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The Regeneration of Lord Ernie Chapters VII - XI · Incredible Adventures

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Section three of Incredible Adventures by Outer and on Blackwood. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker The Regeneration of Lord Ernie,
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chapter seven, And at once the curious confusion of strong wind was upon them.
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Gusts howled about the corners of the shuttered houses, and tore noisily across
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the open yards. Dust whirled with the rapidity as of some spectral white machinery.
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A tile came clattering down about their feet, while overhead the roofs had
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an air of shifting, toppling, bending. The entire village seemed scooped up
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and shaken. Then dropped upon the earth again in tottering fashion. This way
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gasped the little pasture, blown sideways like a sail vailom closely, almost arm
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in arm. At first they hurried down the deserted street, past lampless windows
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and tight fastened doors, and soon were beyond the cabaret, in that open
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stretch between the village and the forest, where the wind had an unobstructed way.
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Far above them ran the fiery mountain range. They saw the glare reflected
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in the sky. As the tempest first swept them all three together, then
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separated them in the same moment, they seemed to spin or whirl. It's
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far worse than I expected, shouted their guide. Here, gimme your hand.
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Then found, once disentangled from his flapping cloak, that no one stood
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beside him. For each of them, it was a single fight to reach
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the shelter of the woods, where the actual ascent began. An instant the
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pasture seemed to hesitate. He glanced back at the lighted window of La Cioye,
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across the fields, at the line of fire in the sky, at
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the figure disappearing in the blackness immediately ahead. Where's the boy, he shouted,
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Don't let him get too far in front, keep close, wait till
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I come. They staggered back against each other. Look how easily he slipped
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ahead already this howling wind Hendrix shouted. As they advanced side by side,
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pushing their shoulders against the storm. The rest of the sentence vanished into space.
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Leason shoved him forward, pointing to where, some twenty yards in front,
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the figure of Lord Ernie head Down was battling eagerly with the hurricane.
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Already he stood near to the shelter of the trees, waving his arms with
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energy towards the summits where the fires blazed. He was calling something at the
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top of his voice, urging them to hurry. His voice rushed down upon
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them with a pelt of wind. Soon't let him get away from us,
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bawled Lazon, holding his hands cup wise to his mouth. Keep him in
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reach. You may see, but must not take part. A blow full
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in the face that smote him like the flat of a great sword. Clapped
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the sentence short. That's your part. He won't obey me. Hendrix heard
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it as they plunged across the windswept reach, panting, struggling, forcing their
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body sideways like two legged crabs against the terrific force of the descending Joran.
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They reached the protection of the forest wall without further attempt at speech. Here
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there was sudden peace and silence. For the tall, dense trees received the
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tempests impact like a cushion, stopping it. They paused a moment to recover
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breath. But although the first exhaustion speedily passed, the original confusion of strong
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wind remained, and Hendrick's mind, at least, for wind violent enough to
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be battled with, has a scattering effect on thought and blows the very blood
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about. Something in him snapped its cables and blew out to sea. His
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breath drew in an impetuous quality from the tempest. Each time he filled his
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lungs. There was agitation in him that caused an odd exaggeration of the emotions.
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The boy, as they came up, leaped down from a boulder he
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had climbed. He opened his arms, making of his cloak a kind of
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sail that filled and flapped. At last, he cried, impatient, almost
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vexed. I thought you were never coming. The wind blew me along.
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He shall be late. The tutor caught his arm with vigor. You keep
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bias, ernest, do you hear now? Now rushing ahead like that?
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Lasan's the guide, not you. He even shook him, But as he
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did so, he was aware that he himself resisted something that did not really
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want to resist, something that urged him forcibly a little more, and he
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would yield to it with pleasure, with abandon, finally, with recklessness.
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A reaction of panic fear ran over him. It was the wind, I
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tell you, cried the boy, flinging himself free, with a hint of
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insolence in his voice. For it's alive. I mean to see everything.
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The wind's I leader, and the fires I guide. He made a movement
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to start on again. You'll obey me, thundered Hendrix, or else you'll
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go home. Do you understand? With exasperation, yet with uneasy delight he
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noted the words Bendy made use of. It was in him that he might
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almost have uttered them himself. He stepped already into an entirely new world.
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Exhilaration caught him even now. Putting the brake on was mere pretense. He
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seized the lad by both shoulders and pushed him to the rear, then placed
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himself next, so that Lason moved in front and led the way. The
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procession started diving into the comparative shelter of the forest. Zantelet impassieu, he
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heard in rapid French. Guide him. That's all zippowers already in his blood.
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Keep yourself in hand as well, and follow me closely. The road
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of the storm above them carried the words clean off the world. Here in
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the forest they moved, it seemed, along the floor of an ocean whose
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surface raged with dreadful violence. Any moment, one or the other of them
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might be caught up to that surface and whirled off to destruction. For the
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procession was not one with itself. The darkness, the difficulty of hearing what
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each said, the feeling too that each climbed for himself, made everything seem
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at sixes and sevens. And the tutor, this secret exultation growing in his
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heart, eyed the anxiety that kept at pace, and battled with his turbulent
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emotions. A divided personality, his power over the boy, he realized,
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had gravely weakened. A little time ago, they had seemed somehow equal.
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Now, however, a complete reversal of their relative positions had taken place.
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The boy was sure of himself. While Leason led at a steady mountaineer's pace
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on his wiry, short bowed legs. Hendrix a yard or two behind him,
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stumbled a good deal in the darkness. Lord Ernie forever on his heels,
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eager to push past. But Bendy never stumbled. There was no flagging
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in his muscles. He moved so lightly and with so sure a tread that
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he almost seemed to dance. And often he stopped aside to leap a boulder
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or to run along a fallen trunk path there was none. Occasional gusts of
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wind rushed gustily down into these depths of forest where they moved, and now,
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from time to time, as they rose nearer to the line of fire
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on the ridge, an increasing glare lit up the knuckled roots or glimmered on
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the bramble, thickets and heavy beds of moss. It was astonishing how the
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little pasture never missed his way. Periods of thick silence alternated with movements when
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the storm swept down through gullies among the trees, reverberating like thunder in the
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hollows. Slowly they advanced, buffeted, driven, pushed the wildness of some
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walpurgis. Night growing upon all three. And the tutor's mind was this strange
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lift of increasing recklessness, the ill proportion gone, the spiritual aspect of it,
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troubling him to the point of sheer distress. He followed Laison as blindly
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with his body as he followed this new bendy, eagerly with his mind.
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For this languid boy, now dancing to the tune of flooding life at his
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very heels, seemed magical in the true sense, energy created as by a
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wizard out of nothing. From lips that ordinarily sighed and listless boredom poured now
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a ceaseless stream of questions and ejaculations, ringing with enthusiasm. How long would
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it take them to reach the fiery ridge? Why did they go so slowly?
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Would they arrive too late? Would their intrusion be welcomed or understood?
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Already one great change was effected, accepted by Hendricks too, that the role
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of mere spectator was impossible. The answers Hendrix gave indeed grew more and more
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encouraging and sympathetic. He too, was impatient with their leader's crawling pace.
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Some elemental spell of wind and fire urged him towards the open ridge. The
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pole became irresistible. He despised the pasture's caution, denied his wisdom, wholly
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rejected now the spirit of compromise and prudence, And once, as the hurricane
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brought down a flying burst of voices, he caught himself leaping upon a big
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gray boulder in their path. He leaped at the very moment that the boy
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behind him leaped, yet hardly realized that he did so. His feet danced
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without a conscious order from his brain, they met together on the rounded top,
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stumbled, clutched one another frantically, then slid, with waving arms and
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flying cloaks down the slippery surface of damp moss, laughing wildly. Fool cried
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Hendrix, saving himself. What in the world you called, laughed Bindy,
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picking himself up and dropping back to his place in the rear. Again,
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it's the wind, not me. It's in our feet. Half the time
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you're shouting and jumping yourself. And it was a few minutes after this that
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Lord Ernie suddenly forged ahead. He slipped in front, as silently as a
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shadow before a moving candle in a room, passing the tutor at a moment
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when his feet were entangled among roots and stones, he easily overtook the pasture
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and found himself in the lead. He never stumbled. There seemed steel springs
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in his legs. From Lason, too breathless to interfere, came a cry
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of warning, stop him Dicki's hand, his tired voice instantly smothered by the
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roaring skies, He turned to catch Hendrix by the cloak. You see that,
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He shouted in alarm, fusillep of God, don't lose sight of him.
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He must see, but not te part. Remember, and Hendricks yelled
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after the vanishing figure, bindy, go slow, go slow, keep in
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touch with us. But he quickened his pace instantly, as though to overtake
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the boy. He passed his companion the same minute and was out of sight.
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I'll wait for you, came back the boy's shrill answer through the thinning
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trees, and a flare of light fell with it from the sky. For
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the final climb of a steep five hundred feet had now begun, and overhead
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the naked ridge ran east and west with its line of blazing fires. Bowlders
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and rocky ground replaced the pines and spruces. But you'll never finds a way,
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shouted Lasan, while a deep trumpeting roar of the storm beyond muffled the
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remainder of the sentence. Hendrix heard the next words close beside him from a
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clump of shadows. He was in touching distance of the excited boy. The
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fires in the singing guide me. Only a fool could miss the way.
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But you are eh. He swallowed the unuttered word. A new extraordinary respect
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was suddenly in him. That tall, virile figure, instinct with life springing
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so cleverly through the choking darkness, guiding with decision and intelligence almost infallible.
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It was no fool that led them. Thus he hurried after till his very
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sinews ached. His eyes, troubled and confused, strained through the trees to
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find him. But these same trees now fled past him in a torrent Bendie,
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bendie. He cried at the top of his voice, yet not with
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the imperious tone the situation called for. The sentence dropped into a lull of
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wind. Instead of command, there was entreaty, almost supplication in it.
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Wait for me, I'm coming. We'll see the glorious thing together. And
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then suddenly the forest lay behind him, with a belt of open pasture land
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in front. Below the actual ridge. He felt the first great draft of
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heat, as a line of furnaces burst their doors with a mighty roar and
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turned the sky into a blaze of golden daylight. There was a crackling as
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of musketry. The flare shot up and burned the air about him, and
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the voices of a multitude as yet invisible, drove through it like projectiles on
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the wind. This was the first impression wholesale and terrific that met him as
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he paused an instant on the edge of the sheltering forest and looked forward.
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Laison and Lord Ernie seemed to leave his mind forgotten in this first attack of
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splendor, but forgotten as it were, the first with contempt, the latter
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with an overwhelming regret for the Passeur's mistake in that instant seemed obvious in half
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measures lay the fatal error and uncompromised the danger. Bendy all along had known
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the better way and followed it. The lukewarm was the worthless Bendy boy,
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Where are you? I'm coming? And stepping on to the grassy strip of
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ground soft to his feet, he met a wind that fell upon his body
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with a shower of blows from all directions at once, and beat him to
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his knees. He dropped, it seemed, into the cover of a sheltering
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rock, for there followed then a moment of sudden and delicious stillness, in
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which the weary muscles recovered themselves and thought grew slightly steadier. Crouched thus close
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to the earth, he no longer offered a target to the hurricane's attack.
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He peered upwards, making a screen of his hands. The ridge some fifty
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feet above him, he saw ran in a generous platform along the mountain crest.
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It was wide and flat between the enormous fires of piled up wood that
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stretched for half a mile, coiled a medley of dense smoke and tearing sparks.
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No human beings were visible, and yet he was aware of crowding life
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quite near. On hands and knees, crawling painfully, He then slowly retreated
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again into the shelter of the forest he had sought to leave. He stood
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up. The awful blaze was veiled by the roof of branches once more.
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But as he rose, seizing a sapling to steady himself by two hands,
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caught him with violence from behind, and a familiar voice came shouting against his
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ear. Lason, panting, disheveled and half broken with the speed, stood
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beside him. See the boy where I see was just in time, he
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roared the words to make them carry above the den. Hurry, hurry,
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a follow my older legs. See for the love of God that he has
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not taken I warned you. And for a second as he heard, Hendricks
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caught at the vanished sense of responsibility again. He saw the face of the
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old marquess watching him among the tree trunks. He heard his voice amazed,
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reproachful, furious, But who's criminal of you? Criminal? Where is the
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boy? Your boy? Again broke in the shout of the pasture with a
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slap of hurricane. As he staggered against the tutor, half collapsing and trying
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to point the direction, Watch him finds him, for the love of heaven,
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before it is too late, before they see him. The Tutor's normal
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and responsible self dived out of sight again as he heard the cry of weakness
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and alarm. It seemed the wind got under him, lifting him bodily from
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his feet. He did not pause to think. Like a man midway in
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a whirling prize fight, he felt dazed but confident, only conscious of one
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thing that he must hold out to the end, take part in all the
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splendid fighting win. The lust of the arena, the pride of youth and
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battle, the impetuous recklessness of the charge and primitive war caught at his heart,
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brimming it with headlong courage to play the game for all it might be
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worth, seemed shouted everywhere about him. As the abandon of wind and fire
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rushed through him like a storm. He felt lifted above all possibility of little
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failure. The marquess, with his conventional traditions, the pasture, with his
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considerations of half way safety, both vanished utterly. Safety. Indeed, both
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for himself and for the boy in his charge, lay in unconditional surrender.
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This was no time for little thought out actions. It was all or nothing,
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God bless the whirlwind. In the fire. He shouted, opening wide
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his arms, but his voice was inaudible amid the uproar, and the forward
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movement of his body remained at first only in the brain. He turned to
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push the old man aside, even to strike him down if necessary. Lukewarm
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yourself, and the coward rose in his throat, yet found no utterance,
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For in that moment a toss them figure, swift as a shadow, steady
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as a hawk, shot hard across the open space between the forest and the
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ridge in the direction of the blazing platform. It disappeared against a curtain of
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thick smoke, emerged for one second in a storm of light, then vanished
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finally behind a ruin of loose rocks, and Hendrix, his eyes wounded by
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heat, and wind. His muscles paralyzed, understood that the boy deliberately invited
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capture the multitude that hid behind the smoke and fire feeding the blazing heaps with
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eager hands, had become aware of him, and presently would appear to claim
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him. They would take him to themselves. Already answering flares ran east and
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west along the desolate ridge. I'll join you, I'm coming, Wait for
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me, he tried to cry. The uproar smothered it. Chapter eight.
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And this uproar he now perceived was composed entirely of wind and fire. Here
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on the roof of the hills, beneath a starry sky, these two great
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elements expressed their nature with unhampered freedom, for there was neither rain to modify
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the one, nor solid obstacle to check the other. Their voices merged in
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a single sound, the hollow boom of wind and the deep, resounding clap
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of flame. The splitting crackle of burning branches imitated the high shrill whistle of
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the tearing gusts that javelin lin flew to and fro in darts of swifter sound.
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But one shout rose from the summit. No human cry distinguishable in it,
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nor amid the thousand lines of skeleton wood that pierced the golden background,
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was any human outline. Visible fire and wind encouraged one another to madness,
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manifesting in prodigious splendor by themselves. Then, suddenly, before a gigantic canter
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of the wind, the driving smoke rolled upwards like a curtain, and the
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flames, ceasing their wild flappings, soared steadily in gothic windows of living gold
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towards the stars, and towering rose between columns of black night. They transformed
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the empty space between them into a colossal temple aisle. They tapered aloft symmetrically
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into vanishing crests, and Hendricks stood upright, rising so that his shoulders topped
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the edge of the boulder, and utterly contemptuous of Laisant's hand that sought with
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violence to drag him into shelter, he gazed as one who sees a vision,
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For at first he could only stand and stare, aware of sensation,
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but not of thought. An enormous, overpowering conviction blew his whole being to
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white heat. Here was a supply of elemental power that human beings, empty,
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needy, starved, deficient, human beings could use his love for the
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boy leaped headlong at the skirts of this terrific salvation. A majestic possibility stormed
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through him. Yet it was no nightmare wonder that met his staring and half
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shielded eyes, although some touch of awful dream seemed in it. Set moreover,
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to a scale that scantier minds might deem distortion. The heat from some
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thirty fires placed at regular intervals, made midnight quiver with immense vibrations of varying
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yet calculated size. These towering heaps emitted notes of measured and alternating depth,
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until the roar along the entire line produced a definite scale, almost of melody,
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the near ones shrilly singing, those more distant booming with mountainous pedal notes.
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The consonance was monstrous, yet conformed to some magnificent diapasson this chord of
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fire music paced the starlit sky, directed but never overmastered by the wind that
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measured it somehow into meaning, repeated in quick succession, the notes, now
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crashing in a mass, now singing alone in solitary beauty. The effect suggested
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an idea of ordered sequence of gigantic rhythm. It seemed, indeed, as
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though some controlling agency, mastering excess, coerced both raging elements to express through
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this stupendous dance some definite idea. Here, as it were, was the
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alphabet of some natural, undifferentiated language, a language of sight and sound,
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pre dating speech, symbolical in the ultimate deefix sense. Some lord of fire
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and some lord of air were in command, harnessed and regulated these formless cohorts
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of energy that men call stupidly mere flame and wind obeyed a higher power than
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had evoked them, yet a power that, by understanding their laws of being,
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held them most admirably in control. This, at least seemed a hint
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of the explanation that flashed into Hendrix as he stared in amazed bewilderment from the
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shelter of the nearest boulder. He read a sentence in some natural, forgotten
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script. He watched, a primitive ritual that once invoked the gods. He
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was aware of rhythm, and he was aware of system, though as yet
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he did not see the hand that wrote this marvelous sentence on the night,
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for still the human element remained invisible. He only realized in dim blundering fashion,
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that he witnessed a revelation of those two powers, which in large lie
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at the foundations of the universe, and in little are the basic essentials of
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human existence, the powers behind heat and air. Fragments of that talk with
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Leson stammered back across his mind like letters in some stupendous word. He dared
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not reconstruct and tire. He shuddered and grew wise. Realms of forgotten being
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opened their doors before his dazzled sight. Vision fluttered into far piercing vistas of
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ancient wonder, haunting and half remembered, then lost its way in blindness.
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That was pain. For a moment, it seemed he was aware of majestic
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presences behind the turmoil, shadowy but mighty, charged with a vague potentiality,
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as of immense algebraical formulae, symbolical and beyond full comprehension, yet willing and
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able to be used for practical results. He felt the elements as nerves of
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a living universe. Yet thinking was not really in him anywhere. Feeling was
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all he knew. The world he moved in as the script he read belonged
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to conditions too utterly remote for reason to recover a single clue to their intelligible
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reconstruction. Glory, clean and strong as a primitive star, worship passed between
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what he saw and all that he had ever known before. The curtain of
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conventional belief was rent and twain. The terrific thing was true for an unmeasured
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interval. The tutor, oblivious of time and actual place, stood on the
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brink of this majestic pageant, staring with breathless awe, while the swaying of
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the entire scenery increased, like the sway of an ocean lifted to the sky
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by many winds. Then, suddenly, in one of those temporary lulls that
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passed between the beat of the great notes, his searching eyes discovered a new
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thing. The focus of his sight was altered, and he realized at last
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the source of the directing and the controlling power behind the fires, and beyond
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the smoke. He recognized the disc like shining ovals that upon this little earth
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stand in the image of the one eternal likeness. He saw the human faces
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symbols of spiritual dominion over all lesser orders, each one possessed of alief,
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intelligence, and will singly so feeble together so invincible. This assemblage, unscorched
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by the fire, by the wind, unmoved, seemed to him impressive beyond
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all possible words, And a further inkling of the truth flashed on him as
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he stared that a group of humans, a crowd combining upon a given object
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with concentrated purpose, possessed of that terrific power certain faith, may know in
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themselves the energy to move great mountains, and therefore the lesser energy to guide
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the fluid forces of the elements. And a sense of cosmic exultation leaped into
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his being. For a moment he knew a touch of almost phrensy. Proud
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joy rose in him, like a splendor of omnipotence. Humanity, it seemed
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to him, here came into a grand but long neglected corner of its kingdom,
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as originally planned by Heaven, into the hands of a weakling and deficient
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boy. The guidance had been given motionless beneath the stars, lit by the
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glare, till they shone like idols of yellow stone, and magnified by the
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sheets of flying intolerable light. The wind chased to and fro. These rows
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of faces appeared at first as a single line of undifferentiated fire against the background
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of the night. The eyes were all cast down in prayer. Each mind
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focused steadily upon one clear idea, the control and assimilation of two elemental powers.
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The crowd was one, feeling was one. Desire, command and certain
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faith were one. The controlling power that resulted was irresistible. Then came a
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remarkable, concerted movement with one accord. The eyes all opened, blazing with
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reflective fire. A hundred human countenances rose in a single shining line. The
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men stood upright. Swarthy faces tanned by sun and wind, heads uncovered,
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hair and beards tossing in the air, turned all one way. Mouths opened
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too. There came a roar that even the hurricane could not drown. A
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word of command, it seemed that sprang into the pulses of the dancing elements
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and reduced their turmoil to a wave of steadier movement. And at the same
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moment, a hundred bodies, naked above the waist, arms outstretched and hands
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with the palms held upwards, swayed forwards through the smoke and fire. They
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came towards the spot where half concealed from view, the tutor crouched and watched,
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and Hendrix, thinking himself discovered, first quailed, then rose to meet
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them. No power to resist was in him. It was rather willing response
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that he experienced. He stepped out from the shelter of the boulder and entered
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the brilliant glare Hatlas himself, shoulders squared, cloak flying in the wind.
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He took three strides towards the advancing battalion, then undecided paused for the line
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he saw disregarded him as though he were not there at all. It was
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not him the worshiper sought. The entire troops swept past to a point some
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fifty feet below, where the end of the ridge broke out of the thinning
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trees, Beautiful as a curving wave of flame. The figures streamed across the
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narrow open space with a drilled precision, as of some battle line, and
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Hendrix, with a sense of wild secret triumph, saw them pause at the
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brink of the platformed ridge, form up their serried ranks yet closer, then
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open two hundred arms to welcome some one whom the darkness should immediately deliver.
27:37
Simultaneously from the covering trees, the tall, slim shadow of Lord Ernie darted
27:41
out into the light. Magnificent, cried Hendrix, but his voice was smothered
27:48
instantly in a mightier sound, and his movement forward seemed ineffective. Stumbling,
27:55
the hundred voices thundered out a single note like a deer. The boy leaped
28:00
like a tongue of flame. He flew to join his own and instantly was
28:03
surrounded. Borne shoulder high upon those upturned palms, swept back in triumph toward
28:10
the procession of enormous fires, wrapped by smoke and sparks lifted by wind.
28:15
He became part of the monstrous rhythm that turned that mountain ridge alive. He
28:19
stood upright upon the platform of interlacing arms. He swayed with their movements as
28:25
a thing of wind and fire that flew The shining faces vanished, then turned
28:30
all towards the blazing piles, so that the boy had the appearance of standing
28:33
on a wall of living black. His outline was visible a moment against the
28:37
sky, firelight between his wide stretched legs streaming from his hair, and horizontal
28:42
arms issuing almost as it seemed, from his very body. The next second,
28:48
he leaped to the ground, ran forward appallingly close between two heaped up
28:53
fires, flung both hands heavenwards and knelt, and Hendrix's sympathetically following the boy's
29:00
performance, as though his own mind and body took part in it, experienced
29:04
then a singular result. It seemed the heart in him began to roar.
29:10
This was no rustle of excited blood that the little cavern of his skull increased,
29:14
but a deeper sound that proclaimed the kinship of his entire being with the
29:18
ritual. His own nature had begun to answer. From that moment he perceived
29:22
the spectacle not with the senses of sight and hearing separately, but with his
29:27
entire body. Synthetically. He became a part of this assembly that was itself
29:33
one single instrument, a cosmic sounding board for the rhythmical expression of impersonal nature.
29:38
Powers Leson, he dimly realized, fixed in his churchy tenets remained outside.
29:45
A part and compromising Hendrix accepted and went, with all little customary feelings
29:52
dipped utterly away, lost faults denied, even as a unit in a crowd
29:59
loses its norse more characteristics in the greater mood that sways the whole. The
30:03
fire no longer burned him, for he was the fire. Nor did he
30:07
stagger against the furious wind, because the wind was in his heart. He
30:12
moved all over, alive in every point and corner. With his skin.
30:17
He breathed, his bones and tissue ran with glorious heat. He cried aloud.
30:22
He praised, I am the whirlwind, and I am the fire,
30:26
fire that lights but does not burn, and wind that blows the heart to
30:30
flame. His body sang it, or rather the elements sang it through his
30:36
body, for the sound of his voice was not audible, and it was
30:40
wind and fire that thundered forth his feeling in their crashing rhythm Chapter nine.
30:47
And so it was that he no longer saw this thing pictorially, nor in
30:51
the little detached reports the individual's senses brought, but knew it in himself,
30:56
complete as a man knows love and passion. Memory afterwards translated these vast central
31:02
feelings into pictures. But the pictures touched reality without containing it like a vision.
31:07
It happened all at once, as a room or landscape happens, and
31:11
what happens all at once coming through synthesis of the senses is not properly describable.
31:17
Later to instantaneous knowledge. Mere sequence is a falsehood. The sequence first
31:22
comes in with the telling afterwards that kneeling form he understood was the empty vessel
31:26
to which conventional life had hitherto denied. The heat and air it craved,
31:33
the breath of life now poured at full tide into it, the fire of
31:37
deity lit its heart of touch wood, wind blue into desire, and later
31:41
flame would burst forth in action, consuming opposition. He must let it fill
31:47
to the brim. It was not salvation but creation. Then thought went out,
31:52
extinguished by a puff of something greater. For beyond the smoke and sparks,
31:57
beyond the space, the men occupied. A new and gentler movement,
32:01
lyrical with birdlike beauty, ran suddenly along the ridge. What Hendrix had taken
32:07
for branches heaped and rose for the burning stirred marvelously throughout their whole collective mass
32:14
stirred sweetly, too, and with an exquisite loveliness. The entire line rose
32:20
gracefully into the air with a whirr, as of sweeping birds. There was
32:23
a soft and undulating motion, as though a draft of flowing wind turned faintly
32:29
visible, yet with an increasing brilliance, like shining lilies of flame that now
32:34
flocked forward in a troop, bending deliciously all one way. And in the
32:39
same second, these tall lilies of fire revealed themselves as figures, naked above
32:45
the waist, hair streaming on the wind, eyes alight, and bare arms
32:49
waving above the men's deep petal bass. Their voices rose with clear, shrill
32:53
sweetness on the storm. The band swept forwards, swift as wind, towards
32:59
the kneeling boy. The long line curved about him foldingly. The women took
33:05
him as the south wind takes a bird. There may have been, indeed,
33:08
there was an interval, for Hendricks caught again and again repeated the boy's
33:15
great cry of passionate delight above the tumult ringing in vile. It rose to
33:20
heaven, clear as a fine wrought bell, and instantaneously the knitted figures of
33:24
flame disentangled themselves again. The mass unfolded like an opening flower, and as
33:31
by a military word of command, dissolved itself once more into a long,
33:36
thin line of running fire. The women advanced, and the waiting men flowed
33:40
forward in a stream to meet them. This interweaving of the figures was as
33:45
easily accomplished as the mingling of light and heavy threads upon some living room hands
33:51
joining hands, all singing. These naked worshipers of fire and wind passed in
33:55
and out among the blazing piles with a headlong precision that was torrential and yet
34:00
orderly. The speed increased. The faces flashed and vanished, then flashed and
34:07
passed again, each woman between two men, each man between two women,
34:12
and Lord Ernie radiantly alive between two girls of rich o'erflowing beauty. Their movements
34:19
were undulating, like the undulations of fire, yet with sudden, unexpected upward
34:23
leaps, as when fire is partnered abruptly by a cantering wind. For the
34:29
women were fire and the men were wind. The imitative dance was in full
34:34
swing. The marvelous wind and fire ritual unrolled its old world magic. It
34:39
was awe inspiring, certainly, But for Hendrix, as he watched, the
34:44
terror of big conflagrations was wholly absent. Rather, he felt the sense of
34:49
deep security that rhythmic movement causes. Bathed in a sea of elemental power,
34:54
he burned to share the pagan's splendor in the rush of primitive delight. It
35:00
seemed he had a cosmic body in which new centers stirred to life, linking
35:05
him on to this source of natural forces. Through these centers, he drew
35:08
the chaotic energy into nerves and blood and muscle, and to the very substance
35:13
of his thought, indeed transmuting them into the magic of the will. Abundant
35:17
and inexhaustible vigor filled the air, pouring freely into whatever empty receptacle lay at
35:23
hand. Sheets of flame, wholly separate fragments of it tore at the edges,
35:30
raced loudly, hungrily, flapping on vehement gusts of wind, curved as
35:34
they flew, leaped, twisted, flashed, and vanished, and the figures
35:39
closely copied them. The women tossed their bodies aloft, then dipped suddenly to
35:45
the earth, invisible, till the rushing men urged them into view again with
35:49
the wild, impetuous swing, so that the entire line stretched and contracted,
35:52
like an immense elastic band of life, now knotted, now dissolved. Yet
35:59
while of rage in terrific beauty, there was never that mad abandon which is
36:02
disorder, but rather a kind of sacred natural revel that prohibited mere license.
36:09
There was even a singular austerity in it that betrayed a definite ritual and not
36:14
mere reckless pageantry. No walls could possibly have contained it in cathedral, temple
36:20
or measured space, however grand, it could only have seemed exaggerated and apostate.
36:25
Here beneath the open sky, it was beautiful and true. For overhead,
36:30
the stars burned clear and steady, the constellations watching it from their immovable
36:35
towers, a representation of their own leisured and hierarchic dance and swifter miniature.
36:42
And indeed this relationship it bore to a universal rhythm, was the key,
36:45
it seemed to its deep significance, for the close imitation of natural movements seduced
36:52
the colossal powers of fire and wind to swell human emotions till they became mold
36:58
and vestle. For this elemental manifestation in men and women gold and yellow in
37:04
the blaze, the limbs of the women flashed and passed, Their hair flew
37:07
dark a moment across gleaming breasts, and their waving arms tossed in ever shifting
37:13
patterns through the driving smoke. The fires boiled and roared, scattering torrents of
37:19
showering sparks like stars, and amid it all the slim white shoulders of the
37:23
boy, his clothes torn from him, his eyes ablaze, and his lips
37:29
opened to the singing, as though he had known it. Always drove to
37:32
and fro on the crest of the ritual, like some flying figure of wind
37:37
and fire incarnate, all of which instantaneously, yet in sequence Hendrix's witnessed painted
37:44
upon the wild night sky. A volcanic energy poured through him too. He
37:49
knew a golden enthusiasm, of immeasurable strength, of unconquerable hope, of irresistible
37:54
delight. Wind set his feet to dancing, and fire swept across his face
38:00
without a trace of burning. Nature was part of him. He had stepped
38:05
inside. No obstacle existed that could withstand for a single second the torrential energy
38:10
that fired his heart and blood. There was lightning in his veins. He
38:15
could sweep aside life's difficult barriers with the ease of a tornado, and shake
38:20
the rubbish of doubt and care from the years with earthquake shocks empires. He
38:24
could mold and play with nations, drive men and women before him like a
38:29
flock of sheep, shatter convention and dislocate the machinery time had foisted upon natural
38:35
energies. He knew in himself the omnipotence of the lesser elemental deities. Yet
38:42
as sympathetic observer, he can but have felt a tithe of what Lord Erney
38:45
felt. We are the whirlwind, and we are the fire, he cried
38:51
aloud with the rushing worshippers. We are unconquerable in immense. We destroy the
38:55
lukewarm and absorb the weak, For we can make evil in to good by
39:00
bending it all one way. The roar swept thunderingly past him, catching at
39:06
his voice and body. He felt himself snatched forward by the wind. The
39:09
fire looked sweetly at him. It was the final abandonment. He plunged recklessly
39:15
towards the surge of Dancers Chapter ten. What stopped him he did not know.
39:22
Some hard and steely thing pricked sharply into him, an opposing power,
39:27
fierce as a sword, stabbed at his heart. And he heard a little
39:30
sound quite close beside him, a sound that pierced the babble, reaching his
39:36
consciousness as from far away. Keep still cling tight to this old rock hold
39:42
yourself in or else I'll have you too. It was as if some insect
39:46
scratched within his ear his arm that same instant was violently seized. He came
39:52
down with a crash. He had been half in the air, he had
39:55
been dancing. Turn your eyes away, away, take hold of this big
40:00
tree, the voice cried, furiously, but with a petty human passion in
40:06
it that marred the world. There was an intolerable revulsion in him as he
40:09
heard it. He felt himself dragged forcibly backwards. He lost his balance,
40:15
stumbling among loose stones. Loose me, let me go, he shouted,
40:20
struggling like a wild animal, yet vainly against the inflexible grip that held him.
40:25
I am one with the fire that lights but does not burn. I
40:30
am the wind that blows the worlds along, damnation, take you, let
40:32
me free. Confusion caught him, smothering speech and blinding sight. He fell
40:38
backwards, away from the heat and wind. He was furious, but furious
40:43
with He knew not whom or what. The interference had destroyed. The rhythm
40:47
broken it into fragments. Violent impulses clashed through him, without the will to
40:52
choose or guide them. For power had deserted him and flowed elsewhere. He
40:58
stood no longer in the stream of energy. He was emptied, and at
41:01
first he could not tell whether his instinct was to return himself to rescue his
41:06
precious boy, or to crush the interfering object out of existence. With what
41:10
was left to him of raging anger, he turned, stood up, and
41:15
flung the pasture aside with violence. He raised his feet to stamp and kill,
41:20
when a phrase with meaning darted suddenly across his wild confusion and recalled him
41:24
to some fragment of truer responsibility in life. There'll be only violence in him,
41:30
reckless violence instead of straight destructive. Save him before this too late.
41:37
It is too light, he roared in answer, what devil hinders me?
41:45
But his roar was feeble, and his ironed boots refused. The stamping power
41:50
slipped wholly out of him. The rhythm poured past instead of through him.
41:54
Interference had destroyed the circuit. More glimmerings of responsibility came back. He stooped
42:00
like a drunken man and helped the other to his feet. The rapidity of
42:05
the change was curious, proving that the spell had been put upon him from
42:07
without. It was not, as with the boy, mere development of pre
42:13
existing tendencies. Help me, he implored, suddenly, Instead, help me.
42:20
There has been madness in me. For God's sake, help me to
42:22
get him out. It seemed the face of the old Marquess, stern and
42:27
terrible, broken instant through the smoky air, black with reproach and anger,
42:31
and with a violent effort of the will, Hendrix turned round to face the
42:35
elemental orgy, bent on rescue. But this time the heat was intolerable and
42:40
drove him back. The hair hitherto untouched, now singed upon his head.
42:45
Fire licked his very breath away. He bent double, covering his face with
42:50
arms and cloak. Pray, shouted Lazan, dropping to his knees. It
42:53
is the only way. My God is higher than this. Pray. Pray,
42:59
and automatically Hendrix fell upon his knees beside him. Though to pray he
43:02
knew not how, for no real faith was in him as in the other,
43:07
and his eye was far from single. The fast fading grandeur of what
43:10
he had experienced still left its pagan tumult in his blood. The pretense of
43:15
prayer could only have been blasphemy. He watched instead, letting the other invoke
43:21
his mighty deity alone, that deity he had served unflinchingly all his life,
43:25
with faith and fasting, and with belief beyond assault. It was an impressive
43:31
picture, fraught with passionate drama. On his knees, behind a sheltering boulder,
43:37
a blackened pine tree, tossing scorched branches above his head, this righteous
43:42
man prayed to his God, sure of his triumphant answer. Hendrix watched with
43:46
an admiration that made him realize his own insignificance. The eyes were closed,
43:52
the leonine, big head set firm upon the diminutive body, the face now
43:57
lit by flame, now veiled by smoke, the strong hands clasped together and
44:01
upraised. He envied him. He recognized too, that the elements themselves,
44:07
with all their chaos of might and terror, were after all, but servants
44:10
of the vastness which dips the butterflies in color and puts down upon the breasts
44:15
of little robins. And because the Pasteur's life had been always prayer in action,
44:22
his little human will invoked the will of greatness, merged with it,
44:27
used it, and directed it steadily against the commotion of these unleashed elements,
44:32
certain of himself and of his God, the pasture never doubted his prayer,
44:37
set instantly in action those forces which balance suns and keep the stars afloat.
44:44
Thus trembling with terror that made him wholly ineffective, Hendricks watched, and as
44:49
he watched became aware of the amazing change. For it seemed as if a
44:53
stream of power, steady and in opposition to the tumult, now poured audaciously
45:00
against the elemental rhythm, altering its direction, modifying gradually its stupendous impetus.
45:07
There were pauses in the huge vibrations. They wavered, broke, and fled.
45:12
They knew confusion, as when the prow of a steel nosed vessel drives
45:15
against the tide. The tide is vaster, but the steel is different.
45:21
The whole sky shivered as this new entering force, so small, so soft,
45:25
yet of such incalculable energy, began at once its overmastering effect. Signs
45:31
of violence or route, or of anything disordered, had no part in it
45:37
excess. Before it slipped into willing harness, there was light that sponged away
45:42
all glare, as when morning sunshine cleans a forest of its shadows. Some
45:45
little whispering power sang marvelously as of old across the desolate big mountains. Peace
45:52
be still, turning the monstrous turbulence into obedient sweetness. And upon his face
46:00
and hands Hendrix felt faint, delicate touches of some refreshing softness that he could
46:06
not understand. Yet, not instantly was this harmony restored. At first there
46:12
was the stress of vehement opposition. The night of wind and fire drove roaring
46:15
through the sky. There were bursts of triumphant tumult, but convulsion in them,
46:21
and no true steadiness. As before, the human figures hitherto had danced
46:24
with that fluid appearance which belongs to fire, and with that instantaneous rush which
46:30
is of wind. The men increasing the women, and the women answering with
46:34
joy. Limbs and faces had melted into each other, till the circular ritual
46:37
looked like a glowing wheel of flame, rotating audibly but slowly. Now the
46:43
speed of the wheel decreased. The single utterance was marred by the crying of
46:46
many voices, all at different pitch, discordant inharmonious dismayed. The fires,
46:53
somehow dwindled. There came pauses in the wind and Hendrix became aware of a
46:59
curious hissing noise as more and more of these odd soft touches found his face
47:04
and hands. Here and there he saw a figure stumbled, fell, then
47:08
gathered itself clumsily together again with a frightened shout, breaking violently out of the
47:13
circle. More and more these figures blundered and dropped out, And although they
47:17
returned again so that the dance apparently increased, these were but moments in the
47:22
final violence of the dispersing hurricane. The rejected ones dashed back wildly into the
47:28
wrong places. Men and women no longer stood alternate, but in groups together,
47:31
falsely related. The entire movement was dislocated. The ceremony grew rapidly incoherent,
47:38
meaning forsook it. The composite instrument that had transmuted the elemental forces into
47:45
human emotional storage was imperfect, broken out of tune, the disarray turned rout.
47:52
And then it was, while Lazan continued without ceasing his burning and successful
47:58
prayer, that his companion, conscious of returning harmony, rose to his feet,
48:02
aware suddenly that he could also help, a portion of the powers he
48:07
had absorbed still worked in him, but in a new direction. He felt
48:10
confident and unafraid. He did not stumble with unerring tread. He advanced towards
48:15
the lessening fires, feeling as he did so, the cold, soft touches
48:20
multiply with a rush upon his skin. From all sides they came by hundreds,
48:23
like messengers of help. Earnest, he cried aloud, and his voice,
48:30
though little raised, carried resonantly above the dying turmoil. Earnest, come
48:34
back to us, your father calls you. And from three score faces hurrying
48:38
in confusion through the smoke, one paused and turned. It stood apart,
48:43
hovering as though in air. While the mob of disordered figures rushed in a
48:46
body along the ridge, plunging like frightened cattle below the farther edge, then
48:52
vanishing into thick darkness. They left behind them this one solitary face. A
48:58
final dying flame looked out at it. A rush of smoke drove past to
49:01
hide it. There was a high, wild scream, and the figure shot
49:05
forward with a headlong leap, and fell with a crash at Hendrick's feet.
49:08
Lord Ernie, blackened by smoke and scorched by fire, lay safe outside the
49:13
danger zone, and Hendrix knelt beside him. Remorse and shame made him powerless
49:19
to do more. As he pulled the torn clothing over the neck and chest,
49:22
and heard his own heart begging for forgiveness, he realized his own weakness
49:28
and faithlessness, a great temptation had found him wanting. It was owing to
49:32
Lezan that the rescue was complete. The pasture was instantly by his side,
49:38
saved as by water. He cried as he folded his cloak about the prostrate
49:43
body, and then raised the head and shoulders, saved by his ministers of
49:47
rain. For his miracles are love and work throughout natural laws. He made
49:53
a sign to Hendrix, Carrying the boy between them, they scrambled down the
49:57
slope into the shelter of the trees below. The cold, soft touches were
50:01
then explained. The jaurent had dropped as suddenly as it rose, and the
50:07
torrential rain that invariably follows now poured in rivers from the sky, water drenching
50:13
the fires and patting the savage wind, had stopped the dancers midway in their
50:15
frenzied ritual. It was the element they dreaded for It was hostile rain soused
50:22
the mountain ridge, extinguishing the last embers of the numerous fires. It rushed
50:28
in rivulets between their feet. The heated earth gave out a hissing steam,
50:32
and the only sound in the spaces where wind and fire had boomed and thundered
50:36
a little while before, was now the splash of water and the drip of
50:39
quenching drops in the cover of the sheltering trees. The body stirred, lifted
50:45
its head and sat up slowly. The eyes opened. I'm cold, I'm
50:52
frightened, whispered a shivering voice. Where am I? Only the pelt and
50:57
thud of the rain sounded behind the quavering words. Where are the others?
51:01
Have I been away? Hendricks? Mister Hendrix, is that you? He
51:07
stared about him, his face now a mere luminous disk in the thick darkness.
51:12
No breath of wind was loose. They spoke to him till he answered
51:15
with assurance, groping to find their hands with his own, his words confused
51:20
and strange with hidden meaning for a time. I'm all right now, he
51:25
kept repeating, I know exactly. It was one of my big dreams.
51:30
I suppose I fell asleep and the rain woke me. Great heavens, what
51:35
a night to be out. And then he clambered vigorously to his feet,
51:38
with a sudden movement of great energy, again saying that hunger was in him
51:43
and he must eat. There was no complaint of heat or cold, of
51:47
burning, or of bruises. The boy recovered marvelously, and ten minutes,
51:52
breaking away from all support, he led as they descended through the dripping forest
51:57
in the gloom and chill of very early morning. It was the others who
52:00
called to him for guidance in the tangled woods. Lord Ernie was in the
52:05
lead throughout the difficult woods. He was ever in front and singing, fire
52:09
that lightspit does not burn, and wind that blows the heart to flame.
52:14
They both are in me now, for ever and ever, Oh, praise
52:16
the Lord of Fire and the Lord of wind. And this voice now near,
52:22
now distant, sounding through the dripping forest on their homeward journey, was
52:25
an experience weird and unforgettable. For those other two. Lason, it seemed,
52:30
had one sentence only which he kept repeating to himself. Heava Grinthe he
52:36
made direct it off for good, For they have feeled him to the brim,
52:39
and he is become an instrument of power. But Hendrix, though he
52:45
understood the risk, felt only confidence Lord Ernie's regeneration had begun. Soaked and
52:51
bedraggled, all three they reached the village about two o'clock. The boy,
52:55
utterly unmanageable, said an emphatic no to spirits, south or medical appliances.
53:00
His skin indeed showed no signs of burning, nor was there the smallest symptom
53:06
of cold or fever in him. I'm a perfect furnace, he laughed.
53:09
I feel health and strength personified, and the brightness of his eyes, his
53:14
radiant color, the vigor of his voice and manner, both in some way
53:17
astonishing, made all pretense of assistance unnecessary and absurd. It's like a new
53:23
birth, he cried to Hendrix, as he almost cantered beside him down the
53:27
road to their house. And by Jove, I'll wake em up at home
53:30
and make the world go round. I know a hundred schemes, I tell
53:34
you, sir, I'm simply bursting for the first time. I'm alive.
53:38
And an hour later, when the tutor peeped in upon him, the boy
53:42
was calmly sleeping, the candle light shaded carefully with one hand fell upon the
53:46
face. There were new lines and new expression in it. Will and purpose
53:52
showed in the stern set of the lips and jaw. It was the face
53:55
of a man, and of a man one would not lightly trifle with purpose,
54:00
will and power were established on their thrones. To such a man,
54:05
the entire world might one day bow the head who it will. Last,
54:09
thought Hendrix, as shaken, bewildered, and more than a little awed,
54:14
He tiptoed out of the room again and went to bed, But through his
54:16
dreams, sheeted in flame and veiled in angry smoke, the face of the
54:21
old Marquess glowered upon him from a heavy sky above ancestral towers. Chapter eleven
54:30
from the Obituary Notices of the Ninth Marquess of Oakham. The following selections have
54:35
their interest. He succeeded to his father, then in the cabinet, as
54:38
Minister for Foreign Affairs, at the age of twenty one. His career was
54:43
brief but singular, the early magnificence of the younger Pitt, offering a standard
54:47
of comparison, though by no means a parallel to a short record of astonishing
54:52
achievement. His effect upon the world first as chief of the government Labor Department
54:57
and subsequently as Home Secretary and Minister of War, is described as shattering,
55:00
even cataclysmic. His public life lasted five years. He died at the age
55:07
of twenty nine. His personality was revolutionary and overwhelming. For judging by these
55:13
extracts, he was a Napoleonic figure whose personal influence combined the impetus of Mirabeau
55:19
and the dominance of Alexander. His authority held an incalculable element, precisely described
55:23
as uncanny. His spirit was Poussin elemental, his activity irresistible. Yet according
55:30
to another journal, he was, properly speaking, neither intellectual, astute,
55:35
nor diplomatic, and possessed as little subtlety as might be expected of a miner
55:38
whose psychology was called upon to explain the Trinity. In no sense was he
55:43
statesman, and even less strategists. Yet his name swept Europe, changed the
55:47
map of the nearer East, its mere whisper among the chancelleries, convulsing men's
55:52
counsels, with its influence almost menacing. His enthusiasm appears to have been amazing.
55:58
Some stupendous and un hiring energy drove through him paralyzing attack and rendering the
56:02
bitterest and most skillful opposition nugatory. His hand was imperious, upsetting with a
56:08
touch the chess boards set by the most able stakecraft, and his voice was
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heard with a kind of reverence in every capital. The brevity of his astonishing
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career called for universal comment, as did the hypnotizing effect of his singular ascendancy.
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In five short years of power, he achieved his sway. He rushed
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upon the world, He shook it. He retired, as one journal picturesquely
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phrased it. The manner of his ending. Moreover, a stroke of lightning
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seemed in keeping with his life. There was neither lingering, delay nor warning
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of distinguished stock, noble yet ordinary enough in all but name, his power
56:45
is unexplained by heredity. His family furnished no approach to greatness, as history
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supplied no parallel to his dynamic intensity, nor we are informed among his near
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of kin, does any inherit his volcanic energy. The world, however,
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was a carently well relieved of his tumultuous presence, for his influence was generally
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surveyed as destructive rather than constructive. He was unmarried and the title went to
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a nephew. The cheaper journals abounded, of course, in details of his
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personal and private life that were freely copied into the foreign press, and supply
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curious material for the student of human nature and the psychologist. The amazing revelations,
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no doubt, were picturesquely exaggerated, yet the substratum of truth in them
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all was generally admitted. No contradictions at any rate appeared. They read like
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the story of some primitive wild giant let loose upon the world. Primitive because
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his specific brain power was admittedly of no high order. Wild because he was
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in favor of fierce spontaneous action, and his mere presence on occasions could stir
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a nation, not alone a crowd, to vehement terrific methods. His energy
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seemed inexhaustible, his fire inextinguishable. Legends were rife even before he died among
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the peasantry of his Scotch estates that he was in league with the devil.
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His habit of keeping enormous fires in his private rooms, fires that burned day
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and night from January to December, and in open hearts, widened to thrice
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their natural size, stimulated the growth of this particular myth among those of his
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personal environment. All manner of stories raged, But it was his strange custom
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out of doors that provided the diabolical suggestion. For behind, especially walled in
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space, on an open ridge denuded of pines, in a distant part of
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the estate, a series of gigantic heaps of wood already to ignite, were,
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it was said, kept in a state of constant preparedness, and on
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stormy nights, especially when winds were high, and invariably at the period of
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the equinoctial tempests, his lordship would himself light these tremendous bonfires and spend the
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nocturnal hours in their blazing presence, communing. The stories variously relate with the
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witches at their sabbath, or with hordes of fire spirits who emerge from the
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bottomless pit in order to feed his soul with their unquenchable supplies. From these
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knightly orgies, it seems clear, at any rate, he returned at dawn
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with a splendor of energy that no one could resist, and with a mien
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whose grandeur invited worship rather than inspired alarm. His biography was further stated,
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would be written by Sir John Hendrix who began life as private secretary to his
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father, the eighth Marquess, but whose rapid rise to position was due to
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his intimate association as trusted friend and adviser to the subject of these obituary notices.
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The biography, however, had not appeared within five years of Lord Oakum's
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sudden death, and curiosity is only further stimulated by the suggested whisper that it
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never will and never can appear end of Section three.