No hope in front of him - only the shadow of the prison wall...
He felt that Somebody had been playing with him - playing with him like a cat with a mouse. Somebody must be laughing...
THE CALL OF WINGS
II
"I want your advice, Seldon."
Seldon pushed back his chair an inch or so from the table. He had been wondering what was the object of this tête-à-têt e dinner. He had seen little of Hamer since the winter, and he was aware tonight of some indefinable change in his friend.
"It's just this," said the millionaire. "I'm worried about myself."
Seldon smiled as he looked across the table.
"You're looking in the pink of condition."
"It's not that." Hamer paused a minute, then added quietly, "I'm afraid I'm going mad."
The nerve specialist glanced up with a sudden keen interest. He poured himself out a glass of port with a rather slow movement, and then said quietly, but with a sharp glance at the other man: "What makes you think that?"
"Something that's happened to me. Something inexplicable, unbelievable. It can't be true, so I must be going mad."
"Take your time," said Seldon, "and tell me about it."
"I don't believe in the supernatural," began Hamer. "I never have. But this thing... Well, I'd better tell you the whole story from the beginning.
It began last winter one evening after I had dined with you."
Then briefly and concisely he narrated the events of his walk home and the strange sequel.
"That was the beginning of it all. I can't explain it to you properly - the feeling, I mean - but it was wonderful! Unlike anything I've ever felt or dreamed. Well, it's gone on ever since. Not every night, just now and then. The music, the feeling of being uplifted, the soaring flight... and then the terrible drag, the pull back to earth, and afterwards the pain, the actual physical pain of the awakening. It's like coming down from a high mountain - you know the pains in the ears one gets? Well, this is the same thing, but intensified - and with it goes the awful sense of weight - of being hemmed in, stifled..."
He broke off and there was a pause.
"Already the servants think I'm mad. I couldn't bear the roof and the walls - I've had a place arranged up at the top of the house, open to the sky, with no furniture or carpets, or any stifling things... But even then the houses all round are nearly as bad. It's open country I want, somewhere where one can breathe..." He looked across at Seldon.
"Well, what do you say? Can you explain it?"
"H'm," said Seldon. "Plenty of explanations. You've been hypnotized, or you've hypnotized yourself. Your nerves have gone wrong. Or it may be merely a dream."
Hamer shook his head. "None of those explanations will do."
"And there are others," said Seldon slowly, "but they're not generally admitted."
"You are prepared to admit them?"
"On the whole, yes! There's a great deal we can't understand which can't possibly be explained normally. We've any amount to find out still, and I for one believe in keeping an open mind."
"What do you advise me to do?" asked Hamer after a silence.
Seldon leaned forward briskly. "One of several things. Go away from London, seek out your 'open country.' The dreams may cease."
"I can't do that," said Hamer quickly. "It's come to this that I can't do without them. I don't want to do without them."
"Ah! I guessed as much. Another alternative, find this fellow, this cripple. You're endowing him now with all sorts of supernatural attributes. Talk to him. Break the spell."
Hamer shook his head again.
"Why not?"
"I'm afraid," said Hamer simply.
Seldon made a gesture of impatience. "Don't believe in it all so blindly!
This tune now, the medium that starts it all, what is it like?"
Hamer hummed it, and Seldon listened with a puzzled frown.
"Rather like a bit out of the overture to Rienzi. There is something uplifting about it - it had wings. But I'm not carried off the earth! Now, these flights of yours, are they all exactly the same?"
"No, no." Hamer leaned forward eagerly. "They develop. Each time I see a little more. It's difficult to explain. You see, I'm always conscious of reaching a certain point - the music carried me there - not direct, but by a succession of waves, each reaching higher than the last, until the highest point where one can go no further. I stay there until I'm dragged back. It isn't a place, it's more a state. Well, not just at first, but after a little while, I began to understand that there were other things all round me waiting until I was able to perceive them. Think of a kitten. It has eyes, but at first it can't see with them. It's blind and had to learn to see.
Well, that was what it was to me. Mortal eyes and ears were no good to me, but there was something corresponding to them that hadn't yet been developed - something that wasn't bodily at all. And little by little that grew... here were sensations of light... then of sound... then of colour... All very vague and unformulated. It was more the knowledge of things than seeing or hearing them. First it was light, a light that grew stronger and clearer... then sand, great stretches of reddish sand... and here and there straight, long lines of water like canals -"
Seldon drew in his breath sharply. "Canals! That's interesting. Go on."
"But these things didn't matter - they didn't count any longer. The real things were the things I couldn't see yet - but I heard them... It was a sound like the rushing of wings... Somehow, I can't explain why, it was glorious! There's nothing like it here. And then came another glory - I saw them - the Wings! Oh, Seldon, the Wings!"
"But what were they? Men - angels - birds?"
"I don't know. I couldn't see - not yet. But the colour of them! Wing colour - we haven't got it here - it's a wonderful colour."
"Wing colour?" repeated Seldon. "What's it like?"
Hamer flung up his hand impatiently. "How can I tell you? Explain the colour blue to a blind person! It's a colour you've never seen - Wing colour!"
"Well?"
"Well? That's all. That's as far as I've got. But each time the coming back has been worse - more painful. I can't understand that. I'm convinced my body never leaves the bed. In this place I get to I'm convinced I've got no physical presence. Why should it hurt so confoundedly then?"
Seldon shook his head in silence.
"It's something awful - the coming back. The pull of it - then the pain, pain in every limb and every nerve, and my ears feel as though they were bursting. Then everything presses so, the weight of it all, the dreadful sense of imprisonment. I want light, air, space - above all space to breathe in! And I want freedom."
"And what," asked Seldon, "of all the other things that used to mean so much to you?"
"That's the worst of it. I care for them still as much as, if not more than, ever. And these things, comfort, luxury, pleasure, seem to pull opposite ways to the Wings. It's a perpetual struggle between them - and I can't see how it's going to end."
Seldon sat silent. The strange tale he had been listening to was fantastic enough in all truth. Was it all a delusion, a wild hallucination or could it by any possibility be true? And if so, why Hamer, of all men...? Surely the materialist, the man who loved the flesh and denied the spirit, was the last man to see the sights of another world.
Across the table Hamer watched him anxiously.
"I suppose," said Seldon slowly, "that you can only wait. Wait and see what happens."
"I can't! I tell you I can't! Your saying that shows you don't understand.
It's tearing me in two, this awful struggle - this killing, long-drawn-out fight between - between -" He hesitated.
"The flesh and the spirit?" suggested Seldon.
Hamer stared heavily in front of him. "I suppose one might call it that.
Anyway, it's unbearable... I can't get free..."
Again Bernard Seldon shook his head. He was caught up in the grip of the inexplicable. He made o
ne more suggestion.
"If I were you," he advised, "I would get hold of that cripple."
But as he went home, he muttered to himself: "Canals - I wonder."
III
Silas Hamer went out of the house the following morning with a new determination in his step. He had decided to take Seldon's advice and find the legless man. Yet inwardly he was convinced that his search would be in vain and that the man would have vanished as completely as though the earth had swallowed him up.
The dark buildings on either side of the passageway shut out the sunlight and left it dark and mysterious. Only in one place, halfway up it, there was a break in the wall, and through it there fell a shaft of golden light that illuminated with radiance a figure sitting on the ground. A figure - yes, it was the man!
The instrument of pipes leaned against the wall beside his crutches, and he was covering the paving stones with designs in coloured chalk.
Two were completed, sylvan scenes of marvellous beauty and delicacy, swaying trees and a leaping brook that seemed alive.
And again Hamer doubted. Was this man a mere street musician, a pavement artist? Or was he something more...?
Suddenly the millionaire's self-control broke down, and he cried fiercely and angrily: "Who are you? For God's sake, who are you?"
The man's eyes met his, smiling.
"Why don't you answer? Speak, man, speak!"
Then he noticed that the man was drawing with incredible rapidity on a bare slab of stone. Hamer followed the movement with his eyes... A few bold strokes, and giant trees took form. Then, seated on a boulder... a man... playing an instrument of pipes. A man with a strangely beautiful face - and goat's legs...
The cripple's hand made a swift movement. The man still sat on the rock, but the goat's legs were gone. Again his eyes met Hamer's.
"They were evil," he said.
Hamer stared, fascinated. For the face before him was the face of the picture, but strangely and incredibly beautified... Purified from all but an intense and exquisite joy of living.
Hamer turned and almost fled down the passageway into the bright sunlight, repeating to himself incessantly:
"It's impossible. Impossible... I'm mad - dreaming!" But the face haunted him - the face of Pan...
He went into the park and sat on a bench. It was a deserted hour. A few nursemaids with their charges sat in the shade of the trees, and dotted here and there in the stretches of green, like islands in a sea, lay the recumbent forms of men...
The words "a wretched tramp" were to Hamer an epitome of misery.
But suddenly, today, he envied them...
They seemed to him of all created beings the only free ones. The earth beneath them, the sky above them, the world to wander in... they were not hemmed in or chained.
Like a flash it came to him that that which bound him so remorselessly was the thing he had worshipped and prized above all others - wealth!
He had thought it the strongest thing on earth, and now, wrapped round by its golden strength, he saw the truth of his words. It was his money that held him in bondage...
But was it? Was that really it? Was there a deeper and more pointed truth that he had not seen? Was it the money or was it his own love of the money? He was bound in fetters of his own making; not wealth itself, but love of wealth was the chain.
He knew now clearly the two forces that were tearing at him, the warm composite strength of materialism that enclosed and surrounded him, and, opposed to it, the clear imperative call - he named it to himself the Call of the Wings.
And while the one fought and clung, the other scorned war and would not stoop to struggle. It only called - called unceasingly... He heard it so clearly that it almost spoke in words.
"You cannot make terms with Me," it seemed to say. "For I am above all other things. If you follow my call, you must give up all else and cut away the forces that hold you. For only the Free shall follow where I lead..."
"I can't," cried Hamer. "I can't..."
A few people turned to look at the big man who sat talking to himself.
So sacrifice was being asked of him, the sacrifice of that which was most dear to him, that which was part of himself.
Part of himself - he remembered the man without legs...
IV
"What in the name of Fortune brings you here?" asked Borrow.
Indeed the east-end mission was an unfamiliar back- ground to Hamer.
"I've listened to a good many sermons," said the millionaire, "all saying what could be done if you people had funds. I've just come to tell you this: you can have the funds."
"Very good of you," answered Borrow, with some surprise. "A big subscription, eh?"
Hamer smiled dryly. "I should say so. Just every penny I've got."
"What?"
Hamer rapped out details in a brisk, businesslike manner. Borrow's head was whirling.
"You - you mean to say that you're making over your entire fortune to be devoted to the relief of the poor in the East End, with myself appointed as trustee?"
"That's it."
"But why - why?"
"I can't explain," said Hamer slowly. "Remember our talk about visions last February? Well, a vision has got hold of me."
"It's splendid!" Borrow leaned forward, his eyes gleaming.
"There's nothing particularly splendid about it," said Hamer grimly. "I don't care a button about poverty in the East End. All they want is grit! I was poor enough - and I got out of it. But I've got to get rid of the money, and these tom-fool societies shan't get hold of it. You're a man I can trust. Feed bodies or souls with it - preferably the former. I've been hungry, but you can do as you like."
"There's never been such a thing known," stammered Borrow.
"The whole thing's done and finished with," continued Hamer. "The lawyers have fixed it up at last, and I've signed everything. I can tell you I've been busy this last fortnight. It's almost as difficult getting rid of a fortune as making one."
"But you - you've kept something?"
"Not a penny," said Hamer cheerfully. "At least - that's not quite true.
I've just twopence in my pocket."
He laughed.
He said good-bye to his bewildered friend and walked out of the mission into the narrow evil-smelling streets. The words he had said so gaily just now came back to him with an aching sense of loss. "Not a penny!"
Of all his vast wealth he had kept nothing. He was afraid now - afraid of poverty and hunger and cold. Sacrifice had no sweetness for him.
Yet behind it all he was conscious that the weight and menace of things had lifted; he was no longer oppressed and bound down. The severing of the chain had seared and torn him, but the vision of freedom was there to strengthen him. His material needs might dim the Call, but they could not deaden it, for he knew it to be a thing of immortality that could not die.
There was a touch of autumn in the air, and the wind blew chill. He felt the cold and shivered, and then, too, he was hungry - he had forgotten to have any lunch. It brought the future very near to him. It was incredible that he should have given it all up; the ease, the comfort, the warmth! His body cried out impotently... And then once again there came to him a glad and uplifting sense of freedom.
Hamer hesitated. He was near a tube station. He had twopence in his pocket. The idea came to him to journey by it to the park where he had watched the recumbent idlers a fortnight ago. Beyond this whim he did not plan for the future. He believed honestly enough now that he was mad - sane people did not act as he had done. Yet, if so, madness was a wonderful and amazing thing.
Yes, he would go now to the open country of the park, and there was a special significance to him in reaching it by tube. For the tube represented to him all the horrors of buried, shut-in life... He would ascend from its imprisonment free to the wide green and the trees that concealed the menace of the pressing houses.
The lift bore him swiftly and relentlessly downward. The air was heavy a
nd lifeless. He stood at the extreme end of the platform, away from the mass of people. On his left was the opening of the tunnel from which the train, snakelike, would presently emerge. He felt the whole place to be subtly evil. There was no one near him but a hunched-up lad sitting on a seat, sunk, it seemed, in a drunken stupor.
In the distance came the faint menacing roar of the train. The lad rose from his seat and shuffled unsteadily to Hamer's side, where he stood on the edge of the platform peering into the tunnel.
Then - it happened so quickly as to be almost incredible - he lost his balance and fell...
A hundred thoughts rushed simultaneously to Hamer's brain. He saw a huddled heap run over by a motor 'bus, and heard a hoarse voice saying: "Dahn't yer blime yerself, guv'nor. Yer couldn't 'a done nothin'."
And with that came the knowledge that this life could only be saved, if it were saved, by himself. There was no one else near, and the train was close... It all passed through his mind with lightning rapidity. He experienced a curious calm lucidity of thought. He had one short second in which to decide, and he knew in that moment that his fear of Death was unabated. He was horribly afraid. And then - was it not a forlorn hope? A useless throwing away of two lives? To the terrified spectators at the other end of the platform there seemed no gap between the boy's fall and the man's jump after him and then the train, rushing round the curve of the tunnel, powerless to pull up in time. Swiftly Hamer caught up the lad in his arms. No natural gallant impulse swayed him, his shivering flesh was but obeying the command of the alien spirit that called for sacrifice. With a last effort he flung the lad forward onto the platform, falling himself... Then suddenly his fear died. The material world held him down no longer. He was free of his shackles. He fancied for a moment that he heard the joyous piping of Pan. Then - nearer and louder - swallowing up all else - came the glad rushing of innumerable Wings... enveloping and encircling him...
THE GIPSY
II
Short Stories Page 83