The dryad a novel
Shun the love of mortal, for your lover will die as Endymion died, and
you will remember him for a while and weep, as I remembered and wept
for Endymion. But time can sweeten the grief that wrings for a season
the deathless heart, wherefore be wise with time betimes, and abide our
coming though it be long delayed; for while you wait you have endless
pleasure in the changing days and the shifting seasons and the swelling
years, in the sunshine and the moonshine and the shining of the stars."
So she spoke and was silent, and the night wind fluttered the fair
curls upon her nape and the silver gray folds about her knees. Then the
effulgent, the sun-god, moved from his fellows, Phœbus Apollo, with his
lyre cradled in his left arm, and his right hand touched the strings,
and what he spoke he seemed to sing, and his song was as the song of
the wandering stars in heaven. And he spoke to Argathona, and said:
"Daughter of the gods, the gods forbid your unfaith. To be of us once
is to be of us forever, and, though we linger in the hollow land, we
are still the celestials, and still we desire the remembrance and
the fidelity of our kin. It is nobler to hold to our memory than to
surrender us for a mortal and a mortal's melancholy god. Wait in the
greenwood, watch with the ancient faith, patient in the knowledge of
endless youth."
So he was silent, and the sunlight of his words seemed to race all
over her body and thread her veins with fire. And thereafter it seemed
to Argathona, in her slumber, that god spoke after god innumerable,
beautiful gods and grotesque gods in their attributes of benignant or
terrible divinity, each appealing to her, or commanding her to stay
with the ancient faith, and to shut her heart against the sons of men
and the Son of Man. Their voices were eloquent as the rustling of
leaves in the forest or the crisping of waves on the shore, so that
she could have been content to rest there and to listen to them in
gladness through the revolving years.
When it seemed to her that all had spoken, came from that fair company
the fairest of them all, Aphrodite, the incomparable, lovelier than
all women, loveliest of all goddesses, with her gray doves fluttering
about her naked body, and as she moved across the grass red roses
burgeoned at her feet. Aphrodite came very nigh to the sleeping dryad,
and her eyes were shining with the passion and compassion of love, and
her voice was wooing and winning with a music unheard out of dreams.
Aphrodite spoke, and said:
"Argathona, I pity you, and I know not what to say, for I, like you,
have known what it is to love a mortal, and in very truth I think
it were better to love a mortal than never to know the meaning of
love. Love, then, this mortal and let him die divinely, having kissed
immortal lips and clasped immortal beauty. And when he is but as the
dust of yesterday, there will still be comely mortals to love, and you
can quench your passing hours of sorrow with golden years of joy. But
do not forsake the old faith for the new god, for he that is by my side
is still the greatest god in the world, and ever the master of mortal
men."
As she spoke, Aphrodite moved a little ways and gave place, and
Argathona saw the form and face of a beautiful, silent youth, and his
countenance was grave and glorious, and Argathona beheld undazzled the
splendor of the godhead of Eros. Eros spoke no word, but he lifted up
his hands as if at once in blessing and command, and at that look and
sign Argathona's heart seemed to melt within her and to need no other
entreaties. But even then there loomed a mighty figure from the forest,
making his way through the shining ranks of the divine, a shaggy,
puck-nosed giant, with little horns sprouting from his forehead through
his tangle of savage curls, and though he was made like a man-god he
ran on goat shanks, and he held in his hand a strange pipe, framed of
many pieces of reed of different measure bound together by withies.
In his presence the other gods appeared to fade and show faint, and
the power of the new-comer seemed to inform all the forest and to
overshadow all the world.
Pan spoke no word as he fixed his fierce, friendly eyes upon Argathona,
but he set his thick lips to the rims of his reeds and blew down them,
and his breath made such melody in their channels as Argathona ached
with fear and longing to hear, and all the other gods stood spellbound.
The piper piped of the red earth and the green grass and the blue sky
and the yellow corn, of the straight passions and the simple pleasures
of men, of love and pursuit and triumph, of hunger with meat a-nigh,
of thirst with the wine-skin between the fingers, of sleep and waking,
of jollity and horror, the mirth and the fear of things. He piped of
the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, the humming of bees
and the buzzing of flies, the flowing of streams and the growing of
flowers, the singing of shepherds and the dancing of the nymphs upon
the green. He piped till his piping came to a burden, and the burden of
his piping seemed to be, "Keep the Faith."
Then all the Olympians cried out in chorus: "Wait, watch, keep the
faith." And behind the circle of the greater gods all that populous
multitude of the lesser gods took up the call and voiced it, ringing
through the forest and filling the sky, and stretching to the ends of
the world: "Watch, wait, keep the faith."
And with that cry there arose again the sound of the beating of wings
and the trampling of horses and the straining of sails and the wailing
of great winds, and then in a breath the Olympians vanished, the vision
faded, and Argathona awoke in the strong morning sunshine to find her
lover looking down upon her.
XXVIII
LOVER AND LASS
When Simon carried Rainouart senseless out of the slough where his
comrades perished, he made as hard as his horse could fare on the way
to the Eleusinian wood. While the flying forces of the dead duke kept
on the main way to Athens, he sought to strike a trail that would
lead him more directly to his goal, and, ignorant though he was of
the country in which he found himself, the native sense of a war-worn
campaigner, acting like a kind of instinct, guided him aright. But
the business was slow, first from the unfamiliarity of the region and
next from the fact that the good horse could go at no continuance of a
steady pace with two heavy men upon his back. Indeed, when they came
to the mountainous places, there was much picking of the way and no
little stumbling and sliding in the act. So that it happened that the
May daylight was fairly spent before Simon felt confident that he was
well within the precincts of the Eleusinian wood, and that the purpose
of his journey was so far accomplished.
He had been too much occupied for thought of other matter than escape
from danger up to this moment, but now, when so many leagues lay behind
him and the bloody swamp, now, when what pursuit must have been was
afoot in quite another direction on the heels of the Athenian army,
Simon decided that the time had come to rest awhile and to consider
the case of the young prince, who still lay inanimate before him.
Reining his steed, he dismounted. Then, still holding the bridle of the
horse, he lifted Rainouart from the saddle and carried him with little
difficulty to a shady place a little way removed from the narrow track
they had for some time been following. Here Simon laid the unconscious
youth on his back beneath a tree, and tethered the horse to another at
a little distance.
Now Simon felt very keenly the wisdom of that provision of wine and
victual which he had made before riding from Athens, and which he had
the presence of mind to preserve in the midst of all the agony of the
murderous slough. Unstopping his flagon, he parted Rainouart's lips
with the gentle firmness of a strong, sure hand, and tilted some of the
red liquor down his companion's throat. After a little while Rainouart
began to show signs of returning consciousness. The color rekindled
in his cheeks, his lips began to move to a more easy breathing, and
presently he opened his eyes with a sigh, and looked around him
with the dazed regard of those that wake from sleep in unfamiliar
surroundings. Soon his wandering regard fixed itself on the face of
Simon, who was looking steadily at him, and, recognizing a known
countenance, Rainouart struggled to a sitting posture and clapped his
hands to his humming head.
"What are you staring at me for?" he asked first, fretfully. Then, as
he glanced about him and saw the carpet of grass that he lay on and
the thicket of trees that encompassed him, he continued in amazement,
"Where, in Heaven's name, are we?"
To this question Simon answered, solemnly, "In safety, thanks be to
Heaven."
Rainouart, with his wits still wool-gathering, wondered. "Safety from
what?" Then, suddenly, memory swooped back into her temple, and the
young man sprang to his feet swiftly and advanced upon Simon.
"Where are the rest of us? Where is the duke? Where are my comrades?"
To the which hot questions Simon could do no more than render cold
answer.
"I hope their souls are in paradise by now, for, indeed, their bodies
are no longer quick, and we are the leave of that fellowship."
Then at first the prince began to storm and ejaculate, being shaken
out of his native gravity by his strange case and his imperfect
understanding of the matter, but Simon presently told him a plain tale
that quenched his heat with tears. Simon showed him how the cause
of Athens was lost, how Duke Baldwin and his pride of knights had
perished, how Simon had saved his prince and himself from the peril,
and how his prince's immediate duty was to the girl he loved, the girl
who loved him.
Rainouart was silent a little space as the memory of the morning's
business came back to him, and he mused on Simon's words and found them
honest. Then he held out his hand to Simon, who clasped it.
"Friend," he said, "I had little cause to love Athens or those that
dwelt therein, always excepting Guy de Hainault and Jaufre de Brabant,
good knights. As for my sire, I will not speak of him, for he made my
mother's life bitter, and it may be that I sinned in thinking thereof
bitterly. But God knows I would have died with my fellowship. Yet since
it has pleased God to save me, by your strength and your fidelity, from
the swamp of slaughter, I am clean of any treason and free to seek for
my sweetheart."
"Now this is well," crowed Simon, yet he gulped a groan, too, as he
spoke, thinking how he had rescued a youth for whom he cared nothing to
pleasure a maid for whom he cared much.
By now it was dark, and though the moon filled the forest with white
fire, it seemed vain to search the woodland for Argathona that even. So
Simon fished some bread and meat out of his wallet, and with that and
the flagon the pair made a journeyman's meal of it, and changed many
thoughts. There was little in common between the pair, save that they
were both strong men and brave soldiers, but at the end of their parley
they knew each other better, and liked each other better, though it
may be that there would never be any great love lost between them. But
at least the friendship was fond enough to prompt Simon to pluck from
his bosom a little book and give it to his companion, who, looking upon
it, recognized that very volume of the _Romance of the Rose_ which he
had carried with him on the day, so short a while ago, that brought him
acquainted with Argathona. Simon told him cheerfully how dishonestly
he came by it, and Rainouart did not quarrel with him for that, for
though, indeed, he was pleased to get his book of verses again, he had