CHAPTER X. THE BAD BURROW
As the air grew black and the winter closed swiftly around me, thefluttering fire blazed out more luminous, and arresting its flight,hovered waiting. So soon as I came under its radiance, it flew slowlyon, lingering now and then above spots where the ground was rocky. Everytime I looked up, it seemed to have grown larger, and at length gave mean attendant shadow. Plainly a bird-butterfly, it flew with a certainswallowy double. Its wings were very large, nearly square, and flashedall the colours of the rainbow. Wondering at their splendour, I becameso absorbed in their beauty that I stumbled over a low rock, and laystunned. When I came to myself, the creature was hovering over my head,radiating the whole chord of light, with multitudinous gradations andsome kinds of colour I had never before seen. I rose and went on, but,unable to take my eyes off the shining thing to look to my steps, Istruck my foot against a stone. Fearing then another fall, I sat down towatch the little glory, and a great longing awoke in me to have it in myhand. To my unspeakable delight, it began to sink toward me. Slowly atfirst, then swiftly it sank, growing larger as it came nearer. I feltas if the treasure of the universe were giving itself to me--put out myhand, and had it. But the instant I took it, its light went out; all wasdark as pitch; a dead book with boards outspread lay cold and heavy inmy hand. I threw it in the air--only to hear it fall among the heather.Burying my face in my hands, I sat in motionless misery.
But the cold grew so bitter that, fearing to be frozen, I got up. Themoment I was on my feet, a faint sense of light awoke in me. "Is itcoming to life?" I cried, and a great pang of hope shot through me.Alas, no! it was the edge of a moon peering up keen and sharp over alevel horizon! She brought me light--but no guidance! SHE would nothover over me, would not wait on my faltering steps! She could but offerme an ignorant choice!
With a full face she rose, and I began to see a little about me.Westward of her, and not far from me, a range of low hills broke thehorizon-line: I set out for it.
But what a night I had to pass ere I reached it! The moon seemed to knowsomething, for she stared at me oddly. Her look was indeed icy-cold, butfull of interest, or at least curiosity. She was not the same moon Ihad known on the earth; her face was strange to me, and her light yetstranger. Perhaps it came from an unknown sun! Every time I looked up,I found her staring at me with all her might! At first I was annoyed,as at the rudeness of a fellow creature; but soon I saw or fancied acertain wondering pity in her gaze: why was I out in her night? Thenfirst I knew what an awful thing it was to be awake in the universe: IWAS, and could not help it!
As I walked, my feet lost the heather, and trod a bare spongy soil,something like dry, powdery peat. To my dismay it gave a momentary heaveunder me; then presently I saw what seemed the ripple of an earthquakerunning on before me, shadowy in the low moon. It passed into thedistance; but, while yet I stared after it, a single wave rose up, andcame slowly toward me. A yard or two away it burst, and from it, with ascramble and a bound, issued an animal like a tiger. About his mouth andears hung clots of mould, and his eyes winked and flamed as he rushedat me, showing his white teeth in a soundless snarl. I stood fascinated,unconscious of either courage or fear. He turned his head to the ground,and plunged into it.
"That moon is affecting my brain," I said as I resumed my journey. "Whatlife can be here but the phantasmic--the stuff of which dreams are made?I am indeed walking in a vain show!"
Thus I strove to keep my heart above the waters of fear, nor knew thatshe whom I distrusted was indeed my defence from the realities I tookfor phantoms: her light controlled the monsters, else had I scarce takena second step on the hideous ground. "I will not be appalled by thatwhich only seems!" I said to myself, yet felt it a terrible thing towalk on a sea where such fishes disported themselves below. With that, astep or two from me, the head of a worm began to come slowly out of theearth, as big as that of a polar bear and much resembling it, with awhite mane to its red neck. The drawing wriggles with which its hugelength extricated itself were horrible, yet I dared not turn my eyesfrom them. The moment its tail was free, it lay as if exhausted,wallowing in feeble effort to burrow again.
"Does it live on the dead," I wondered, "and is it unable to hurt theliving? If they scent their prey and come out, why do they leave meunharmed?"
I know now it was that the moon paralysed them.
All the night through as I walked, hideous creatures, no two alike,threatened me. In some of them, beauty of colour enhanced loathlinessof shape: one large serpent was covered from head to distant tail withfeathers of glorious hues.
I became at length so accustomed to their hurtless menaces that Ifell to beguiling the way with the invention of monstrosities, neversuspecting that I owed each moment of life to the staring moon. Thoughhers was no primal radiance, it so hampered the evil things, that Iwalked in safety. For light is yet light, if but the last of a countlessseries of reflections! How swiftly would not my feet have carried meover the restless soil, had I known that, if still within their rangewhen her lamp ceased to shine on the cursed spot, I should that momentbe at the mercy of such as had no mercy, the centre of a writhing heapof hideousness, every individual of it as terrible as before it had butseemed! Fool of ignorance, I watched the descent of the weary, solemn,anxious moon down the widening vault above me, with no worse uneasinessthan the dread of losing my way--where as yet I had indeed no way tolose.
I was drawing near the hills I had made my goal, and she was now not farfrom their sky-line, when the soundless wallowing ceased, and the burrowlay motionless and bare. Then I saw, slowly walking over the light soil,the form of a woman. A white mist floated about her, now assuming, nowlosing to reassume the shape of a garment, as it gathered to her or wasblown from her by a wind that dogged her steps.
She was beautiful, but with such a pride at once and misery on hercountenance that I could hardly believe what yet I saw. Up and down shewalked, vainly endeavouring to lay hold of the mist and wrap it aroundher. The eyes in the beautiful face were dead, and on her left side wasa dark spot, against which she would now and then press her hand, asif to stifle pain or sickness. Her hair hung nearly to her feet, andsometimes the wind would so mix it with the mist that I could notdistinguish the one from the other; but when it fell gathering togetheragain, it shone a pale gold in the moonlight.
Suddenly pressing both hands on her heart, she fell to the ground, andthe mist rose from her and melted in the air. I ran to her. But shebegan to writhe in such torture that I stood aghast. A moment moreand her legs, hurrying from her body, sped away serpents. From hershoulders fled her arms as in terror, serpents also. Then somethingflew up from her like a bat, and when I looked again, she was gone. Theground rose like the sea in a storm; terror laid hold upon me; I turnedto the hills and ran.
I was already on the slope of their base, when the moon sank behind oneof their summits, leaving me in its shadow. Behind me rose a waste andsickening cry, as of frustrate desire--the only sound I had heard sincethe fall of the dead butterfly; it made my heart shake like a flag inthe wind. I turned, saw many dark objects bounding after me, and madefor the crest of a ridge on which the moon still shone. She seemed tolinger there that I might see to defend myself. Soon I came in sight ofher, and climbed the faster.
Crossing the shadow of a rock, I heard the creatures panting at myheels. But just as the foremost threw himself upon me with a snarl ofgreedy hate, we rushed into the moon together. She flashed out an angrylight, and he fell from me a bodiless blotch. Strength came to me, andI turned on the rest. But one by one as they darted into the light, theydropped with a howl; and I saw or fancied a strange smile on the roundface above me.
I climbed to the top of the ridge: far away shone the moon, sinking toa low horizon. The air was pure and strong. I descended a little way,found it warmer, and sat down to wait the dawn.
The moon went below, and the world again was dark.
Lilith: A Romance Page 10