over the valley of arcana the snow banners streamed from the mastheads of the surrounding peaks. snow fell in the valley—soft snow that somehow seemed warm instead of cold. it disappeared on the bosom of the river, but thickened in eddies and made slush against piles of driftwood. the valley of arcana had not yet felt the grip of winter, but up above the banners of triumph waved and the artillery of the blizzards boomed.
the cave of hypocritical frogs was comfortable. the cold did not penetrate to its inner recesses. at the mouth andy kept a fire going, and enough deadwood had been gathered to last all winter.
the snowbound prisoners sat together below the cave, on boulders close to the redwood saplings which made a bridge over the waterfall that told them weird tales of the waste places night and day. often the speech of the talkative water changed to music, gathered unto itself rhythm and tunefulness. sometimes choir boys were singing; sometimes male quartets; more often they fancied that ghost women, wild and distraught from woes undreamed of by mortal beings, were wiping their wet, clinging hair from their faces and lifting their voices in a piercing heathen chant of denunciation.
[249]they sat together above the fall and watched the boiling water in the pool below—marvelled over the frenzied happiness of a lone water ouzel that frolicked there.
he stood on a half-submerged stone and danced, this odd diving bird of the riffles and waterfalls, who seems to sing best when the water is cold as ice and dashing over him and about him. he courtesies and nods to right and left and sings happily whether or not the sun is shining; and then he dives. his are the pounding torrents, his the screaming rapids, his the showers of coldest spray that never chill his song. alone, bobbing—smiling, one almost imagines—he seeks the cold dark cañons where water roars, for dashing sprays are his sunshine. “the mountain stream’s own darling, the hummingbird of blooming waters,” wrote “wonderful john” of him—john muir, lover of god’s own!
hand in hand they sat and watched the ouzel, bobbing and bowing as if pretending to shrink from the plunge he loved, and listened to his misty notes and the changing oratory of the waterfall. they were silent. both were thinking deeply. for the day before andy jerome had swallowed the last half-tablet, and up above the snow was hourly closing the way for dr. shonto to come to them with more. over them hung this thought like the thread-held sword of old.
“dear,” said charmian, with that little upward twist of her mouth that always made him want to kiss it, “do you know that your beard is growing fearfully long? you see, i’m taking a proprietary interest in[250] you already. what’ll i do to you after we’re married?”
andy laughed. “to tell the truth,” he replied, “i made a great blunder on this trip. usually, out in the woods, i carry an old-fashioned razor. but this time i brought along my safety. and every blade is dull as a hoe. can’t sharpen razor blades on sandstone, as i do my axe and knife.
“but wouldn’t i be out of character if i failed to grow a beard? ought to hang down on my manly breast and be full of burrs or something. and you ought to be wearing a knee-length skin dress, with the hair on. i’m afraid we aren’t playing up to our rôles properly.”
“i’m glad to see you so light-hearted,” she observed pensively. “i’m—i’m afraid i’m worrying a little too much, andy.”
his brow clouded instantly, and she knew that his lightness of heart was feigned.
“it is storming like the dickens up there,” he admitted. “doctor shonto will never be able to get through that stretch of chaparral if it continues. and—”
“yes?” she prompted.
“and i guess it’ll continue, all right,” he finished gloomily.
the hand that he held trembled a little.
“it wouldn’t be so bad,” she mused, “if—if— well, we could live here all winter, i believe. we can get plenty to eat—such as it is—and we can always keep warm. but—”
[251]“yes, i know.” he squeezed her fingers. “it’s the devil. if we only knew what to expect! what the dickens is the matter with me, anyway? and why didn’t the doctor tell you, at least?”
“he explained that—almost. he wants to be fair. he hoped that he could get back in time to save you from—from whatever is to happen to you. then there would be no need to tell what he knows. he took that chance, do you understand? but now he won’t get back in time, and—and we’ll soon know what your great trouble is.”
she sighed wearily.
“whatever it is, charmian, you’ll never give me up, will you, dearest?”
“never!”
they kissed long and tremulously, then the girl rose to her feet and pulled at his hand till he stood beside her.
“let’s go back to the cave of hypocritical frogs,” she said. “it’s getting cold out here. and see, andy—the snow is beginning to thicken on the ground. it’ll be white by morning.”
that same day she was putting their simple belongings to rights in the cave of hypocritical frogs. each had a table—a flat-topped stone—on which articles of daily use were kept. womanlike, she fussed over his things, which he consistently left awry. he was outside cutting wood. she cleaned his comb and military brushes and laid things straight, then opened the leather-covered case that contained his safety-razor to make sure that he had not overlooked an unused blade.[252] and in the little metal container she found three, still sealed in their paper covers.
she called to him:
“no caveman stuff for you for a time, young fellow! come in here! i’ve found three new razor blades!”
“good work!” he praised her when he reached her side. “wonder how i came to overlook ’em. guess i just took it for granted they were all gone, and didn’t open the case at all.”
but by next day his beard, which had reached the most unattractive stage, still covered his face.
“andy, why don’t you shave?” she asked.
“by george! forgot all about it. getting used to this fuzz, i guess. maybe i like it—i don’t know.”
his laugh was insincere, and she regarded him in mild surprise.
they were busy at separate tasks throughout that day, andy having gone down the river alone to make an effort to get the canoe closer to the cave, and charmian washing clothes down by the pool below the waterfall. at supper she once more reminded him that he had not shaved.
his boyish face grew red with confusion, and he stammered an apology. the pine cones that they used as torches would not give enough light for shaving after supper, and next morning he tramped away again with the beard still covering his face.
she took him to task again when he returned at noon, standing before him and demanding, with a look of worriment in her eyes, the why of it.
[253]“i—i just don’t seem to want to,” he confessed. “i don’t know why. but i hate to begin. always dreaded the thing, and out here it seems so unnecessary.”
then it was that she noticed his finger nails, for he had raised one hand to his shaggy beard and was fondling it abstractedly while it was under discussion. his finger nails were long and black with dirt.
“why, andy!” she began; then stopped short, her face whitening.
always andy had been clean and neat, so far as the conditions of camp life and the trail would permit. in fact, saving dr. shonto, she never had known a more fastidious man. otherwise she never could have considered him her equal. a terrible thought came to her: this sudden shuffling off of the demands of civilization must be the first symptom of his malady. considerately she said nothing, but for two days watched him closely, her heart like lead. he neither washed nor cleansed his finger nails during those two days, and she imagined that a certain amount of lustre had left his one-time bright-blue eyes.
and then he yawned directly in her face one night, his mouth wide open, with no hand raised to cover the gap and no apology. and two days later she caught him eating broiled meat with his fingers, tearing it apart as if he never had seen a knife and fork.
she cried herself to sleep that night and rose next morning with terror in her heart.
and now the change came fast. andy’s eyes became[254] bleary. the colour of his face grew leaden, and the cheeks were bloated. his skin took on a dirty, flabby look. his tongue, which the horrified girl often saw hanging out at one corner of his mouth, had thickened, and the lips were perpetually moist. his breath became asthmatic. when he spoke he mumbled his words. gradually, but with cruel swiftness, the light of reason left his leaden eyes; and within ten days after the last tablet had been swallowed charmian reemy knew that the man she loved was little better than an idiot.
his head lopped forward as he sat at the mouth of the cave and stared, saying not a word, gazing at nothing, occasionally drawing in his swollen tongue, but never wiping from the ragged beard the saliva which he had drooled upon it. again the tongue would creep out and downward, as if he lacked the muscular energy to keep it in its place. his long hair hung over his imbecile eyes; his long finger nails, unsightly with dirt, looked like the talons of a bird.
he would rouse himself when she shook him and, with tears streaming down her face, begged him to pull himself together. he would grin at her then and lick his lips with his thick tongue, but in a moment or two he would once more lose control of his faculties, and his head would drop forward, while out would creep the repulsive tongue. sometimes he would laugh—a weird, insane chuckle that wrenched from the tortured girl a sob half of pity, half of horror. he walked occasionally, but did no work at[255] all. when this occurred he dragged his steps, swaying loosely from side to side as if his body knew no joints. he would pause often and, swaying slightly, would gaze this way and that as if trying to replace in his memory the significance of familiar objects.
a few days more and he had ceased to speak. he muttered now and then, for no particular reason whatever, but his wet lips formed no words. sometimes he gazed at her as she moved about, but in his eyes was no question as to what she might be doing; the motion of her body simply had attracted him momentarily and aroused a flicker of interest. but it would pass at once, and again he would let his head go forward, and sit gazing at the ground, while his tongue hung out and dripped.
meanwhile it snowed. the ground was covered two feet deep about the cave. up in the higher altitudes the blizzards raged perpetually, and the air was filled with dismal moanings. all hope of dr. shonto’s returning to the valley of arcana, except in an aeroplane, had vanished.
and the idiot sat at the door of the cave of hypocritical frogs and drooled, staring through his hanging hair!
never before had charmian reemy known fear, but now she suffered abject terror. all about her was ice and snow, and she shivered when a new note came in the monotonous roar of the waterfall. no longer sang the silver-throated choir boys. the high-pitched chorus that her fancy had once named theirs became[256] the sinfully gleeful giggling of malicious sprites as they triumphed over her great disaster. the rollicking songs that the male quartet had sung changed to the bellowing of satan, as when the angel of the lord came down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and chained him for a thousand years. wrapped in her blankets, nightmares came to her so that she was afraid to sleep without the flickering light of a pine knot near her. often she awoke screaming, gripped by an icy, throat-contracting fear. and once the nightmare took upon itself reality—and madame destrehan’s prophecy was fulfilled.
there were fingers at her throat, long, curving talons that were black with dirt. maniacal eyes looked into hers through a screen of hanging hair. wet lips were close to her face, seen through a mat of unkempt beard, and from them lolled a tongue, black and swollen.
she thought that she fainted—she did not know. but for a space of time—how great she never knew—the flickering pine-knot torch was gone and an icy wave swept over her. then she was up, shrieking, struggling madly, hers the strength of half a dozen women. she hurled the ogre away from her, striking, clawing, pushing, and it crashed against a wall of the cave and sank to the floor in a disorderly heap.
panting, one hand clutching her breast, she gazed at it, huddled there, inert, breathing asthmatically. then it moved, half rose, reclined once more in a posture more human and natural.
for an hour she watched, while the cold pierced[257] her bones. then, mustering her courage, she stole past it to the outer chamber of the cave, where she collected blankets, brought them back, and threw them over the prostrate figure of what once had been andrew jerome. with her own blankets wrapped about her she remained in a sitting position, stark awake, until the cold, feeble light of another day in the valley of arcana crept in.
he was not injured. he merely had lost in a twinkling the brief flicker of energy that had returned to him, perhaps in a dream. perhaps he had been asleep throughout, and his subconscious mind had revived and energized him where his conscious mind had failed to function. perhaps her fierce defence had awakened him and had caused him to lapse back. he dragged himself up when it was light, and she guided him to his customary seat at the mouth of the cave.
her daily needs served eventually to turn her mind on necessary tasks, which helped her to forget the horror of her days and nights. she must conserve the jerked meat, which together they had smoked so carefully over the smouldering fires, and attend to the traps. she trudged away through the snow, forced to leave andy to his fate, gaping there at the mouth of the cave of hypocritical frogs. but when she reached the first dead-fall and found a dead jackrabbit beneath the fallen stone she let it lie. one by one she visited other traps, springing them when she found no little dead body, and releasing live quail caught in the quail traps. she would eat the jerky,[258] and when that was gone— well, then she would find something else. she could not kill!
sometimes she was almost tempted to pray that something might happen to andy—that he might rouse himself and try to wander somewhere through the rocks, and meet with a fall that would end in instant death. he was almost helpless. she had brought herself to wash his hands and face, shuddering with repulsion, and whacked off the offensive claws. she wanted to shave him, but was afraid that she did not know how, and shrank from the task. as yet he was able to feed himself, but in a manner that was wolfish when it was not like the food-cramming of a two-year-old; and she turned her back and never ate with him. the firewood was plentiful, and she had only to cut it or break it with the hunter’s axe. all day long she kept the smoke of the signal fire streaming aloft, but she imagined that it was dispersed by the blizzards sweeping overhead, and would serve no purpose even were the doctor trying to reach her.
she cut wood and washed clothes, pulverized nuts and acorns for bread, cooked their meals, and watched the snow pile up about the cave of hypocritical frogs, and when there was nothing to do she left her charge and sought the waterfall, unable to bear the pitiable sight of him. not that there was solace in the roaring and croaking and murmuring of the water. its icy sheets depressed her immeasurably. but below it played and sang the water ouzel, happy, bobbing up and down and nodding sidewise, singing as if there[259] were no terrors upon the earth, while over him and about him dashed the freezing spray. he who could sing at the top of his voice and dance throughout days that were dull and dreary, in the very teeth of the raging waters, gave solace.
