The Scarlet Banner

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER VIII

  The intense darkness of the night was already yielding in the easternsky to a faint gray glimmer of twilight, but the stars were stillshining in the heavens, when a slender little figure glidednoiselessly, but very swiftly, through the streets of the camp.

  The shaggy dogs watching their masters' tents growled, but did notbark; they were afraid of the creature slipping by so softly. A Vandal,mounting guard at a street-corner, superstitiously made the sign of thecross and avoided the wraith floating past. But the white formapproached him.

  "Where is Decimum? I mean, in which direction?" it asked in low,hurried tones.

  "In the east, yonder." He pointed with his spear.

  "How far is it?"

  "How far? Very distant. We rode as fast as the horses could run; forfear pursued us,--I really do not know of what,--and we did not drawrein till we reached here. We dashed along six or eight hours before wearrived."

  "No matter."

  The hurrying figure soon reached the exit of the camp. The guardsstationed there let her pass unmolested. One called after her:

  "Where are you going? Not that way! The enemy is there."

  "Don't stay long!" a Moor shouted after her; "the evil wind is rising."

  But she was already gone. Directly behind the camp she turned from thepath marked by many footprints, also by weapons lost or thrownaway,--if that name could be given to this track through the desert.Running several hundred paces south of the line extending from west toeast, she plunged into the wilderness, crossing, meanwhile, severalhigh, dome-like sand-hills. These mounds are piled up by the changingwinds blowing through the desert in every direction, but mostfrequently from the south to north; and the narrow sand ravines besidethem often, for the distance of a quarter of a league, obstruct theview of the person passing through them over the nearest sand-wave.

  Not until she believed herself too far from the road to be seen, didshe again turn in her original direction, eastward, or what she thoughtwas east. Meantime, it is true, the fiery, glowing rising sun hadextinguished the light of the stars and marked the east; but soonthereafter the crimson disk vanished behind vaporous clouds, theexhalations of the desert. She ran on and on and on. She was nowentirely within the domain of the desert. There was no longer anydistinguishing object,--no tree, no bush, nothing but sky above andsand below. True, there were sometimes sand valleys, sometimes sandheights, but these, too, were perfectly uniform. On, on she ran. "Onlyto reach his grave!" she thought. "Only his grave. Always straight on!"It was so still, so strangely still.

  Once only she fancied that she saw, far, far away on her left,corresponding with the "path," hurrying cloud-shadows; perhaps theywere ostriches or antelopes. No, she thought she heard human voicescalling, but very, very distant. Yet it sounded like "Eugenia!"

  Startled, she stooped down close to the sand-hill at her left; it wouldprevent her being seen from that direction. Even if the valley in whichshe was now cowering could be overlooked from a hillock, the back ofthe mound would protect her. "Eugenia!" Now the name seemed to comeagain more distinctly; the tones were like Hilda's voice. The low,distant sound died tremulously away, sorrowful, hopeless. All was stillagain. She started up, and ran on breathlessly.

  But the fugitive now grew uneasy, because she had lost her direction.What if she was not keeping a perfectly straight course? Then shethought of looking back. The print of every one of her light footstepswas firmly impressed upon the sand. The line was perfectly straight;she rejoiced over her wisdom. Then she often glanced behind--at almostevery hundred steps--to test. Only forward, forward! She was growinganxious. Drops of perspiration had long been falling from her foreheadand her bare arms. It was growing hot, very hot, and so strangelysultry--the sky so leaden gray. A light, whistling wind sprang up,blowing from south to north.

  Eugenia glanced back again. Oh, horror! She saw no sign of herfootsteps. The whole expanse lay behind her as smooth as though shewere just starting on her way. As if dazed by astonishment, she stampedon the sand; directly after, before her eyes, the impression was filledup, completely effaced by the finest sand, which was driven by thelight breeze.

  Startled, she pressed her hand upon her beating heart--and graspedsand; a fine but thick layer had incrusted her garments, her hair, herface. Through her bewildered thoughts darted the remembrance of havingheard how human beings, animals, whole caravans, had been covered bysuch sand-storms, how, heaped by the wind, the sand often rose likehuge waves, burying all life beneath it. She fancied that on her right,on the south, a hill of sand was towering; it seemed moving swiftlyonward, and threatened to bar her way. So she must run yet faster toescape it. Her path was still open. Just at that moment, from thesouth, a gust of wind suddenly blew with great force. Snatching thebraided hat from her head, it whirled it swiftly northward. In aninstant it was almost out of sight. To overtake it was impossible.Besides, she must go toward the east. Forward!

  The wind grew stronger and stronger. The sun, rising higher, dartedscorching rays upon her unprotected head; her dark-brown hair flutteredwildly around. Incrusted with salt, it struck her eyes or lashed hercheeks and stung her keenly. She could scarcely keep her eyes open; thefine sand forced its way through their long lashes. On. The sandentered her shoes; the band across the instep of the left one broke.She lifted her foot; the wind tore off the shoe and whirled it away. Itwas certainly no misfortune, yet she wept--wept over her helplessness.She sank to her knees; the malicious sand rose slowly higher andhigher. A shrill, harsh, disagreeable cry fell on her ear,--the firstsound in the tremendous silence for many hours; a dark figure, flyingfrom north to south, flitted for a moment along the horizon. It was anostrich, fleeing in mortal terror before the simoom. With head and longwhite neck far outstretched, aiding the swift movement of its long legsby flapping its curved dark wings like sails, it glided on like anarrow. Already it was out of sight.

  "That bird is hurrying with such might to save its life. Shall mystrength fail when I am hastening to the man I love? 'For shame, littleone!' he would say." Smiling through her tears, she ran forward. So anhour passed--many hours.

  Often she thought that she must have lost the right direction, or shewould have reached the battlefield long ago. The wind had risen to atempest. Her heart beat with suffocating strength. Giddiness seizedher; she tottered; she must rest. Now, here, no Vandal could overtakeher to keep her by force from her sacred goal.

  Just at that moment something white appeared above the sand closebeside her. It was the first break for hours in the monotonous yellowsurface. The object was no stone. Seizing it, Eugenia dragged it fromthe sand. Oh, despair and horror! She shrieked aloud in desperation, interror, in the sense of cheerless, hopeless helplessness. It was herown shoe, which she had lost hours before. She had been wandering in acircle. Or had the wind borne it far away from the place where she lostit? Yet, no! The shoe, which she now flung down, weeping, was swiftlycovered with sand, instead of being carried away by the wind. Afterexhausting the last remnant of her strength, she was in the same spot.

  To die--now--to give up all effort--to rest--to sleep--now sweet wasthe temptation to the wearied limbs.

  But, no! To him! What were the words? "And it _constrained_ thefaithful one and drew her to the grave of the dead hero." To him!

  Eugenia raised herself with great difficulty, she was already so weak.And when she had barely gained her feet, the storm blew her down oncemore. Again she rose, trying to see if some human being, some house, ifnot the path, was visible. Just then she perceived before her in thenorth a sand-hill, higher than any of the others. It was probably morethan a hundred feet. If she could succeed in climbing it, she would beable from the top to get a wide view. With inexpressible difficulty,sinking knee-deep at nearly every step in the looser sand, until herfoot reached the older, firmer soil, she pressed upward, often fallingback several paces when she stumbled. While she did so the strangest,most alarming thing happened,--at every slip the whole
sand-hillcreaked, trembled, and began to slide down in every direction. Atfirst Eugenia stopped in terror; she thought the whole mountain wouldsink with her. But she conquered her fear, and at last climbedupward on her knees, for she could no longer stand; she thrust herhands into the sand and dragged herself up. The wind--no, it was now ahurricane--assisted her; it blew from south to north. At last--theclimb seemed to her longer than the whole previous way--at last shereached the top. Opening her eyes, which she had kept half closed, shesaw--oh, bliss! she saw deliverance. Before her, at a long distance, itis true, yet plainly visible, glittered a steel-blue line. It was thesea! And at the side, eastward, she fancied she saw houses, trees.Surely that was Decimum; and a little farther inland rose a dark hill--the end of the desert. She imagined,--yet surely it was impossible tosee so far,--she believed or dreamed that, on the summit of the hill,she beheld three slender black lines relieved against the clearhorizon. Surely those were the three spears on the grave. "Beloved One!My hero!" she cried, "I am coming."

  With outstretched arms she tried to hurry down the sand-hill on thenortheastern: side, but, at the first step, she sank in to theknee,--deeper still, to the waist. She could still see the blue skyabove her. Once more, with her last strength, she flung both arms highabove her head, thrusting her hands into the sand to the wriststo drag herself up; once more the large beautiful antelope eyesgazed beseechingly--ah, so despairingly--up to the silent sky; anotherwild, desperate pull--a hollow sound as of a heavy fall. The wholesand-mountain, shaken by her struggles and swept by the hurricane fromthe south, fell over her northward, burying her nearly a hundred feetdeep, stifling her in a moment. Above her lofty grave the desert stormraved exultingly.

  * * * * *

  For decades the beautiful corpse lay undisturbed, unprofaned, untilthat ever-changing architect, the wind, gradually removed the sand-hilland, one stormy night, at last blew it away entirely.

  Just at that time a pious hermit, one of the desert monks who beggedhis scanty fare in Decimum and carried it to his sand cave, passedalong. Often and often he had come that way; the hurricane had baredthe skeleton only the day before. The old man stood before it,thoughtful. The little dazzlingly white bones were so dainty, sodelicate, as if fashioned by an artist's hand; the garments, like theflesh, had long been completely consumed by the trickling moisture; butthe lofty sand ridge had faithfully kept its beautiful secret, not abone was missing. For a human generation the dry sand of the desert,though garments and flesh had gone to decay, had preserved uninjuredthe outlines of the figure as it had been pressed into the sand underthe heavy weight. One could see that the buried girl had tried toprotect eyes and mouth with her right hand; the left lay in a gracefulattitude across her breast; her face was turned toward the ground.

  "Who were you, dainty child, that found a solitary death here?" saidthe holy man, deeply touched. "For there is no trace of a companionnear. A child, or a girl just entering maidenhood? But, at any rate, aChristian--no Moor; here on her neck, fastened by a silver chain, is agold cross. And beside it a strange ornament,--a bronze half-circlewith characters inscribed on it, not Latin, Greek, nor Hebrew. Nomatter. The girl's bones shall not remain scattered in the desert. TheChristian shall sleep in consecrated ground. The peasants must help meto bury her here or in the neighborhood."

  He went to Decimum. The traces of the Vandal battle had long sincevanished. The village children who had then fled were now grown men,the owners of the houses and fields. The peasant to whom the hermitrelated his touching discovery listened attentively. But when thelatter spoke of the bronze half-circle with the singular characters, heinterrupted him, exclaiming:

  "Strange! In the hill-tomb, the great stone vault outside of ourvillage,--I own the hill, and vines grow on the southern slope,--therelies, according to trustworthy tradition, a Vandal boy-prince who fellhere, and beside him a mighty warrior, a terrible giant, who is said tohave remained faithfully by his side. The priests say he was a monster,a god of thunder, one of the old pagan gods of the Barbarians, withwhose fall fortune deserted them. Well, the giant has hanging on hisarm a half-circle exactly like the one you describe. Perhaps the twobelonged together? Who knows? We cannot dig a grave in the desert; evenif we try, the wind will blow it away. Come, I'll harness the horses tomy wagon; we will go out to the dead woman and lay her beside thegiant; his grave has already been consecrated by the priests."

  This was done. But when they had placed the delicate form beside themighty one, and the monk had muttered a prayer, he asked: "Tell me,friend,--I saw with joyful surprise that you had left all the ornamentsupon the dead; and that you should receive nothing for your troublewith the poor girl's skeleton is not exactly--"

  "Peasant custom, do you mean? You are right, holy father. But you see.King Gelimer, who once reigned here, enjoined upon my father after thebattle to take faithful care of the graves; he was to keep them as ifthey were a sanctuary until Gelimer should return and carry the bodiesto Carthage. King Gelimer never returned to Decimum. But my father, onhis deathbed, committed the care of this tomb to me; and so shall I,before I die, to the curly-headed boy who helped us to carry thelittle skeleton. For King Gelimer was kind to every one,--to us Romans,too,--and had done my father many a favor in the days of the Vandals.Already many say he was no man, but a demon,--a wicked one, accordingto some, a good one, most declare. But, man or demon, good he certainlywas; for my father has often praised him."

  So little Eugenia at last reached her hero's side.