Changeling, and Other Stories
they sang, and they bowed to the gods in boulder and stream, and set
out in the little kayaks on the Arctic seas to hunt the great solemn
walrus, or they set off in sledges through the pathless wastes. They
were a brave people, a healthy people.
"And came the boats hunting our sister the whale, and the whales taught
the little swarthy people progress, and everywhere now they are cunning
and degraded and crusted with sin, and a great plague makes them spit
blood, and waste to nothingness, and die."
They all looked at the horse, but the horse was silent.
"Look back in the folds of your memory," the lion prompted. "Look back
well! Can you not remember the great races in the Roman circus?
Listen a little! Can you not hear the trumpets of Agincourt?"
"And you, little brother--" the bear swung his ponderous head toward
the dog--"was there not a time when you lay before a fire in a
rush-strewn hall? And now the houses are too little. They tell me--I
do not know. And did you not once run barking joyously beside man on
his horse? And now horses are out of fashion, are they not, little
comrade? And the cars are too fast for your short legs."
There is another silence, and the angel looks at them piteously.
"I wish to my God I had some of them clever fellows here could argue
with you. I never was much good in an argument, anyway, never having
had the education. But let me tell you there 's angels could prove to
you you 're all wrong. I wish they 'd come here and talk to you, but I
don't suppose they 'd care much about us and our wee affairs. But--but
how about music," he hazarded, "and poetry? Ay, and poetry."
"As to music--" the elephant threw up his trunk in a sneer--"what music
can he make comparable to the birds of summer--the sun going down, and
each bird with its separate song, blending into a gently-colored
symphony, and the chime of the waves with it, and the rustle of the
branches in the sundown breeze?"
"Ay, but poetry."
"It will need poetry," thundered the lion, "more poetry than can be
ever written, to equalize the making ugly of earth. The great cliffs
shamed by mean houses, and the splendid glades ruined that a train may
pass. And the mouths of rivers spoiled by the slag of mills. And
great noble trees hacked down. How many an epic to pay for a great
forest dying, shepherd? How many a lyric for a tree where little
trusting birds had their home?"
The angel throws out his hands abruptly.
"You have me," he says. "You have me!"
He braces with decision, rises to his full height, and suddenly there
is nobleness.
"Well, which is it to be?" he asked. "Will you follow my plan, or do
you insist I go immediately?"
"We insist."
He pauses an instant.
"Very well. I 'll go," he says. "I 'll go."
He looks all around the gathering. In spite of his decision, and his
bracing, there is a great emotion brewing in him.
"Now, before I go, let me tell some of you something. Do you,
Philip--" he turns to the bear--"be getting back North as fast as you
can. You poor fellow, you must be murdered with the heat entirely, and
you with the Arctic furs on. You 'll catch your death here. And as
for you," he warns the crocodile, "don't be obstinate, there 's a good
fellow! Keep to the water, and you 'll be all right. It's only when
you get out, they can get after you. And my little friends the
beavers--where are they? Childer, can you hear me?"
"But what's all this about?" asks the elephant.
"It's just for fear I 'm not coming back."
"But why aren't you coming back?" the lion growls.
"Och, it's just a notion. Are the beavers there at all, at all?"
"No, just a moment!" The tiger is on his feet. "I want to hear more
of this. What do you mean by notion? You aren't thinking of leaving
us?"
There is a quick commotion, a little shudder among all the animals in
the background.
"Well, now--" the angel is embarrassed--"it's a hard errand I have
before me, and what will be at the end of the chapter no one knows. I
to be arguing with the Great Man, and demanding your rights, and He to
be losing His temper with me--there 's no knowing. So to be on the
safe side, I 'll just say good-by to you now. Many 's the pleasant
hour we 've known and springtime coming, and many's the little day we
've spent together and winter roaring through the chilly air."
"But He never loses His temper, does he? He 's always mild."
"Oh, childer dear, ye little know! You all know the Black Man, and
when you get the cold wind of his coming you scurry away. He was an
angel once, the greatest of them all. Lucifer, they called him, so I
've heard old angels say, and the Hebrew or something for Him who does
be bearing light, such a gorgeous angel he was. But one day he and
some of his lads began to argue with the Great Man, and before the
words were half out of their mouths they were tumbling through the blue
spaces of the stars, condemned to eternal hell-fire. Sure, you see
them yourselves on Hallowe'en, and them roaring up and down the world,
and screeching fit to split the sky."
A moan of terror ran through the massed animals. The dog raised his
head and howled.
"And the wee half-god we all know, him with the horns of the goat, that
does the piping in the valleys of spring--sure, he was an angel once.
But something went contrary on him, and now he dare n't show his face
on heaven or earth, but hides in the branches as wild as a squirrel."
And a little shudder of pity arose.
"Ay, and there was others. There was a crowd of reckless fellows in
the days before the flood--or after it; I don't know which--and they
came from heaven to court the daughters of men, such grand women they
had in those days. And the Lord God heard of it, and He stood up and
looked at them, and he said just one word. They 've never been heard
of since. One minute they were there, and the next was emptiness.
"Mind you, I 'm not saying anything like that will happen to me, for
Himself has always been kindness to me. It's always 'How are you,
Michael John?' and 'Don't you ever take a rest at all?' and 'Sometime I
'll have to take a day and come down and see yourself and the wee
ones!' But just, if I don't come back, don't think I 've taken a
better job. Sure, I 'd never desert you, my wee darlings. It's just
maybe I 'm getting a wee bit of discipline."
"I think--" the elephant seemed husky in the throat--"your own plan
might be best--to wait for an opportunity and just suggest."
"Better say nothing at all," growled the lion.
"No, childer dear; I 'd better just go ahead. I will confess it was
timid of me not to go in the first place. It was thinking of my old
skin I was, and I should be ashamed of myself. Sure, there 's no
disgrace in asking for fair play, and you 've been sorely tried. I 'll
go."
"No, no, no!" wailed the animals.
"No, your own plan was wise," the elephant insisted. "If anything
happened to you, what would become of us?"
"Yes, what would become of us?" the little ones wailed.
"Do you honestly think my own plan's wiser? You 're not saying that to
save me from trouble?"
"We're not," the lion said. And "Of course not," added the tiger.
"Just slip in a word when you can," from the elephant.
"Honestly, now, it would be best." The angel was relieved. "I can
talk about your loyalty; and, sure, I can remind him of the kine that
gave shelter to the Wee Relative in Bethlehem, and the donkey that was
proud to carry His weight; and I 'll remind Him, too, that I 've never
asked a favor yet, and if He could just see His way--"
"Well," the elephant thought aloud, "I 've got to be getting back to
Burma."
"I 'm going your way," said the tiger.
"There 's nothing to keep me up further," said the lion.
"I 'm very much obliged to you all--" the angel was abashed with
emotion--"for not insisting. And it's lucky I am," said he, "to have
decent beasts to deal with and not man. For man would have insisted I
'd go, and not given a tinker's curse what would have happened me."
"Ay, man!" sneers the great white bear.
"For God's sake Philip, will you be getting home out of this, before I
have you sick on my hands! And as for you, Go-by-the-Ground, get back
to the river or I 'll sink my foot in your tail. Go on now! Be off
with you!"
There is a _shuff-shuff-shuff_ over the sand as the beasts scatter,
going east, north, west, and south. The angel stands watching them as
they go. Only the horse and the dog remain, the horse nudges him on
the shoulder with its mouth, the dog puts a cold nose into his hand.
"Och, my darlings!"
DELILAH, NOW IT WAS DUSK
I
Beneath her balcony, in the delicate spring night, the life of Gaza
flowed gently as a calm river. Eastward the green hills of Canaan
were, Delilah knew, and in imagination she could see the soft blue down
of the budding corn, the clouds of flowers, the piping green of the
vines, the darkness of the olive-trees. And in the west a little moon
was, while as yet the sun had not gone down, a little blade of silver,
like one sweet note on a flute. It made one wish to be young again, to
be a child....
The lamps of Gaza were not lighted. None was eager to go within, and
below there was still the jingle of camel bells, the padding of
donkeys, the nervous clatter of some horse's hoofs as a desert rider
sought to guide his mount in the filled streets. Languid, supercilious
Egyptians strolled in the provincial ways; desert men, their eyes
suspicious as hawk's, moved warily hither and thither; her own
countrymen, the squat, cheerful Philistines, half townsman and half
mariner, walked briskly; mysterious, aloof Phoenicians; an occasional
strange seaman from Gaul, come eastward with his ship for a cargo from
Asia Minor; and now came the "Hough-hough! Hough-hough!" of herdsmen,
and dappled kine went by, belabored with sticks, and as she looked,
Delilah saw the group of Israelites who owned them.
From the street they saw her, and their eyes blazed fury. They pointed
her out to one another, with quick, wide gestures, and she could hear
the gutturals of their denunciation.... Oh, yes, they remembered
Samson, after twenty years! Remembered him almost as well as she!
II
She had been thinking of him only that minute, too. It was strange,
but at this time, each year, his memory, his image came to her, so that
she could say in winter, "On the second moon of spring there will be
flowers, and an air like wine, and the Mediterranean fishers will
overhaul their gear, and I shall think of Samson," and she was the only
person in Philistia who could remember him clearly.
Some old magistrate perhaps, or captain of civic guard might, their
memory jogged, recall the Hebrew rebel, and say: "Wasn't there a Samson
once, a great red-bearded man, who was supposed to have killed a lion
with his bare hands? Or perhaps I am thinking of some of the black
African giants, wrestlers or circus men. I don't know. But I seem to
recall the name."
And about him, among his own people, had arisen a great myth, as will
arise among desert peoples and they telling stories by the fire. The
old guerilla captain had become a national hero to them, and they had
magnified his raids out of all proportion to reality.
And when they thought in the desert tents of the destiny of their
people, and longed for the day when the then rich southwestern country
would be theirs by either conquest or penetration, they said, "If
Samson had lived... If Samson had n't gone wrong..."
And Delilah they cursed bitterly, even after twenty years, and they saw
her not as Samson's wife, but as some strange perfumed woman who had
enticed him and sold him to his enemies. Even the little children were