Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  It was all very queer. The feeling of tremendous age grew mysteriously over him. He realised that he had been wandering for ages. He had been to the stars and also to the deeps; he had roamed over strange mountains far away from cities or inhabited places of the earth, and had lived by streams whose waves were silvered by moonlight dropping softly through whispering palm branches....

  Some of these ghostly memories brought him sensations of keenest happiness — icy, silver, radiant; others swept through his heart like a cold wave, leaving behind a feeling of unutterable woe, and a sense of loneliness that almost made him cry aloud. And there came Voices too — Voices that had slept so long in the inner kingdoms of silence that they failed to rouse in him the very slightest emotion of recognition....

  Worn out at length with the surging of these strange hosts through him, he got up and went to the open window again. The night was very dark and warm, but the stars had disappeared, and there was the hush and the faint odour of coming rain in the air. He smelt leaves and the earth and the moist things of the ground, the wonderful perfume of the life of the soil.

  The wind had dropped; all was silent as the grave; the leaves of the elm trees were motionless; no bird or insect raised its voice; everything slept; he alone was watchful, awake. Leaning over the window-sill, his thoughts searched for the governess, and he wondered anew where she was spending the dark hours. She, too, he felt sure, was wakeful somewhere, watching with him, plotting their escape together, and always mindful of his safety....

  His reverie was suddenly interrupted by the flight of an immense night-bird dropping through the air just above his head. He sprang back into the room with a startled cry, as it rushed past in the darkness with a great swishing of wings. The size of the creature filled him with awe; it was so close that the wind it made lifted the hair on his forehead, and he could almost feel the feathers brush his cheeks. He strained his eyes to try and follow it, but the shadows were too deep and he could see nothing; only in the distance, growing every moment fainter, he could hear the noise of big wings threshing the air. He waited a little, wondering if another bird would follow it, or if it would presently return to its perch on the roof; and then his thoughts passed on to uncertain memories of other big birds — hawks, owls, eagles — that he had seen somewhere in places now beyond the reach of distinct recollections....

  Soon the light began to dawn in the east, and he made out the shape of the elm trees and the dreadful prison wall; and with the first real touch of morning light he heard a familiar creaking sound in the room behind him, and saw the black hood of the governess rising through the trap-door in the floor.

  “But you’ve left me alone all night!” he said at once reproachfully, as she kissed him.

  “On purpose,” she answered. “He’d get suspicious if I stayed too much with you. It’s different in the daytime, when he can’t see properly.”

  “Where’s he been all night, then?” asked the boy.

  “Last night he was out most of the time — hunting — —”

  “Hunting!” he repeated, with excitement. “Hunting what?”

  “Children — frightened children,” she replied, lowering her voice. “That’s how he found you.”

  It was a horrible thought — Fright hunting for victims to bring to his dreadful prison — and Jimbo shivered as he heard it.

  “And how did you get on all this time?” she asked, hurriedly changing the subject.

  “I’ve been remembering, that is half-remembering, an awful lot of things, and feeling, oh, so old. I never want to remember anything again,” he said wearily.

  “You’ll forget quick enough when you get back into your body, and have only the body-memories,” she said, with a sigh that he did not understand. “But, now tell me,” she added, in a more serious voice, “have you had any pain yet?”

  He shook his head. She stepped up beside him.

  “None there?” she asked, touching him lightly just behind the shoulder blades.

  Jimbo jumped as if he had been shot, and uttered a piercing yell.

  “That hurts!” he screamed.

  “I’m so glad,” cried the governess. “That’s the pains coming at last.” Her face was beaming.

  “Coming!” he echoed, “I think they’ve come. But if they hurt as much as that, I think I’d rather not escape,” he added ruefully.

  “The pain won’t last more than a minute,” she said calmly. “You must be brave and stand it. There’s no escape without pain — from anything.”

  “If there’s no other way,” he said pluckily, “I’ll try, — but — —”

  “You see,” she went on, rather absently, “at this very moment the doctor is probing the wounds in your back where the horns went in — —”

  But he was not listening. Her explanations always made him want either to cry or to laugh. This time he laughed, and the governess joined him, while they sat on the edge of the bed together talking of many things. He did not understand all her explanations, but it comforted him to hear them. So long as somebody understood, no matter who, he felt it was all right.

  In this way several days and nights passed quickly away. The pains were apparently no nearer, but as Miss Lake showed no particular anxiety about their non-arrival, he waited patiently too, dreading the moment, yet also looking forward to it exceedingly.

  During the day the governess spent most of the time in the room with him; but at night, when he was alone, the darkness became enchanted, the room haunted, and he passed into the long, long Gallery of Ancient Memories.

  CHAPTER IX. THE MEANS OF ESCAPE

  A week passed, and Jimbo began to wonder if the pains he so much dreaded, yet so eagerly longed for, were ever coming at all. The imprisonment was telling upon him, and he grew very thin, and consequently very light.

  The nights, though he spent them alone, were easily borne, for he was then intensely occupied, and the time passed swiftly; the moment it was dark he stepped into the Gallery of Memories, and in a little while passed into a new world of wonder and delight. But the daytime seemed always long. He stood for hours by the window watching the trees and the sky, and what he saw always set painful currents running through his blood — unsatisfied longings, yearnings, and immense desires he never could understand.

  The white clouds on their swift journeys took with them something from his heart every time he looked upon them; they melted into air and blue sky, and lo! that “something” came back to him charged with all the wild freedom and magic of open spaces, distance, and rushing winds.

  But the change was close at hand.

  One night, as he was standing by the open window listening to the drip of the rain, he felt a deadly weakness steal over him; the strength went out of his legs. First he turned hot, and then he turned cold; clammy perspiration broke out all over him, and it was all he could do to crawl across the room and throw himself on to the bed. But no sooner was he stretched out on the mattress than the feelings passed entirely, and left behind them an intoxicating sense of strength and lightness. His muscles became like steel springs; his bones were strong as iron and light as cork; a wonderful vigour had suddenly come into him, and he felt as if he had just stepped from a dungeon into fresh air. He was ready to face anything in the world.

  But, before he had time to realise the full enjoyment of these new sensations, a stinging, blinding pain shot suddenly through his right shoulder as if a red-hot iron had pierced to the very bone. He screamed out in agony; though, even while he screamed, the pain passed. Then the same thing happened in his other shoulder. It shot through his back with equal swiftness, and was gone, leaving him lying on the bed trembling with pain. But the instant it was gone the delightful sensations of strength and lightness returned, and he felt as if his whole body were charged with some new and potent force.

  The pains had come at last! Jimbo had no notion how they could possibly be connected with escape, but Miss Lake — his kind and faithful friend, Miss Lake — had said that
no escape was possible without them; and had promised that they should be brief. And this was true, for the entire episode had not taken a minute of time.

  “ESCAPE, ESCAPE!” — the words rushed through him like a flame of fire. Out of this dreadful Empty House, into the open spaces; beyond the prison wall; out where the wind and the rain could touch him; where he could feel the grass beneath his feet, and could see the whole sky at once, instead of this narrow strip through the window. His thoughts flew to the stars and the clouds....

  But a strange humming of voices interrupted his flight of imagination, and he saw that the room was suddenly full of moving figures. They were passing before him with silent footsteps, across the window from door to door. How they had come in, or how they went out, he never knew; but his heart stood still for an instant as he recognised the mournful figures of the Frightened Children filing before him in a slow procession. They were singing — though it sounded more like a chorus of whispering than actual singing — and as they moved past with the measured steps of their sorrowful dance, he caught the words of the song he had heard them sing when he first came into the house: —

  “We hear the little voices in the wind Singing of freedom we may never find.”

  Jimbo put his fingers into his ears, but still the sound came through. He heard the words almost as if they were inside himself — his own thoughts singing: —

  “We hear the little footsteps in the rain Running to help us, though they run in vain, Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane.”

  The horrible procession filed past and melted away near the door. They were gone as mysteriously as they had come, and almost before he realised it.

  He sprang from the bed and tried the doors; both were locked. How in the world had the children got in and out? The whispering voices rose again on the night air, and this time he was sure they came from outside. He ran to the open window and thrust his head out cautiously. Sure enough, the procession was moving slowly, still with the steps of that impish dance across the courtyard stones. He could just make out the slow waving arms, the thin bodies, and the white little faces as they passed on silent feet through the darkness, and again a fragment of the song rose to his ears as he watched, and filled him with an overpowering sadness: —

  “We have no joy in any children’s game, For happiness to us is but a name, Since Terror kissed us with his lips of flame.”

  Then he noticed that the group was growing smaller. Already the numbers were less. Somewhere, over there in the dark corner of the yard, the children disappeared, though it was too dark to see precisely how or where.

  “We dance with phantoms, and with shadows play,” rose to his ears.

  Suddenly he remembered the little white upright stones he had seen in that corner of the yard, and understood. One by one they vanished just behind those stones.

  Jimbo shivered, and drew his head in. He did not like those upright stones; they made him uncomfortable and afraid. Now, however, the last child had disappeared and the song had ceased. He realised what his fate would be if the escape were not successful; he would become one of this band of Frightened Children; dwelling somewhere behind the upright stones; a terrified shadow, waiting in vain to be rescued, waiting perhaps for ever and ever. The thought brought the tears to his eyes, but he somehow managed to choke them down. He knew it was the young portion of him only that felt afraid — the body; the older self could not feel fear, and had nothing to do with tears.

  He lay down again upon the hard mattress and waited; and soon afterwards the first crimson streaks of sunrise appeared behind the high elms, and rooks began to caw and shake their wings in the upper branches. A little later the governess came in.

  Before he could move out of the way — for he disliked being embraced — she had her arms round his neck, and was covering him with kisses. He saw tears in her eyes.

  “You darling Jimbo!” she cried, “they’ve come at last.”

  “How do you know?” he asked, surprised at her knowledge and puzzled by her display of emotion.

  “I heard you scream to begin with. Besides, I’ve been watching.”

  “Watching?”

  “Yes, and listening too, every night, every single night. You’ve hardly been a minute out of my sight,” she added.

  “I think it’s awfully good of you,” he said doubtfully, “but — —”

  A flood of questions followed — about the upright stones, the shadowy children, where she spent the night “watching him,” and a hundred other things besides. But he got little satisfaction out of her. He never did when it was Jimbo, the child, that asked; and he remained Jimbo, the child, all that day. She only told him that all was going well. The pains had come; he had grown nice and thin, and light; the children had come into his room as a hint that he belonged to their band, and other things had happened about which she would tell him later. The crisis was close at hand. That was all he could get out of her.

  “It won’t be long now,” she said excitedly. “They’ll come to-night, I expect.”

  “What will come to-night?” he asked, with querulous wonder.

  “Wait and see!” was all the answer he got. “Wait and see!”

  She told him to lie quietly on the bed and to have patience.

  With asking questions, and thinking, and wondering, the day passed very quickly. With the lengthening shadows his excitement began to grow. Presently Miss Lake took her departure and went off to her unknown and mysterious abode; he watched her disappear through the floor with mingled feelings, wondering what would have happened before he saw her again. She gave him a long, last look as she sank away below the boards, but it was a look that brought him fresh courage, and her eyes were happy and smiling.

  Tingling already with expectancy he got into the bed and lay down, his brain alive with one word — ESCAPE.

  From where he lay he saw the stars in the narrow strip of sky; he heard the wind whispering in the branches; he even smelt the perfume of the fields and hedges — grass, flowers, dew, and the sweet earth — the odours of freedom.

  The governess had, for some reason she refused to explain, taken his blouse away with her. For a long time he puzzled over this, seeking reasons and finding none. But, while in the act of stroking his bare arms, the pains of the night before suddenly returned to both shoulders at once. Fire seemed to run down his back, splitting his bones apart, and then passed even more quickly than before, leaving him with the same wonderful sensations of lightness and strength. He felt inclined to shout and run and jump, and it was only the memory of the governess’s earnest caution to “lie quietly” that prevented his new emotions passing into acts.

  With very great effort he lay still all night long; and it was only when the room at last began to get light again that he turned on his side, preparatory to getting up.

  But there was something new — something different! He rested on his elbow, waiting. Something had happened to him. Cautiously he sat on the edge of the bed, and stretched out one foot and touched the floor. Excitement ran through him like a wave. There was a great change, a tremendous change; for as he stepped out gingerly on to the floor something followed him from the bed. It clung to his back; it touched both shoulders at once; it stroked his ribs, and tickled the skin of his arms.

  Half frightened, he brought the other leg over, and stood boldly upright on both feet. But the weight still clung to his back. He looked over his shoulder. Yes! it was trailing after him from the bed; it was fan-shaped, and brilliant in colour. He put out a hand and touched it; it was soft and glossy; then he took it deliberately between his fingers; it was smooth as velvet, and had numerous tiny ribs running along it.

  Seizing it at last with all his courage, he pulled it forward in front of him for a better view, only to discover that it would not come out beyond a certain distance, and seemed to have got caught somehow between his shoulders — just where the pains had been. A second pull, more vigorous than the first, showed that it was not caught, but faste
ned to his skin; it divided itself, moreover, into two portions, one half coming from each shoulder.

  “I do believe they’re feathers!” he exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  Then, with a sudden flash of comprehension, he saw it all, and understood. They were, indeed, feathers; but they were something more than feathers merely. They were wings!

  Jimbo caught his breath and stared in silence. He felt dazed. Then bit by bit the fragments of the weird mosaic fell into their proper places, and he began to understand. Escape was to be by flight. It filled him with such a whirlwind of delight and excitement that he could scarcely keep from screaming aloud.

  Lost in wonder, he took a step forward, and watched with bulging eyes how the wings followed him, their tips trailing along the floor. They were a beautiful deep red, and hung down close and warm beside his body; glossy, sleek, magical. And when, later, the sun burst into the room and turned their colour into living flame, he could not resist the temptation to kiss them. He seized them, and rubbed their soft surfaces over his face. Such colours he had never seen before, and he wanted to be sure that they really belonged to him and were intended for actual use.

  Slowly, without using his hands, he raised them into the air. The effort was a perfectly easy muscular effort from the shoulders that came naturally, though he did not quite understand how he accomplished it. The wings rose in a fine, graceful sweep, curving over his head till the tips of the feathers met, touching the walls as they rose, and almost reaching to the ceiling.