CHAPTER XXVII. THE SILENT FOUNTAIN
I turned and followed the spotted leopardess, catching but one glimpseof her as she tore up the brow of the hill to the gate of the palace.When I reached the entrance-hall, the princess was just throwing therobe around her which she had left on the floor. The blood had ceased toflow from her wounds, and had dried in the wind of her flight.
When she saw me, a flash of anger crossed her face, and she turned herhead aside. Then, with an attempted smile, she looked at me, and said,
"I have met with a small accident! Happening to hear that the cat-womanwas again in the city, I went down to send her away. But she had one ofher horrid creatures with her: it sprang upon me, and had its claws inmy neck before I could strike it!"
She gave a shiver, and I could not help pitying her, although I knewshe lied, for her wounds were real, and her face reminded me of how shelooked in the cave. My heart began to reproach me that I had let herfight unaided, and I suppose I looked the compassion I felt.
"Child of folly!" she said, with another attempted smile, "--not crying,surely!--Wait for me here; I am going into the black hall for a moment.I want you to get me something for my scratches."
But I followed her close. Out of my sight I feared her.
The instant the princess entered, I heard a buzzing sound as of manylow voices, and, one portion after another, the assembly began to beshiftingly illuminated, as by a ray that went travelling from spot tospot. Group after group would shine out for a space, then sink back intothe general vagueness, while another part of the vast company would growmomently bright.
Some of the actions going on when thus illuminated, were not unknown tome; I had been in them, or had looked on them, and so had the princess:present with every one of them I now saw her. The skull-headed dancersfooted the grass in the forest-hall: there was the princess looking inat the door! The fight went on in the Evil Wood: there was the princessurging it! Yet I was close behind her all the time, she standingmotionless, her head sunk on her bosom. The confused murmur continued,the confused commotion of colours and shapes; and still the ray wentshifting and showing. It settled at last on the hollow in the heath, andthere was the princess, walking up and down, and trying in vain to wrapthe vapour around her! Then first I was startled at what I saw: the oldlibrarian walked up to her, and stood for a moment regarding her; shefell; her limbs forsook her and fled; her body vanished.
A wild shriek rang through the echoing place, and with the fall of hereidolon, the princess herself, till then standing like a statue in frontof me, fell heavily, and lay still. I turned at once and went out: notagain would I seek to restore her! As I stood trembling beside thecage, I knew that in the black ellipsoid I had been in the brain of theprincess!--I saw the tail of the leopardess quiver once.
While still endeavouring to compose myself, I heard the voice of theprincess beside me.
"Come now," she said; "I will show you what I want you to do for me."
She led the way into the court. I followed in dazed compliance.
The moon was near the zenith, and her present silver seemed brighterthan the gold of the absent sun. She brought me through the trees to thetallest of them, the one in the centre. It was not quite like the rest,for its branches, drawing their ends together at the top, made a clumpthat looked from beneath like a fir-cone. The princess stood close underit, gazing up, and said, as if talking to herself,
"On the summit of that tree grows a tiny blossom which would at onceheal my scratches! I might be a dove for a moment and fetch it, but Isee a little snake in the leaves whose bite would be worse to a dovethan the bite of a tiger to me!--How I hate that cat-woman!"
She turned to me quickly, saying with one of her sweetest smiles,
"Can you climb?"
The smile vanished with the brief question, and her face changed to alook of sadness and suffering. I ought to have left her to suffer, butthe way she put her hand to her wounded neck went to my heart.
I considered the tree. All the way up to the branches, were projectionson the stem like the remnants on a palm of its fallen leaves.
"I can climb that tree," I answered.
"Not with bare feet!" she returned.
In my haste to follow the leopardess disappearing, I had left my sandalsin my room.
"It is no matter," I said; "I have long gone barefoot!"
Again I looked at the tree, and my eyes went wandering up the stem untilmy sight lost itself in the branches. The moon shone like silveryfoam here and there on the rugged bole, and a little rush of wind wentthrough the top with a murmurous sound as of water falling softly intowater. I approached the tree to begin my ascent of it. The princessstopped me.
"I cannot let you attempt it with your feet bare!" she insisted. "A fallfrom the top would kill you!"
"So would a bite from the snake!" I answered--not believing, I confess,that there was any snake.
"It would not hurt YOU!" she replied. "--Wait a moment."
She tore from her garment the two wide borders that met in front, andkneeling on one knee, made me put first my left foot, then my right onthe other, and bound them about with the thick embroidered strips.
"You have left the ends hanging, princess!" I said.
"I have nothing to cut them off with; but they are not long enough toget entangled," she replied.
I turned to the tree, and began to climb.
Now in Bulika the cold after sundown was not so great as in certainother parts of the country--especially about the sexton's cottage; yetwhen I had climbed a little way, I began to feel very cold, grew stillcolder as I ascended, and became coldest of all when I got among thebranches. Then I shivered, and seemed to have lost my hands and feet.
There was hardly any wind, and the branches did not sway in theleast, yet, as I approached the summit, I became aware of a peculiarunsteadiness: every branch on which I placed foot or laid hold, seemedon the point of giving way. When my head rose above the branchesnear the top, and in the open moonlight I began to look about for theblossom, that instant I found myself drenched from head to foot. Thenext, as if plunged in a stormy water, I was flung about wildly, andfelt myself sinking. Tossed up and down, tossed this way and tossed thatway, rolled over and over, checked, rolled the other way and tossed upagain, I was sinking lower and lower. Gasping and gurgling and choking,I fell at last upon a solid bottom.
"I told you so!" croaked a voice in my ear.