章节正文
gone. Only my wife remained, she and the child. There she stood,
solemn and sweet. While I drew near she laid down the child upon
the cushioned seat from which she had risen. She stretched out
her arms and flung them about me. She embraced me and I embraced
her in a rapture of reunion. Then turning she lifted up the
child, it was a girl, for me to kiss.
"See your daughter," she said, "and behold all that I am making
ready for you where we shall dwell in a day to come."
I grew confused.
"Yva," I said. "Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go
into the house?"
"Yes," she answered happily. "Yva went into the house. Look
again!"
I looked and it was Yva's face that was pressed against my own,
and Yva's eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my
wife had been, and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
"You may not stay," she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that
spoke, not Yva.
"Tell me what it means?" I implored.
"I cannot," she answered. "There are mysteries that you may not
know as yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for
in loving Yva you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this,
that the spirit has many shapes, and yet is the same spirit--
sometimes. Now I who am far, yet near, bid you farewell a while."
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The
first thing I saw was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I
knew it was our house, for just above me was a palm leaf of which
I had myself tied the stalk to the framework with a bit of
coloured ribbon i had I had chanced to find in my pocket. It came
originally from the programme card of a dance that I had attended
at Honolulu and I had kept it because I thought it might be
useful. Finally I used it to secure that loose leaf. I stared at
the ribbon which brought back a flood of memories, and as I was
thus engaged I heard voices talking, and listened--Bickley's
voice, and the Lady Yva's.
"Yes," Bickley was saying, "he will do well now, but he went
near, very near."
"I knew he would not die," she answered, "because my father
said so."
"There are two sorts of deaths," replied Bickley, "that of the
body and that of the mind. I was afraid that even if he lived,
his reason would go, but from certain indications I do not think
that will happen now. He will get quite well again--though--" and
he stopped.
"I am very glad to hear you say so," chimed in Bastin. "For
weeks I thought that I should have to read the Burial Service
over poor Arbuthnot. Indeed I was much puzzled as to the best
place to bury him. Finally I found a very suitable spot round the
corner there, where it isn't rock, in which one can't dig and the
soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact I went so far as to
clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot to
the east. In this climate one can't delay, you know."
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so
exactly like Bastin.
"Well, you wasted your labour," exclaimed Bickley.
"Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don't think it was your
operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you
take all the credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the
Lady Yva made him drink and the stuff that Oro sent which we gave
him when you weren't looking."
"Then I hope that in the future you will not interfere with my
cases," said the indignant Bickley, and either the voices passed
away or I went to sleep.
When I woke up again it was to find the Lady Yva seated at my
side watching me.
"Forgive me, Humphrey, because I here; others gone out
walking," she said slowly in English.
"Who taught you my language?" I asked, astonished. "Bastin and
Bickley, while you ill, they teach; they teach me much. Man just
same now as he was hundred thousand years ago," she added
enigmatically. "All think one woman beautiful when no other woman
there."
"Indeed," I replied, wondering to what proceedings on the part
of Bastin and Bickley she alluded. Could that self-centred pair--
oh! it was impossible.
"How long have I been ill?" I asked to escape the subject which
I felt to be uncomfortable.
She lifted her beautiful eyes in search of words and began to
count upon her fingers.
"Two moon, one half moon, yes, ten week, counting Sabbath," she
answered triumphantly.
"Ten weeks!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, Humphrey, ten whole weeks and three days you first bad,
then mad. Oh!" she went on, breaking into the Orofenan tongue
which she spoke so perfectly, although it was not her own. That
language of hers I never learned, but I know she thought in it
and only translated into Orofenan, because of the great
difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas
into its simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she
introduced. "Oh! you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At
times I thought that you were going to die, and wept and wept.
Bickley thinks that he saved you and he is very clever. But he
could not have saved you; that wanted more knowledge than any of
your people have; only I pray you, do not tell him so because it
would hurt his pride."
"What was the matter with me then, Yva?"
"All was the matter. First, the weapon which that youth threw--
he was the son of the sorcerer whom my father destroyed--crushed
in the bone of your head. He is dead for his crime and may he be
accursed for ever," she added in the only outbreak of rage and
vindictiveness in which I ever saw her indulge.
"One must make excuses for him; his father had been killed," I
said.
"Yes, that is what Bastin tells me, and it is true. Still, for
that young man I can make no excuse; it was cowardly and wicked.
Well, Bickley performed what he calls operation, and the Lord
Oro, he came up from his house and helped him, because Bastin is
no good in such things. Then he can only turn away his head and
pray. I, too, helped, holding hot water and linen and jar of the
stuff that made you feel like nothing, although the sight made me
feel more sick than anything since I saw one I loved killed, oh,
long, long ago."
"Was the operation successful?" I asked, for I did not dare to
begin to thank her.
"Yes, that clever man, Bickley, lifted the bone which had been
crushed in. Only then something broke in your head and you began
to bleed here," and she touched what I believe is called the
temporal artery. "The vein had been crushed by the blow, and gave
way. Bickley worked and worked, and just in time he tied it up
before you died. Oh! then I felt as though I loved Bickley,
though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to have loved him,
since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but his
prayer."
"Perhaps it was both," I suggested.
"Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another
trouble. You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a
certain gnat had bitten you when you went down to the ship, and
my father, the Lord Oro, told me that this was right. At the
least you grew very weak and lost your mind, and it seemed as
though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went to the Lord Oro and
kneeled before him and prayed you life, for I knew that he could
cure you if he would, though Bickley's skill was at an end.
"'Daughter,' he said to me, 'not once but again and again you
have set up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I
trouble myself to grant this desire of yours in the present, and
save a man who is nothing to me?'
"I rose to my feet and answered, 'I do not know, my Father, yet
I am certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I
am sure that of everything even you must give an account at last,
great though you be, and who knows, perhaps one life which you
have saved may turn the balance in your favour.'
"'Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,' he said.
"'He has,' I answered, 'and not he alone. Many voices have been
talking to me.'"
"What did you mean by that?" I asked.
"It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen
to my story. My father thought a while and answered:
"'I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived
half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already
you think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine
Oro who has lived a thousand years. At first I helped that
physician to save him, but now I think I wish him dead.'
"'If you let this man die, my Father,' I answered, 'then we
part. Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and
can use it if I will.'
"'Then save him yourself,' he said.
"'Perhaps I shall, my Father,' I answered, 'but if so it will
not be here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to
rule in your majesty alone.'
"Now this frightened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that
he hates to be alone.
"'If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me, Yva?'
he asked. 'Know that if you will not swear, the man dies.'
"'I swear,' I answered--for your sake, Humphrey--though I did
not love the oath.
"Then he gave me a certain medicine to mix with the Life-water,
and when you were almost gone that medicine cured you, though
Bickley does not know it, as nothing else could have done. Now I
have told you the truth, for your own ear only, Humphrey."
"Yva," I asked, "why did you do all this for me?"
"Humphrey, I do not know," she answered, "but I think because I
must. Now sleep a while."
Chapter XIX
The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley
So far as my body was concerned I grew well with great
rapidity, though it was long before I got back my strength. Thus
I could not walk far or endure any sustained exertion. With my
mind it was otherwise. I can not explain what had happened to it;
indeed I do not know, but in a sense it seemed to have become
detached and to have assumed a kind of personality of its own. At
times it felt as though it were no longer an inhabitant of the
body, but rather its more or less independent partner. I was
perfectly clear-headed and of insanity I experienced no symptoms.
Yet my mind, I use that term from lack of a better, was not
entirely under my control. For one thing, at night it appeared to
wander far away, though whither it went and what it saw there I
could never remember.
I record this because possibly it explains certain mysterious
events, if they were events and not dreams, which shortly I must
set out. I spoke to Bickley about the matter. He put it by
lightly, saying that it was only a result of my long and most
severe illness and that I should steady down in time, especially
if we could escape from that island and its unnatural atmosphere.
Yet as he spoke he glanced at me shrewdly with his quick eyes,
and when he turned to go away I heard him mutter something to
himself about "unholy influences" and "that confounded old Oro."
The words were spoken to himself and quite beneath his breath,
and of course not meant to reach me. But one of the curious
concomitants of my state was that all my senses, and especially
solemn and sweet. While I drew near she laid down the child upon
the cushioned seat from which she had risen. She stretched out
her arms and flung them about me. She embraced me and I embraced
her in a rapture of reunion. Then turning she lifted up the
child, it was a girl, for me to kiss.
"See your daughter," she said, "and behold all that I am making
ready for you where we shall dwell in a day to come."
I grew confused.
"Yva," I said. "Where is Yva who brought me here? Did she go
into the house?"
"Yes," she answered happily. "Yva went into the house. Look
again!"
I looked and it was Yva's face that was pressed against my own,
and Yva's eyes that gazed into mine. Only she was garbed as my
wife had been, and on her bosom hung the changeful necklace.
"You may not stay," she whispered, and lo! it was my wife that
spoke, not Yva.
"Tell me what it means?" I implored.
"I cannot," she answered. "There are mysteries that you may not
know as yet. Love Yva if you will and I shall not be jealous, for
in loving Yva you love me. You cannot understand? Then know this,
that the spirit has many shapes, and yet is the same spirit--
sometimes. Now I who am far, yet near, bid you farewell a while."
Then all passed in a flash and the dream ended.
Such was the only one of those visions which I can recall.
I seemed to wake up as from a long and tumultuous sleep. The
first thing I saw was the palm roof of our house upon the rock. I
knew it was our house, for just above me was a palm leaf of which
I had myself tied the stalk to the framework with a bit of
coloured ribbon i had I had chanced to find in my pocket. It came
originally from the programme card of a dance that I had attended
at Honolulu and I had kept it because I thought it might be
useful. Finally I used it to secure that loose leaf. I stared at
the ribbon which brought back a flood of memories, and as I was
thus engaged I heard voices talking, and listened--Bickley's
voice, and the Lady Yva's.
"Yes," Bickley was saying, "he will do well now, but he went
near, very near."
"I knew he would not die," she answered, "because my father
said so."
"There are two sorts of deaths," replied Bickley, "that of the
body and that of the mind. I was afraid that even if he lived,
his reason would go, but from certain indications I do not think
that will happen now. He will get quite well again--though--" and
he stopped.
"I am very glad to hear you say so," chimed in Bastin. "For
weeks I thought that I should have to read the Burial Service
over poor Arbuthnot. Indeed I was much puzzled as to the best
place to bury him. Finally I found a very suitable spot round the
corner there, where it isn't rock, in which one can't dig and the
soil is not liable to be flooded. In fact I went so far as to
clear away the bush and to mark out the grave with its foot to
the east. In this climate one can't delay, you know."
Weak as I was, I smiled. This practical proceeding was so
exactly like Bastin.
"Well, you wasted your labour," exclaimed Bickley.
"Yes, I am glad to say I did. But I don't think it was your
operations and the rest that cured him, Bickley, although you
take all the credit. I believe it was the Life-water that the
Lady Yva made him drink and the stuff that Oro sent which we gave
him when you weren't looking."
"Then I hope that in the future you will not interfere with my
cases," said the indignant Bickley, and either the voices passed
away or I went to sleep.
When I woke up again it was to find the Lady Yva seated at my
side watching me.
"Forgive me, Humphrey, because I here; others gone out
walking," she said slowly in English.
"Who taught you my language?" I asked, astonished. "Bastin and
Bickley, while you ill, they teach; they teach me much. Man just
same now as he was hundred thousand years ago," she added
enigmatically. "All think one woman beautiful when no other woman
there."
"Indeed," I replied, wondering to what proceedings on the part
of Bastin and Bickley she alluded. Could that self-centred pair--
oh! it was impossible.
"How long have I been ill?" I asked to escape the subject which
I felt to be uncomfortable.
She lifted her beautiful eyes in search of words and began to
count upon her fingers.
"Two moon, one half moon, yes, ten week, counting Sabbath," she
answered triumphantly.
"Ten weeks!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, Humphrey, ten whole weeks and three days you first bad,
then mad. Oh!" she went on, breaking into the Orofenan tongue
which she spoke so perfectly, although it was not her own. That
language of hers I never learned, but I know she thought in it
and only translated into Orofenan, because of the great
difficulty which she had in rendering her high and refined ideas
into its simpler metaphor, and the strange words which often she
introduced. "Oh! you have been very ill, friend of my heart. At
times I thought that you were going to die, and wept and wept.
Bickley thinks that he saved you and he is very clever. But he
could not have saved you; that wanted more knowledge than any of
your people have; only I pray you, do not tell him so because it
would hurt his pride."
"What was the matter with me then, Yva?"
"All was the matter. First, the weapon which that youth threw--
he was the son of the sorcerer whom my father destroyed--crushed
in the bone of your head. He is dead for his crime and may he be
accursed for ever," she added in the only outbreak of rage and
vindictiveness in which I ever saw her indulge.
"One must make excuses for him; his father had been killed," I
said.
"Yes, that is what Bastin tells me, and it is true. Still, for
that young man I can make no excuse; it was cowardly and wicked.
Well, Bickley performed what he calls operation, and the Lord
Oro, he came up from his house and helped him, because Bastin is
no good in such things. Then he can only turn away his head and
pray. I, too, helped, holding hot water and linen and jar of the
stuff that made you feel like nothing, although the sight made me
feel more sick than anything since I saw one I loved killed, oh,
long, long ago."
"Was the operation successful?" I asked, for I did not dare to
begin to thank her.
"Yes, that clever man, Bickley, lifted the bone which had been
crushed in. Only then something broke in your head and you began
to bleed here," and she touched what I believe is called the
temporal artery. "The vein had been crushed by the blow, and gave
way. Bickley worked and worked, and just in time he tied it up
before you died. Oh! then I felt as though I loved Bickley,
though afterwards Bastin said that I ought to have loved him,
since it was not Bickley who stopped the bleeding, but his
prayer."
"Perhaps it was both," I suggested.
"Perhaps, Humphrey, at least you were saved. Then came another
trouble. You took fever. Bickley said that it was because a
certain gnat had bitten you when you went down to the ship, and
my father, the Lord Oro, told me that this was right. At the
least you grew very weak and lost your mind, and it seemed as
though you must die. Then, Humphrey, I went to the Lord Oro and
kneeled before him and prayed you life, for I knew that he could
cure you if he would, though Bickley's skill was at an end.
"'Daughter,' he said to me, 'not once but again and again you
have set up your will against mine in the past. Why then should I
trouble myself to grant this desire of yours in the present, and
save a man who is nothing to me?'
"I rose to my feet and answered, 'I do not know, my Father, yet
I am certain that for your own sake it will be well to do so. I
am sure that of everything even you must give an account at last,
great though you be, and who knows, perhaps one life which you
have saved may turn the balance in your favour.'
"'Surely the priest Bastin has been talking to you,' he said.
"'He has,' I answered, 'and not he alone. Many voices have been
talking to me.'"
"What did you mean by that?" I asked.
"It matters nothing what I meant, Humphrey. Be still and listen
to my story. My father thought a while and answered:
"'I am jealous of this stranger. What is he but a short-lived
half-barbarian such as we knew in the old days? And yet already
you think more of him than you do of me, your father, the divine
Oro who has lived a thousand years. At first I helped that
physician to save him, but now I think I wish him dead.'
"'If you let this man die, my Father,' I answered, 'then we
part. Remember that I also have of the wisdom of our people, and
can use it if I will.'
"'Then save him yourself,' he said.
"'Perhaps I shall, my Father,' I answered, 'but if so it will
not be here. I say that if so we part and you shall be left to
rule in your majesty alone.'
"Now this frightened the Lord Oro, for he has the weakness that
he hates to be alone.
"'If I do what you will, do you swear never to leave me, Yva?'
he asked. 'Know that if you will not swear, the man dies.'
"'I swear,' I answered--for your sake, Humphrey--though I did
not love the oath.
"Then he gave me a certain medicine to mix with the Life-water,
and when you were almost gone that medicine cured you, though
Bickley does not know it, as nothing else could have done. Now I
have told you the truth, for your own ear only, Humphrey."
"Yva," I asked, "why did you do all this for me?"
"Humphrey, I do not know," she answered, "but I think because I
must. Now sleep a while."
Chapter XIX
The Proposals of Bastin and Bickley
So far as my body was concerned I grew well with great
rapidity, though it was long before I got back my strength. Thus
I could not walk far or endure any sustained exertion. With my
mind it was otherwise. I can not explain what had happened to it;
indeed I do not know, but in a sense it seemed to have become
detached and to have assumed a kind of personality of its own. At
times it felt as though it were no longer an inhabitant of the
body, but rather its more or less independent partner. I was
perfectly clear-headed and of insanity I experienced no symptoms.
Yet my mind, I use that term from lack of a better, was not
entirely under my control. For one thing, at night it appeared to
wander far away, though whither it went and what it saw there I
could never remember.
I record this because possibly it explains certain mysterious
events, if they were events and not dreams, which shortly I must
set out. I spoke to Bickley about the matter. He put it by
lightly, saying that it was only a result of my long and most
severe illness and that I should steady down in time, especially
if we could escape from that island and its unnatural atmosphere.
Yet as he spoke he glanced at me shrewdly with his quick eyes,
and when he turned to go away I heard him mutter something to
himself about "unholy influences" and "that confounded old Oro."
The words were spoken to himself and quite beneath his breath,
and of course not meant to reach me. But one of the curious
concomitants of my state was that all my senses, and especially
- jealous [´dʒeləs]
a.妒忌的 (初中英语单词) - farewell [feə´wel] int.再见 n.&a.告别 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- suitable [´su:təbəl, ´sju:-] a.合适的，适当的 (初中英语单词)
- climate [´klaimit] n.气候；特殊气候地带 (初中英语单词)
- interfere [,intə´fiə] vi.干涉；妨碍；打扰 (初中英语单词)
- weapon [´wepən] n.武器；斗争手段 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- priest [pri:st] n.教士；牧师；神父 (初中英语单词)
- wisdom [´wizdəm] n.智慧，聪明，才智 (初中英语单词)
- majesty [´mædʒisti] n.壮丽；崇高；尊严 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- endure [in´djuə] vt.忍耐，忍受；坚持 (初中英语单词)
- otherwise [´ʌðəwaiz] ad.另外 conj.否则 (初中英语单词)
- personality [,pə:sə´næliti] n.人；个性；人品；人物 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- shortly [´ʃɔ:tli] ad.立刻，马上；不久 (初中英语单词)
- illness [´ilnis] n.生病，不健康，疾病 (初中英语单词)
- mutter [´mʌtə] v.&n.咕哝；嘀咕 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- rapture [´ræptʃə] n.着迷；全神贯注 (高中英语单词)
- loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- liable [´laiəbəl] a.易于...的；有责任的 (高中英语单词)
- proceeding [prə´si:diŋ] n.程序；进程；行动 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- outbreak [´autbreik] n.(战争等的)爆发 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- refined [ri´faind] a.精制的；文雅的 (英语四级单词)
- cowardly [´kauədli] a.&ad.胆小的(地) (英语四级单词)
- artery [´ɑ:təri] n.动脉；干线 (英语四级单词)
- bitten [´bitn] bite的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- exertion [ig´zə:ʃən] n.努力；行使；活动 (英语四级单词)
- experienced [ik´spiəriənst] a.有经验的；熟练的 (英语四级单词)
- unnatural [,ʌn´nætʃərəl] a.不自然的 (英语四级单词)
- reunion [ri:´ju:njən] n.再结合；再联合；团聚 (英语六级单词)
- framework [´freimwə:k] n.骨架；计划；机构 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- insanity [in´sæniti] n.疯狂；精神错乱 (英语六级单词)
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