 | XXVI.
ON THE CRAGS. Lucy Arlyn |  |
26. XXVI.
ON THE CRAGS.
THE news that Christina had overcome the doctor's
obstinacy, and brought him to terms, was
now rallying those who were interested in revelations
concerning the buried treasure. His house was thronged
by influential spiritualists, anxious to commence mining operations.
Plans were discussed, and lectures on the subject were
delivered by Franklin, Bonaparte, and other illustrious invisibles,
through the lips of persons still in the flesh.
From all this, however, Guy kept aloof, notwithstanding
that he was officially notified of the organization of a society,
called the “Order of Mount Ararat,” of which he was chosen
chief. He smiled at the doubtful honor conferred upon him,
which he neither accepted nor declined. He waited for some
decisive summons to action. And one day the summons
came. It was from Christina.
A morning of unusual splendor dawned. It was now October,
and the world was glorious in its autumnal dress. The
mountains gleamed in gold and purple. The heaped and
of fire. Wherever a sumach grew by a wall, a flaming
bush appeared. The russet boughs of the great oak, the magnificent
yellow elm, the brilliant burning foliage of the soft
maple, the rich orange tints of the sugar-maple, the gaudy
scarlet and crimson plumes of woody cliffs mirrored in waters
that slept like molten glass beneath them, — all these varieties
of color glowed in the haze of the valley, and robed in
more than Oriental pomp the farms, the roadsides, and the
shores of ponds.
Up through the gorge of the cascades Guy went with his
favorite hound. Above him hung the gorgeous awnings, whose
majestic supporters were the numberless columns of the trees.
Autumn had encamped with all her hosts among the mountains
and valleys; but here it seemed the queen herself had
pitched her tent over the musical and shining waterfalls.
Under the luxurious fluttering drapery, among the tall and
silent pillars, in the soft smoky light that filtered through the
festooned and many-tinted canopy from the golden urn of the
morning, the young man walked and mused.
On the brink of the misty cavern where his feet had been
washed by the hands of the seeress, and wiped with the hairs
of her head; at the grave of Martin, where he had witnessed
so impressive a manifestation of her mediumship, — he recalled
all the circumstances of that memorable afternoon; felt
once more the presence of spiritual powers overshadowing him,
and prayed to them for guidance in the hour which was now
at hand.
He had observed that Ranger picked up something near
the roots of a tree that overhung the cavern; but he had
been too much absorbed by other thoughts to give heed to the
occurrence. The dog still carried the thing in his mouth;
and now he came and dropped it on Martin's grave. Guy
took it up: it was a lady's glove. “It must be Christina's,”
he thought; and, putting it into his pocket, he commenced the
ascent of the mountain.
He soon struck a well-known path, a sort of rude stairway
worn in the steep side, among the roots and rocks. It wound
upwards through a dense growth of hemlocks and birches,
which became shorter and thinner as he proceeded; until, at
the end of a half-hour's toilsome climbing, only a few scattered
poplars and stunted pines remained, and he found himself on
the bald and battered skull of the mountain.
He looked around. Wonderful at any time was the view
from the summit, but surpassingly wonderful that calm October
day. Range beyond range of mountains was visible on
every side, as if the world were one tumultuous ocean, in the
midst of which, like an island in the blue main, swelled the
mountain on which he stood, with all its shaggy forests and
wild rocks.
The valley could not be seen from his position; and, to
obtain a view of it, he clambered over the ledges towards the
cliff which fronted the village. As he advanced, he saw standing
on a solitary crag a female figure. A narrow and perilous
ridge led to that lonely peak. On each side were chasms
lest a touch or a sudden start should cause the woman to
lose her balance and footing, he shouted to call him back.
At the sound of his voice, she turned and beckoned.
“Come!” rang her silver tones across the chasms. “There
is room for two.”
“But not for three. Go back, Ranger!”
Guy groped his way over the sharp edge of the crag, quickly,
but cautiously; climbed the jagged mass beyond, and
gained a footing by her side.
“Who else but you, Christina, would have been perched
up here alone?”
“Isn't it grand!” she said with a rapt smile. “One feels
as the eagle feels, —
Ringed with the azure world!'
Look!”
She advanced her foot. He clasped her arm with a cry.
The precipice over which jutted the crag was broken into
fangs and tusks immediately beneath them, on which a falling
body would have first been dashed, and then tossed sheer
from the cliff, down an almost perpendicular slant of mountain
wall; a distance so great, that the cataracts of stones, the
stupendous pyramidal ruins which deluged its lower side,
viewed from that height, appeared one crushed and crumbled
mass at the foot of the cliff.
“A step,” — she smiled seriously, — “it would take one
very, very far!”
“It would shoot your body down among the blocks of the
ice-caves where we hunted the bear; and it would whirl
your soul into infinity. One step!” repeated Guy. “And
who knows, Christina, but that which we are about to take is
just as momentous, and that we shall soon find ourselves flying
over invisible precipices? The soul hath perils as the
body hath.”
“Don't I know it? Didn't I once put, as I thought, my
best foot forward, to tread on solid happiness? walking blindly,
headlong, from one of those dreadful crags of life, — into
awful vacancy a moment,” — Christina shuddered; “then,
crash! I was shivered like an egg.”
“You fell — in love?” said Guy.
“I was — married!” said Christina with a spasm of
pain.
“You! — married! But you never told me! Who was
the happy man?”
“Happy? Do you think I could make a man happy?”
she asked bitterly.
“Intensely happy, or intensely miserable. You have a
fearful gift!” said Guy.
She smiled upon him strangely. “You shall know, some
day.”
“Who, then, is your friend, the tall gentleman? Not your
husband?”
“No!” exclaimed Christina. “Who he is you shall
know soon. He will open that mysteriously silent mouth of
his to-day. Well, how have you been?” And, without
waiting for an answer, she continued; “I was ill after I saw
you. That night with Doctor Biddikin was too much for
me.”
“That's what I am anxious to hear about. You broke his
shell?”
“Yes; though I'm afraid it wasn't of much use. I had
to pour out my life to float the wreck of his heart, and get it
off the terrible sand-bars; but it sinks again the moment I
withdraw my sympathy.”
She told her story. “One thing is gained, though, — the
treasure.”
“When we get it,” said Guy with a troubled smile.
“I have seen it just as distinctly as I saw Martin in his
grave; and it can just as easily be found, — if we have
faith.”
“I should be the last man to lack faith, after what I have
seen. I have come to-day to do the bidding of the powers
that are so much greater and wiser than we. Yet I have
misgivings.”
“Of what? That we shall fail? Then it will be failure
in a noble cause. That's better than success in a mean one.
And the experience — I am greedy of experience!” she
cried, with a wild fascination in her face. “To live, to act,
to feel, to burn with life, and not to be a vegetable, Guy
Bannington!”
He caught her enthusiasm; and for some minutes they
stood together, rapt and silent, regarding the sky, the crags,
and the magically colored picture of the valley outspread before
them, with its villages, forests, farms, and golden slopes.
“What,” then said Christina, “is the meaning of Satan's
taking Jesus up into a high mountain, and showing him the
kingdoms of the world?”
“At this moment I was thinking of it!” exclaimed Guy.
“Satan is the spirit of selfishness, which whispered its evil
suggestion even to the Son of man. From the height of his
divine power, he saw what earthly dominions might be gained
by using that power for earthly ends.”
“Are you and I proof against such temptation?” asked
Christina.
Her altered voice surprised him. Her countenance was
not less changed. He was about to speak; when, with one
of her impressive sibylline gestures, she motioned him to
retreat. He clambered back over the rocks. She followed,
stepping lightly and swiftly between the chasms like a somnambule,
or a creature with wings. He watched her breathlessly
until she reached his side.
“Go,” she then said. “The company will be waiting.
I have work to do. Give me your knife.”
She wandered along the verge of the cliff until she came
to some bushes that grew in the fissures. There she knelt.
He left her, and, returning towards the summit of the mountain,
soon reached the scene of Doctor Biddikin's money-digging.
A shaft forty feet in depth had been sunk in the solid
rock. It was now a cistern. A pool of black water filled the
Plutonic hole. Fragments of the old scaffolding floated on
the shining surface. A portable pump had its nose in the
seemingly bottomless pit. Around was the heaped litter of
the excavations; and, not far off, a ruined hut. A few
dwarfed spruces, quaintly overgrown with lichens, struggled
here and there for life in the craggy soil. All was silence
and desolation. Not an insect, not a bird: only the mountain-wind
blew over the dreary rocks.
Sheltered by a bank of splintered and pulverized stones,
Guy sat musing as he gazed at the unfathomable blackness of
the cavity. He saw the wretched ghosts of hopes drowned
therein, — the old, saddening story of delusion and despair
rehearsed before his eyes in that Stygian mirror, — and somewhat
bitterly smiled as he thought of himself resuming a forlorn
enterprise which had brought only ruin and ridicule to
all who had engaged in it.
He gazed until the snaky eye of the pool seemed to glitter
back at him with an infernal sort of fascination. He rose,
and cast a stone at it. A sullen wink, as the plashing missile
sunk; and the Cimmerian eye twinkled and leered, and
settled again into its sinister, snaky stare.
Just then, Ranger barked; and, looking round, Guy saw
looming up over the heap of excavations a stalwart nose, — the
facial forerunner of Mr. Murk, the philanthropist. It was
accompanied by the moony countenance and shaved forehead
black-haired woman of very singular appearance, — short,
swarthy, adipose, astonishingly furbelowed, and barbarously
jewelled.
“You know this sister, brother,” said Mr. Murk. The
moony countenance smiled. “This other is also a well-beloved
sister, — Mrs. John Smith, wife of Ex-Governor Smith.”
“Pocahontas,” thought Guy; almost fancying that some
Indian princess stood before him.
“And this, sister,” — wagging the Swedenborgian arm at
Guy, — “is our chief.”
Pocahontas penetrated the young man with her keen black
eyes, and said impressively that she could have picked him
out of ten thousand, as Joan of Arc, from among many, singled
out her king.
Guy, who was fast growing to think that there was something
remarkable about him, and to receive with gravity homage
which would lately have excited his derision, answered,
with becoming graciousness, that he was madam's very humble
servant.
“He who would be greatest among us must be our servant,”
observed the philanthropist. “Do you see the beautiful significance,
Sister Lingham? Ah! Sister Smith is under impression!
She is a very powerful trance-medium, brother!”
After a few nervous starts, the ex-governor's lady mounted
the mound of stones and baked mud, and commenced an
address. Her singular costume, her emphatic gestures, the
risible muscles to quivering under Guy's waistcoat. Her
oratory was also of a style to titillate the diaphragm; resembling
much her personal appearance in plumpness, swing, and
emphasis.
But, though amused, Guy was forced to admire. By disdaining
all artificial elegance of diction, and relying upon the
coarse vernacular, which she shaped like sand into rude
moulds for the flaming ore of her thought, she turned out
wonderful sentences; as round and solid, and full of vitality,
as herself. She pictured the condition of society, the misery,
the vice, the disease; the few fattening in idleness, the many
toiling and starving; the dishonesty of trade, which deals in
deceptive fabrics and poisoned food; avarice and passion, not
love and justice, ruling the actions of men and of nations;
the tears and aching hearts of the comfortless; the dead
churches and fossil religions; no practical Christianity anywhere;
proclaiming that already these corrupt elements were
beginning to dissolve, and to crystallize again, in new and
beautiful forms, about the doctrines of spiritualism. She
ended by affirming that the light which was to illumine the
world had its focus on this mountain, and that the high priest
of that light was this day to be ordained.
| XXVI.
ON THE CRAGS. Lucy Arlyn | |