第92章

That spectral moonlight camoodi was one of many serpent fancies that troubled me. There was another, surpassing them all, which attended me many days. When the sun grew hot overhead and the way was over open savannah country, I would see something moving on the ground at my side and always keeping abreast of me. Asmall snake, one or two feet long. No, not a small snake, but a sinuous mark in the pattern on a huge serpent's head, five or six yards long, always moving deliberately at my side. If a cloud came over the sun, or a fresh breeze sprang up, gradually the outline of that awful head would fade and the well-defined pattern would resolve itself into the motlings on the earth. But if the sun grew more and more hot and dazzling as the day progressed, then the tremendous ophidian head would become increasingly real to my sight, with glistening scales and symmetrical markings; and I would walk carefully not to stumble against or touch it; and when I cast my eyes behind me I could see no end to its great coils extending across the savannah.

Even looking back from the summit of a high hill I could see it stretching leagues and leagues away through forests and rivers, across wide plains, valleys and mountains, to lose itself at last in the infinite blue distance.

How or when this monster left me--washed away by cold rains perhaps--I do not know. Probably it only transformed itself into some new shape, its long coils perhaps changing into those endless processions and multitudes of pale-faced people I seem to remember having encountered. In my devious wanderings I must have reached the shores of the undiscovered great White Lake, and passed through the long shining streets of Manoa, the mysterious city in the wilderness. I see myself there, the wide thoroughfare filled from end to end with people gaily dressed as if for some high festival, all drawing aside to let the wretched pilgrim pass, staring at his fever- and famine-wasted figure, in its strange rags, with its strange burden.

A new Ahasuerus, cursed by inexpiable crime, yet sustained by a great purpose.

But Ahasuerus prayed ever for death to come to him and ran to meet it, while I fought against it with all my little strength.

Only at intervals, when the shadows seemed to lift and give me relief, would I pray to Death to spare me yet a little longer;but when the shadows darkened again and hope seemed almost quenched in utter gloom, then I would curse it and defy its power. Through it all I clung to the belief that my will would conquer, that it would enable me to keep off the great enemy from my worn and suffering body until the wished goal was reached;then only would I cease to fight and let death have its way.

There would have been comfort in this belief had it not been for that fevered imagination which corrupted everything that touched me and gave it some new hateful character. For soon enough this conviction that the will would triumph grew to something monstrous, a parent of monstrous fancies. Worst of all, when Ifelt no actual pain, but only unutterable weariness of body and soul, when feet and legs were numb so that I knew not whether Itrod on dry hot rock or in slime, was the fancy that I was already dead, so far as the body was concerned--had perhaps been dead for days--that only the unconquerable will survived to compel the dead flesh to do its work.

Whether it really was will--more potent than the bark of barks and wiser than the physicians--or merely the vis medicatrix with which nature helps our weakness even when the will is suspended, that saved me I cannot say; but it is certain that I gradually recovered health, physical and mental, and finally reached the coast comparatively well, although my mind was still in a gloomy, desponding state when I first walked the streets of Georgetown, in rags, half-starved and penniless.

But even when well, long after the discovery that my flesh was not only alive, but that it was of an exceedingly tough quality, the idea born during the darkest period of my pilgrimage, that die I must, persisted in my mind. I had lived through that which would have killed most men--lived only to accomplish the one remaining purpose of my life. Now it was accomplished; the sacred ashes brought so far, with such infinite labour, through so many and such great perils, were safe and would mix with mine at last. There was nothing more in life to make me love it or keep me prisoner in its weary chains. This prospect of near death faded in time; love of life returned, and the earth had recovered its everlasting freshness and beauty; only that feeling about Rima's ashes did not fade or change, and is as strong now as it was then. Say that it is morbid--call it superstition if you like; but there it is, the most powerful motive I have known, always in all things to be taken into account--a philosophy of life to be made to fit it. Or take it as a symbol, since that may come to be one with the thing symbolized. In those darkest days in the forest I had her as a visitor--a Rima of the mind, whose words when she spoke reflected my despair. Yet even then Iwas not entirely without hope. Heaven itself, she said, could not undo that which I had done; and she also said that if Iforgave myself, Heaven would say no word, nor would she. That is my philosophy still: prayers, austerities, good works--they avail nothing, and there is no intercession, and outside of the soul there is no forgiveness in heaven or earth for sin. Nevertheless there is a way, which every soul can find out for itself--even the most rebellious, the most darkened with crime and tormented by remorse. In that way I have walked; and, self-forgiven and self-absolved, I know that if she were to return once more and appear to me--even here where her ashes are--I know that her divine eyes would no longer refuse to look into mine, since the sorrow which seemed eternal and would have slain me to see would not now be in them.

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