Before they hid her marvellous face out of sight he had pa.s.sionately covered its mask of beauty with desperate burning kisses. Zorka had stood close by, guarding him from hostile glances, so that this heartbroken lover might be for a last time alone with what had been the dream of his life.

Then from his shoulders he took the torn black cloak he had worn during all his wanderings and draped it round those rigid limbs that froze his blood with their icy coldness.

"Mother, dear old mother," he cried, "I want to keep her warm; the night before last she glowed in the arms of my pa.s.sion, and now I must leave her to the chill mercy of the frozen ground. How can I bear such torture?"

Zorka laid her withered hand upon his shoulder.

"Son, my son, I feel that no ice can harm her more--she looked upon the flames of Love, and died whilst they were folded round her; she closed her eyes upon the vision of thy burning worship, and that wonderful sweetness was the last thing she saw; now she is for ever happy."

So Eric wound her from head to foot in the dark folds of his mantle; he hid away her white hands and her tiny feet. Then he pressed the wreath of thorns over the dusky drapery, placing the gleaming gem in the centre of her forehead. He fetched her dear violin and laid it so that her toes just touched its polished wood.

Over the shabby black tissue of the weather-beaten vestment he spread the faded wreaths that once had rested upon her rippling hair. And after one long look of farewell he allowed the heavy lid to be shut down on his hard-won happiness.

The damp earth was thrown with a hollow thud over the lid of the coffin, the ground was beaten down smooth and flat on every side, so that no wandering stranger should ever disturb her deep dark grave beneath its covering of sombre soil.

The gypsies folded their tents with hasty rapidity, longing to steal away from a place where silence brooded amongst the whispering winds.

Old Zorka came and stood upon the spot where her darling had been hidden for ever away, and there she murmured all the prayers she could call back to her flagging memory, whilst her streaming tears mixed with the mould that lay over that past dream of beauty.

But no persuasion nor entreaty could make Eric move from that dark mound in the barren lonely wild; he meant to remain there that first night when she had been confided to the indifferent shadows that closed in around her.

He promised Zorka he would follow next day, but this night he must lie on Stella's cold grave, to protect it from the biting frost.

When all had gone and he was alone on that dreary vastness, he drew from its sheath his treasured sword and planted it like a cross, there where her eyes must be hidden away, never more to look upon the rising sun.

Dreary blasts of wind blew over the gloomy desert; darkness came down and Eric stretched himself upon the frozen ground, his lips pressed upon the spot where, far beneath the heavy covering of soil, her beautiful mouth must have been.

There he lay, forsaken, the only breathing being in that cruel night of sorrow. But not far off, amongst the dim shadows of the forest, the snowy falcon was faithfully watching, though the glinting light no longer shone on his breast, watching till day should mercifully break.

Through the heavy hours Eric never moved; he was fighting alone a dreary battle against life and his G.o.d. Nor did he know, as his face lay hidden in his clenched hands, that the magic hilt of the sword was glowing like a shining promise far over the sleeping world. There it stood, a cross of flame, burning with sacred light, watching over this desperate mortal who longed to cast his life away.

The wind howled with voices of terror and storm; the dust was whirled in clouds from the frozen waste, sweeping over the cross-shaped light and over the weeping man, trying to blot them out of sight.

But deep down in eternal night, under the protecting arms of her lover, rested Stella in stony quiet, bedded in the lap of old Mother Earth.

Beneath her closed lids her starry eyes were for ever guarding the last dear vision her waking brain had looked upon.

XXVII

And in her two white hands like swans on a frozen lake, Hath she not my heart, that I have hidden there for dear love's sake.

FIONA MACLEOD.

Morning dawned, and Eric rose from the ground, half-frozen from his long night's vigil, his eyes hollow, staring with a desperate look.

The wan daylight was gradually spreading over the wilderness, on which he stood like a wounded soldier whom his comrades had forsaken, imagining he was dead. No, he was not dead, poor youth, he was alive, crying, with broken heart and thirsting soul, for what could be no more.

He had lived his dream and shattered it all in one. Zorka had been right, some flowers must not be plucked; and now his hands were empty--empty. He himself had made the sweet petals fall, and no earthly power could give them back their bloom.

Down there under the dark cold sod she lay, his dream of dreams, crushed by his pa.s.sion and love. He had held his soul's desire pressed against his wildly beating heart, and she had left him in their hour of rapture; had died beneath the fire of his kiss.

Once more he threw himself down upon the merciless earth that covered her sacred beauty. He pressed his mouth upon the dust of the ground, tracing the sign of the Cross with his lips, there where he guessed that her snowy brow, her silent heart, and closed eyes lay hidden for ever out of sight.

Then kneeling before the cross-shaped sword, Eric prayed in words of glowing entreaty to the great Father above, that her sleep should be sweet and the earth soft to that body he loved, that the weight of the dark mould that wrapped her round should not be heavy to her delicate limbs.

He cried to that silent brooding sky to be merciful towards that creature of light and soon to call her from the damp dark grave to a sunrise of glory and joy.

"G.o.d! my G.o.d! it cannot be that Thou lettest her slumber for ever in that cold solitude and I not knowing if her sleep be sweet. She who was like a ray from the sun--she who carried within her orbs the whole glory of the summer skies, the entire mystery of the starry nights. She whose music was the most exquisite rendering of the beauty of life; she whose perfection was the gladness of each awakening day, whose soul and body were like the spotless snow of mountain heights where no human foot has ever pa.s.sed. O G.o.d! O G.o.d! how can I leave her grave?" And again he lay there, stretched upon the relentless soil, groaning and shedding tears of blood, whilst the brooding silence of the naked wild lay over all, hostile and unheeding, with Nature's stony indifference to the sorrow and anguish of the human race.

Then at last he tore himself away, feeling how useless were his grief and misery before those eternal laws of creation which for ever are, and for ever shall be.

Now he was fleeing that silent wilderness, bending his head against the driving wind and rain, against the storm of dust and sand that the wild gusts were throwing in his face.

Several times he turned in hopeless yearning towards that lonesome spot where his precious sword stood a lonely guardian of his lost happiness; then, covering his face in an agony too deep for tears, on he rushed as one who tries to escape from a sight he cannot bear.

His faithful friend the hawk flew beside him, occasionally caressing his tear-stained face with the velvet touch of its wings.

For several hours he had thus fought his desperate way, when, on raising his head, he saw a small cloud coming towards him out of the distance, growing in size the nearer it came.

He stood still, vaguely wondering what it might be, when out of the midst of the moving dust a young boy emerged, driven along by the storm that strove to carry him off his feet.

The first thing Eric discerned was a high fur cap, a s.h.a.ggy coat of skins, into the wide sleeves of which the youth's hands had been deeply thrust, whilst a thick staff was pressed in the hollow of his arm.

Behind this advancing figure came the pattering feet of innumerable sheep, raising beneath their steps the thick cloud Eric had first of all descried.

Suddenly, with a glad cry, both youths ran towards each other with joyful recognition, for this was none other than Radu, the shepherd, who was leading his flocks home from the mountains, driven thence by the coming winter.

For a moment both remained speechless, hands clasped, staring into each other's face that were wet and shining from the drizzling rain which had not yet been able to turn into mud the thick coating of dust that lay like powder on the roads. The one who spoke first was Radu, and it was anxiously to ask:

"Where hast thou left thy cloak? Thou art quite wet; and thy sword, thy beautiful sword, where hast thou left thy sword?"

Eric did not answer; he simply lifted both his hands, showing that they were empty; then he let them fall again at his sides with the hopeless gesture of one who has given everything up for ever more. Then only did Radu come quite near and peer with frightened eyes more closely into his face.

"What is it?" he cried. "What is it? What hast thou seen?"

"Heaven and h.e.l.l," answered Eric. "I have been in both!"

"And thy dream--didst thou find thy dream?" whispered the peasant.

"I found it and I lost it," was the answer he got. "It was mine for a short hour of bliss--mine; but again G.o.d beat me down with my face to the earth.

"I have been a dreamer of dreams, and it is not to be given to me to keep what I clasp. G.o.d allowed me visions to lead me ever on; they brought me to this land of promise.

"It was summer then; now thou seest what colour is over the earth. But I touched my dream; I held it within my human arms; but as sayeth the poet: 'How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may touch,' so I killed my flower, killed it with my kiss."

"Can one kill with a kiss?" cried Radu, awe in his voice.