculate bosom? Must the sea, too, be tamed like a dancing bear for the men who are buying and selling? It seemed impossible.

But the shrewd men who trafficked said it must be so. They were spending their money on de Lesseps's fabulous scheme. And the shrewd men never spent money without a return. They would conquer.

Poor sea of the Vikings! Poor sea of the Lion-heart and of the Sappho of the songs! Poor sea of Admiral Columbus! Poor sea to whom Paul made obeisance! Sea of Drake and sea of Nelson, and sea of Philip of Spain.

Poor sea whom the great doges of Venice wed with a ring of gold! Christ!

If they could only bottle you, they would sell you like Holland gin!

-- 6

He had figured his work. He had figured his field. It seemed to him that this being done life should flow on evenly as a stream. But there were gaps of unhappiness that all the subtle sailing of a ship, all the commerce of the East, all the fighting of the gales could not fill.

Within him somewhere was a s.p.a.ce, in his heart, in his head, somewhere, a ring, a pit of emotion--how, where, why he could not express. It just existed. And this was filled at times with concentration on his work, at times with plans of the future and material memories of the past or thoughts of ancient shipmates, of his Uncle Robin. It was like a house, that s.p.a.ce was, with a strange division of time, that corresponded not with time of day, but with recurrent actions, memories, moods. There would be the bustle of his work, and that seemed to be morning. There would be the planning of future days, and that seemed like an afternoon, of sunshine; and there would be memories, as of old shipmates, as of Uncle Robin--G.o.d rest his dear soul; as of Alan Donn with his hearty cursing, his hearty laugh. And that was like an evening with golden candle-light and red fire burning. And then would come the quietness of night, all the bustle, all the plans, all the memories gone. The fire out, the rooms empty. And in the strange place somewhere within would come a strange lucidity, blue and cold and absolute as the stars, and into that place would walk, as players stalk upon the stage, each of three ghosts.

The first was his mother, who was dead, an apparition of chilling terror. From afar she beheld him with eyes that were queerly inimical.

She had done nothing to him, nor he anything to her. She had done nothing for him, nor he for her. Between them was nothing. When she had died he had felt nothing, and that was the tragedy. No tears, no relief, nothing. She had carried him in her womb, born him, suckled him; and he had always felt he had been unwelcome. There had been no hospitality in her body; just constraint. She had had no welcome for the little guest of G.o.d; her heart had been hard to him and he at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Nothing common to them in life, and now joined through the horrible significant gulf of death. She could be with him always now, being dead. But where a man's mother should come to him smilingly, with soft hands, with wisdom and comfort pa.s.sing that of life, she came with terrible empty eyes. He could see her gaunt profile, her black brows. She was like an engraving he had once seen of the witch Saul had used at En-dor, to call up Samuel, who was dead. She had the same awful majesty, the same utter loneliness.

"You gave me nothing in life. In death give me peace," he would cry. But she stayed until it suited her to go, as she would have done in life.

Her haunted, haunting eyes ...!

And there would come another ghost, the ghost of the girl he had married and he a boy--fourteen years ago. It was strange how he could remember her--her red hair, her sullen mouth, her suspicious eyes. Her shoulders drooped a little; there was no grace to her stance. She complained against something, but she did not accuse him. He had married her, and she had married him, and she had died. That was all there was to it. And though she had sorrowed his younger days, yet he felt very kindly to her. There she was, with her sullen mouth, her drooping shoulders, complaining. "Life is so short, and there was so little to it, and others have so much," she seemed to say. "I had a right to have my man and a place in the country, the like of other girls, but all I got was you. And death at the end of a short year. Wasn't it hard, och, wasn't it so!" And he had to comfort her. "It was n.o.body's fault, Moyra. It just happened. We were awfully young." But her lips were still sullen, her eyes suspicious as she went away. "A short life and a bitter one. A hard thing surely!" When she left him there was a sigh of relief. Poor girl!

And the third ghost was hardly a presence, but an absence, or a presence so intangible that it was worse than an absence. Claire-Anne, who was dead, whom he had--made dead, whom he had taken it upon himself to set free. For a year after he had left Ma.r.s.eilles she had seemed to be always with him, closer in spirit, now she was dead, than she had ever been in flesh and spirit when alive. A part of him she seemed always to be. Always there, in the quiet cabin, on the heeling decks, on the solid sh.o.r.e. And the long thoughts of him seemed to be conversation with her, on strange beautiful things, on strange terrible things, on the common commodity of life.... And then one day she left him....

He was coming into Southampton Water and waiting for the pilot's cutter from the Solent, one bright July morning. And all the Solent was dotted with sails, the snowy sails of great yachts and the cinnamon sails of small ones. Little fishing-craft prowled near the sh.o.r.e. And afar off, in fancy, he could see the troops of swans, and the stalking herons. The pilot's cutter plowed toward him, her deep forefoot dividing the water like a knife. Immense, vibrant beauty. And he felt, as always, that Claire-Anne was by him, her dark understanding presence, her clear Greek face, her little smile.

"In a minute now we will come into the wind and lower a boat, Claire-Anne." And a shock of surprise came over him. She was not there.

It was as though he had been talking with his back turned to some one, and turning around found they weren't there. For an instant he felt as if he had lost somebody overboard. And then it came to him that water, earth, material hazards were nothing to her any more. She had gone somewhere for a moment. And he turned to greet the pilot as he swung aboard.

"She will come back," he thought.... But she never came back. Once or twice or maybe three times, a month, six months, and ten months later, he felt her warm lover-like presence near him. "Claire-Anne! Is it you, Claire-Anne?" And she was gone again. Something that had hovered, fluttered, kissed, and flown away. Never again!

She had become to him in death much more real than she had ever been in life. In life she had been dynamic, a warm, multicolored, perfumed cloud. In death she was static. All the tumult of material things gone, he had a vision of her clear as a line drawing. And he had come to depend on her so much. In difficulty of thought he would say: "Is this right, Claire-Anne?" And her answer would come: "Yes, Shane!" Or possibly when some matter of trade or conduct seemed dubious, not quite--whatever it was, her voice would come clear as a bell. "You mustn't, Shane. It isn't right. It isn't like you to be small." It might have been conscience, but it sounded like Claire-Anne. And oftentimes in problems, she would say: "I don't know, Shane. I don't quite know." And he would say, "We must do our best, Claire-Anne."

Well, she was gone. And he thought to himself: What do we know of the destiny of the dead? They, too, must have work, missions to perform. The G.o.d he believed in--the wise, firm, and kindly G.o.d--might have said: "Claire-Anne, he'll be all right now. At any rate he'll have to work out the rest for himself. Leave that. I want you to--" And she had gone.

That was one majestic explanation, but at times it seemed to him that no matter what happened in the world, or superworld, yet she must be in touch with him. "Set me, as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm," cried the prince's daughter, "for love is strong as death." If she loved him she must love him still.

It suddenly occurred to him that the fault was not occult, but a matter of spiritual deterioration in himself. To be in harmony with the lonely dead there must be no dross about the mind. The preoccupations of routine, the occasional dislikes of some stupid ship's officer, or boatswain, the troubles about cargo--this, that, the other pettinesses might cloud his eye as a mist clouds a lens. There came to him the memory of a translation from some Chinese poet he had heard somewhere, in some connection:

How am I fallen from myself! For a long time now I have not seen the prince of Chang in my dreams.

He decided he would clear and make ready the quiet sweet place in his heart, the room of ghosts, so that she might come and dwell there. But induce the spiritual mood of the quiet October evening much as he could, yet she never came again.

From his mind now there faded the memory of her face, the memory of her hands, the memory of her voice even. With every week, with every month, with the year, she was gone. Like a lost thought, or a lost bar of music, she was gone. She had been there, but she was gone. The loss was a terrible one. To lose one who was alive was much. But to lose one who was dead was unbelievable, horrible ... to lose the sun ... forever....

He decided he could go back to the Prado of Ma.r.s.eilles, where first he had met her, where she would of all places have kept a tryst with him.

There was no risk. The folk of the sea come and go so easily, so invisibly, and French law bothers itself little about the killing of a woman of evil repute.... One of the risks of the trade, they would say.

Even had there been a risk he would have gone. He went.

It was a dark night, a night of wind with the waves lashing the sh.o.r.e. A night of all nights to keep a tryst with a dead woman. Immense privacy of darkness and howling winds and lashing waves. With awe he went there, as a shaken Catholic might enter a cathedral, dubious of the mystery of the eucharist, expecting some silent word, some invisible sign from the tabernacle.... He went with bowed head....

She never came.

He concentrated until all faded away, even the night, the wind, the insistent waters. He might have been standing on a solitary rock in an infinite dark sea, to which there was no sh.o.r.e. Asking, pleading, willing for her.... But she never came....

And it suddenly became inevitable to him that she would not come; and slowly, as a man comes slowly out of a drug into consciousness, he came back into the world of lights and laughter and sodden things. And turning on his heel without a look, he went away....

He never called to her again.... He thought over her often enough, and she had never been real, he decided. His mother and his wife had been real. They were their own dimensions. But she was something he had made in his head, as an author may create a character. She was a hallucination. And she had never been with him after death; that had been a mirage in the hinterland of the mind.

And he asked: Who was she, anyway? She was a woman who said she loved him, might even have believed it. Women under stress believe so many things. A little anger, a little pa.s.sion, a little melancholy, and things resolve themselves into so many differences of color and line.

And what standard of truth is there? Suppose he were to tell any man of the world of the occurrence, and to ask who she was, what she was, and what he had been to her. They would have said it was simple. She was a harlot of Ma.r.s.eilles, and he was her _amant de coeur_. But the beauty of it! he would have objected. All the beauty was in yourself. Or as they would have put it: All imagination!

What a snare it all was, and what was truth? How much better off a man was if he had never anything to do with them, and yet....

A world of men, there would be something lacking! Friends he had in plenty, men would help him, as a ship stands by another ship at sea.

Friends to talk to, of ships and sports, of ports and politics; but when one left them, one was left by one's self. And all the subtleties of mind came again like a cloud of wasps. To each man his own problem of living. To each man to decide his own escape from himself.

"And the Lord G.o.d said: It is not good that the man should be alone--"

the Hebrew chronicler had imagined. No, it was not good. It was terrible. After the day's work was done, after the pleasant evenings of friends, then came the terror of the shadows. Unreal they might be, but they hurt more than real things did. Unless one sank into the undignified oblivion of drink, there was no escape. Shadows came.

Acuter than the tick of a watch, they were there, the cold mother with the haunting eyes, the dead wife with the sullen mouth, visible as stars. And empty as air was the s.p.a.ce Claire-Anne should have occupied, with her clear-cut beautiful features, her understanding eyes. Three ghosts, and the ghost that was missing was the most terrible ghost of all ... He could not stand them any more.... He must not be alone....

-- 7

He could not marry a Christian of the East, they were such an unspeakably treacherous race. He could not marry a Jewess, for about each one of the nation there seemed to be an awesome destiny, a terrible doom or an ultimate majesty blinding human eyes; a wall, so high that it was terrible.... He could not marry a Moslem woman, for that would mean acceptance of Islam. And though Islam was very fine, very clean, and Campbell believed in resignation, and acknowledged there was no G.o.d but G.o.d, as the crypticism was, yet the Scots-Irish honesty of him would not accept Mohammed as the prophet of G.o.d. It would be like putting Bonaparte above the Lord Buddha. A faith is a very solemn thing and not to be approached lightly. To accept a faith publicly, the tongue in the cheek, was the sin of insincerity and rank dishonesty, having committed which no man should hold up his head. And moreover Moslem women were queer things. For centuries they had been held to be a little more beautiful than a flower, a little less valuable, less personal than a fine horse. Being told that for centuries, they had come to believe it, and believing one's self to be particular leads one to become it. Moslem women, no!

He had become familiar with the Druses around Beirut. There was something in the hard independent tribesmen that reminded him of the Ulster Scot. Aloof, unafraid, inimical, independent, with a strain of mysticism in them, they were somehow like the glensmen of Antrim. Fairly friendly with the Moslems, contemptuous of the Latin Christians, impatient of dogma, they might have been the Orangemen of Syria. Their emirs had a great dignity and a great simplicity, like an old-time Highland chief. They acknowledged G.o.d, but after that their faith ran into esoteric subtleties of nature-worship, which they kept to the initiates among themselves.... And the common run of them had strange legends, as that in a mountain bowl of China lived tribe on tribe of Druses, and that one day these of Syria and of China would be reunited and conquer the world.... They were very dignified men, and muscular....

Their women had the light feet of gazelles ... One only saw their sweet low foreheads, their cinnamon hands.... They claimed they were Christians sometimes, and other times they said they were Moslems, but the truth no stranger knew.... A secret sect, like the ancient a.s.sa.s.sins, who had the Old Man of the Mountain for their king.... With them dwelt beauty and terror and the glamour of hidden things....

To Shane they were very kindly. They recognized him for a mountain man born, and for an honest man. They could not understand him, as a Christian, seeing he took no part in Greek or Latin politics. They decided he must have some faith of his own.... He did them some kindness of errands, and they were very hospitable to him....

In '61, after the ma.s.sacres, when the tribesmen were preparing to retreat to the mountain of the Druses, he returned to find Syria occupied by the troops of Napoleon III and to hear that his friend Hamadj Beg of Deir el Kour was dead in the war.... He went to condole with the family.... Arif Bey, Hamadj's brother, was preparing to retreat toward Damascus....

"Arif Bey," Campbell suddenly said, "also this, I seek a wife."

"Yes." The grizzled Druse scratched his head, and looked at him keenly.

"I am making Lebanon my home; therefore I don't want a wife of my country. There is no people sib to me here but the Druse people....

Would a Druse woman marry me?"

"I--I see nothing against it."

"Do you know a Druse woman who would have me?"