LITMIR.BIZ

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      With a violent internal effort, he tore his gaze from those eyelids that fortunately opened not. At the same moment, though he did not hear them, steps came close in the corridor, and there was a rattling of the knob. Behind him, a movement from the berth below the port-hole warned him that he was but just in time. the Vision he was afraid as yet to acknowledge drew with such awful speed toward the climax.

      Quickly he turned away, lifted the hook of the cabin door, and passed into the passage, strangely faint. A great commotion followed him out: father and son both, it seemed, suddenly upon their feet. And at the same time the sound of “singing” rolled into the body of a great hushed chorus, as it were of galloping winds that filled big valleys far away with a gust of splendor, faintly roaring in some incredible distance where no cities were, nor habitations of men; with a freedom, too, that was majestic and sublime. Oh! the terrific gait of that life in an open world!—Golden to the winds!—uncrowded!—The cosmic life—!

      O’Malley shivered as he heard. For an instant, the true grain of his inner life, picked out in flame and silver, flashed clear. Almost—he knew himself caught back.

      And there, in the dimly-lighted corridor, against the paneling of the cabin wall, crouched Dr. Stahl—listening. the pain of the contrast was vivid beyond words. It seemed as if he had passed from the thunder of organs to hear the rattling of tin cans. Instantly he understood the force that all along had held him back: the positive, denying aspect of this man’s mind—afraid.

      “You!” he exclaimed in a high whisper. “What are you doing here?” He hardly remembers what he said. the doctor straightened up and came on tiptoe to his side. He moved hurriedly.

      “Come away,” he said vehemently under his breath. “Come with me to my cabin—to the decks—anywhere away from this—before it’s too late.”

      And the Irishman then realized that his face was white and that his voice shook. the hand that gripped him by the arm shook too.

      They went quickly along the deserted corridor and up the stairs, O’Malley making no resistance, moving in a kind of dream. He has a fleeting recollection of an odor, sweet and slightly pungent as of horses, in his nostrils. the wind of the open decks revived him, and he saw to his amazement that the East was brightening. In that cabin, then, hours had been compressed into minutes.

      The steamer had already slipped by the Straits of Messina. To the right he saw the cones of Etna, shadowy in the sky, calling across the dawn to Stromboli their smoking brother of the Lipari. To the left over the blue Ionian Sea the lights of a cloudless sunrise rose softly above the world.

      And the hour of enchantment seized and shook him anew. Somewhere, across those faint blue waves, lay the things that he so passionately sought. It was the very essence of their loveliness and wonder that had charged down between the walls of that stuffy cabin below. For every morning still, at dawn, the tired world knows again the splendors of her youth; and the Irishman, shuddering a little in his sacred joy, felt that he must burst his bonds and fly to join the sunrise and the sea. the yearning, he was aware, had now increased a thousandfold: its fulfillment was merely delayed.

      He passed along the decks all slippery with dew into Dr. Stahl’s cabin, and flung himself on the broad sofa to sleep. Sleep, too, came at once; he was profoundly exhausted; and, while he slept, Stahl watched over him, covering his body with a thick blanket.

      XIV

      “It is a lovely imagination responding to the deepest desires, instincts, cravings of spiritual man, that spiritual rapture should find an echo in the material world; that in mental communion with God we should find sensible communion with nature; and that, when the faithful rejoice together, bird and beast, hill and forest, should be not felt only, but seen to rejoice along with them. It is not the truth; between us and our environment, whatever links there are, this link is wanting. But the yearning for it, the passion which made Wordsworth cry out for something, even were it the imagination of a pagan which would make him ‘less forlorn,’ is natural to man; and simplicity leaps at the lovely fiction of a response. Just here is the opportunity for such alliances between spiritualism and superstition as are the daily despair of seekers after truth.”

      —Dr. VERRALL

      And though he slept for hours the doctor never once left his side, but sat there with pencil and notebook, striving to catch, yet in vain, some accurate record of the strange fragmentary words that fell from his lips at intervals. His own face was aflame with an interest that amounted to excitement. the very hand that held the pencil trembled. One would have said that thus somewhat a man might behave who found himself faced with confirmation of some vast, speculative theory his mind had played with hitherto from a distance only.

      Toward noon the Irishman awoke. the steamer, still loading oranges and sacks of sulfur in the Catania harbor, was dusty and noisy. Most of the passengers were ashore, hurrying with guidebooks and field-glasses to see the statue of the dead Bellini or watch the lava flow. A blazing, suffocating heat lay over the oily sea, and the summit of the volcano, with its tiny, ever-changing puff of smoke, soared through blue haze.

      To Stahl’s remark, “You’ve slept eight hours,” he replied, “But I feel as though I’d slept eight centuries away.” He took the coffee and rolls provided, and then smoked. the doctor lit a cigar. the red curtains over the port-holes shut out the fierce sun, leaving the cabin cool and dim. the shouting of the lightermen and officers mingled with the roar and scuttle of the donkey-engine. And O’Malley knew perfectly well that while the other moved about carelessly, playing with books and papers on his desk, he was all the time keeping him under close observation.

      “Yes,” he continued, half to himself, “I feel as if I’d fallen asleep in one world and awakened into another where life is trivial and insignificant, where men work like devils for things of no value in order to accumulate them in great ugly houses; always collecting and collecting, like mad children, possessions that they never really possess—things external to themselves, valueless and unreal—”

      Dr. Stahl came up quietly and sat down beside him. He spoke gently, his manner kind and grave rather. He put a hand upon his shoulder.

      “But, my dear boy,” he said, the critical mood all melted away, “do not let yourself go too completely. That is vicious thinking, believe me. All details are important—here and now—spiritually important, if you prefer the term. the symbols change with the ages, that is all.” Then, as the other did not reply, he added: “Keep yourself well in hand. Your experience is of extraordinary interest—may even be of value, to yourself as well as to—er—others. And what happened to you last night is worthy of record—if you can use it without surrendering your soul to it altogether. Perhaps, later, you will feel able to speak of it—to tell me in detail a little—?”

      His keen desire to know more evidently fought with his desire to protect, to heal, possibly even to prevent.

      “If I felt sure that your control were sufficient, I could tell you in return some results of my own study of—certain cases in the hospitals, you see, that might throw light upon—upon your own curious experience.”

      O’Malley turned with such abruptness that the cigar ash fell down over his clothes. the bait was strong, but the man’s sympathy was not sufficiently of a piece, he felt, to win his entire confidence.

      “I cannot discuss beliefs,” he said shortly, “in the speculative way you do. They are too real. A man doesn’t argue about his love, does he?” He spoke passionately. “Today everybody argues, discusses, speculates: no one believes. If you had your way, you’d take away my beliefs and put in their place some wretched little formula of science that the next generation will prove all wrong again. It’s like the N rays one of you discovered: they never really existed at all.” He laughed. Then his flushed face turned grave again. “Beliefs are deeper than discoveries. They are eternal.”

      Stahl looked at him a moment with admiration. He moved across the cabin toward his desk.

      “I am more with you than perhaps you understand,” he said quietly, yet without too obviously humoring him. “I am more—divided,

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