The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel

  _Fourteen_

  LOVE

  The rain was sweeping down in great thick winding sheets. The windscreamed in the ancient Cresswell oaks and swirled across the swamp inloud, wild gusts. The waters roared and gurgled in the streams, andalong the roadside. Then, when the wind fell murmuring away, the cloudsgrew blacker and blacker and rain in long slim columns fell straightfrom Heaven to earth digging itself into the land and throwing back thered mud in angry flashes.

  So it rained for one long week, and so for seven endless days Bleswatched it with leaden heart. He knew the Silver Fleece--his andZora's--must be ruined. It was the first great sorrow of his life; itwas not so much the loss of the cotton itself--but the fantasy, thehopes, the dreams built around it. If it failed, would not they fail?Was not this angry beating rain, this dull spiritless drizzle, this wildwar of air and earth, but foretaste and prophecy of ruin anddiscouragement, of the utter futility of striving? But if his owndespair was great his pain at the plight of Zora made it almostunbearable. He did not see her in these seven days. He pictured herhuddled there in the swamp in the cheerless leaky cabin with worse thanno companions. Ah! the swamp, the cruel swamp! It was a fearful place inthe rain. Its oozing mud and fetid vapors, its clinging slimydraperies,--how they twined about the bones of its victims and chilledtheir hearts. Yet here his Zora,--his poor disappointed child--wasimprisoned.

  Child? He had always called her child--but now in the inwardillumination of these dark days he knew her as neither child nor sisternor friend, but as the One Woman. The revelation of his love lighted andbrightened slowly till it flamed like a sunrise over him and left him inburning wonder. He panted to know if she, too, knew, or knew and carednot, or cared and knew not. She was so strange and human a creature. Toher all things meant something--nothing was aimless, nothing merelyhappened. Was this rain beating down and back her love for him, or hadshe never loved? He walked his room, gripping his hands, peering throughthe misty windows toward the swamp--rain, rain, rain, nothing but rain.The world was water veiled in mists.

  Then of a sudden, at midday, the sun shot out, hot and still; no breathof air stirred; the sky was like blue steel; the earth steamed. Blesrushed to the edge of the swamp and stood there irresolute. Perhaps--ifthe water had but drained from the cotton!--it was so strong and tall!But, pshaw! Where was the use of imagining? The lagoon had been levelwith the dykes a week ago; and now? He could almost see the beautifulSilver Fleece, bedraggled, drowned, and rolling beneath the black lakeof slime. He went back to his work, but early in the morning the thoughtof it lured him again. He must at least see the grave of his hope andZora's, and out of it resurrect new love and strength.

  Perhaps she, too, might be there, waiting, weeping. He started at thethought. He hurried forth sadly. The rain-drops were still dripping andgleaming from the trees, flashing back the heavy yellow sunlight. Hesplashed and stamped along, farther and farther onward until he nearedthe rampart of the clearing, and put foot upon the tree-bridge. Then helooked down. The lagoon was dry. He stood a moment bewildered, thenturned and rushed upon the island. A great sheet of dazzling sunlightswept the place, and beneath lay a mighty mass of olive green, thick,tall, wet, and willowy. The squares of cotton, sharp-edged, heavy, werejust about to burst to bolls! And underneath, the land lay carefullydrained and black! For one long moment he paused, stupid, agape withutter amazement, then leaned dizzily against a tree.

  The swamp, the eternal swamp, had been drained in its deepest fastness;but, how?--how? He gazed about, perplexed, astonished. What a field ofcotton! what a marvellous field! But how had it been saved?

  He skirted the island slowly, stopping near Zora's oak. Here lay thereading of the riddle: with infinite work and pain, some one had dug acanal from the lagoon to the creek, into which the former had drained bya long and crooked way, thus allowing it to empty directly. The canalwent straight, a hundred yards through stubborn soil, and it was oozingnow with slimy waters.

  He sat down weak, bewildered, and one thought was uppermost--Zora! Andwith the thought came a low moan of pain. He wheeled and leapt towardthe dripping shelter in the tree. There she lay--wet, bedraggled,motionless, gray-pallid beneath her dark-drawn skin, her burning eyessearching restlessly for some lost thing, her lips a-moaning.

  In dumb despair he dropped beside her and gathered her in his arms. Theearth staggered beneath him as he stumbled on; the mud splashed andsunlight glistened; he saw long snakes slithering across his path andfear-struck beasts fleeing before his coming. He paused for neither pathnor way but went straight for the school, running in mighty strides, yetgently, listening to the moans that struck death upon his heart. Once hefell headlong, but with a great wrench held her from harm, and mindednot the pain that shot through his ribs. The yellow sunshine beatfiercely around and upon him, as he stumbled into the highway, lurchedacross the mud-strewn road, and panted up the porch.

  "Miss Smith--!" he gasped, and then--darkness.

  The years of the days of her dying were ten. The boy that entered thedarkness and the shadow of death emerged a man, a silent man and grave,working furiously and haunting, day and night, the little window abovethe door. At last, of one gray morning when the earth was stillest, theycame and told him, "She will live!" And he went out under the stars,lifted his long arms and sobbed: "Curse me, O God, if I let me lose heragain!" And God remembered this in after years.

  The hope and dream of harvest was upon the land. The cotton crop wasshort and poor because of the great rain; but the sun had saved thebest, and the price had soared. So the world was happy, and the face ofthe black-belt green and luxuriant with thickening flecks of the comingfoam of the cotton.

  Up in the sick room Zora lay on the little white bed. The net and web ofendless things had been crawling and creeping around her; she hadstruggled in dumb, speechless terror against some mighty grasping thatstrove for her life, with gnarled and creeping fingers; but now at last,weakly, she opened her eyes and questioned.

  Bles, where was he? The Silver Fleece, how was it? The Sun, the Swamp?Then finding all well, she closed her eyes and slept. After some daysthey let her sit by the window, and she saw Bles pass, but drew backtimidly when he looked; and he saw only the flutter of her gown, andwaved.

  At last there came a day when they let her walk down to the porch, andshe felt the flickering of her strength again. Yet she looked different;her buxom comeliness was spiritualized; her face looked smaller, and hermasses of hair, brought low about her ears, heightened her ghostlybeauty; her skin was darkly transparent, and her eyes looked out fromvelvet veils of gloom. For a while she lay in her chair, in happy,dreamy pleasure at sun and bird and tree. Bles did not know yet that shewas down; but soon he would come searching, for he came each hour, andshe pressed her little hands against her breast to still the beating ofher heart and the bursting wonder of her love.

  Then suddenly a panic seized her. He must not find her here--not here;there was but one place in all the earth for them to meet, and that wasyonder in the Silver Fleece. She rose with a fleeting glance, gatheredthe shawl round her, then gliding forward, wavering, tremulous, slippedacross the road and into the swamp. The dark mystery of the Swamp sweptover her; the place was hers. She had been born within its borders;within its borders she had lived and grown, and within its borders shehad met her love. On she hurried until, sweeping down to the lagoon andthe island, lo! the cotton lay before her! A great white foam was spreadupon its brown and green; the whole field was waving and shivering inthe sunlight. A low cry of pleasure burst from her lips; she forgot herweakness, and picking her way across the bridge, stood still amid thecotton that nestled about her shoulders, clasping it lovingly in herhands.

  He heard that she was down-stairs and ran to meet her with beatingheart. The chair was empty; but he knew. There was but one place thenfor these two souls to meet. Yet it was far, and he feared, and ran withstartled eyes.

  She stood on the island, ethereal, splendid, like some tall, dark, andgorgeous flower of the stori
ed East. The green and white of the cottonbillowed and foamed about her breasts; the red scarf burned upon herneck; the dark brown velvet of her skin pulsed warm and tremulous withthe uprushing blood, and in the midnight depths of her great eyes flamedthe mighty fires of long-concealed and new-born love.

  He darted through the trees and paused, a tall man strongly but slimlymade. He threw up his hands in the old way and hallooed; happily shecrooned back a low mother-melody, and waited. He came down to herslowly, with fixed, hungry eyes, threading his way amid the Fleece. Shedid not move, but lifted both her dark hands, white with cotton; andthen, as he came, casting it suddenly to the winds, in tears andlaughter she swayed and dropped quivering in his arms. And all the worldwas sunshine and peace.