III
INTO THE EAST
Next morning Kabir opened his eyes earlier than might have beenexpected, considering his nocturnal exercise and the hour at which hehad finally retired. Charmides was performing ablutions with water froman earthen jar, and talking amicably, if absent-mindedly, with hisbrother, who was ready dressed. The Phoenician rose hastily, and beganhis usual toilet, while Phalaris, after giving him morning greeting, andbidding the shepherd have a care not to drown himself, left them for themore satisfying charms of breakfast.
On their way back from the acropolis, on the previous night, Kabir andCharmides had not spoken to each other. Therefore the one question andanswer before they left the temple was the only conversation they hadhad on the subject of the inspiration and its result. This morning,then, the moment that Phalaris disappeared, Charmides set down thewater-jar, turned sharply about, and, looking searchingly into hiscompanion's face, asked:
"Kabir--have I dreamed?"
"Dreamed? Where? How?"
A sudden light sprang into the shepherd's face. "You were not with me,then, last night, in the temple of Apollo?"
"Certainly I was--and heard the hymn you sang to the Babylonian goddess.That was an inspiration, Charmides. Can you recall the words and therhythm this morning?"
But Charmides shrank from the question. He had become very pale. After along silence, during which Kabir, much puzzled, strove to understand hismood, he asked again, faintly:
"And the vow? I vowed to Apollo--"
"To seek the Babylonian goddess; to proffer her homage before the yearhad fallen, or--" The Phoenician stopped. Charmides held up his hand withsuch an imploring gesture that a sudden light broke in upon the trader.He realized now that regret for his emotional folly was strong upon theyouth, and he saw no reason for not helping him to be rid of itsconsequences.
"You have lost the desire, O Charmides, to fulfil that vow?" he asked.
Charmides bent his head in shamed acquiescence.
"Why, then, keep it? You may trust me. I shall say not a word of thematter to any one. None but I saw you. The guard at the gate was asleep.You are safe. Forget the matter, and be--" again he paused. Charmideswas regarding him with open displeasure.
"None _saw_! What of the god, Phoenician? What of the god Apollo--mypatron?"
Kabir perceived the shepherd's earnestness, and the corners of his mouthtwitched. Phoenician polytheism had crossed swords, long ago, withPhoenician practicality; and the gods, it must be confessed, had beenpretty well annihilated in the series of contests. Nevertheless, Kabirknew very well that he could not scoff at another's religion. He waspuzzled. He tried argument, persuasion, entreaty, every form of rhetoricthat occurred to him as holding out possibilities of usefulness; but allalike failed to move in the slightest degree Charmides' abjectdetermination. The unprofitable conversation was finally ended by theshepherd's sensible proposal:
"I will lay the matter before my father this morning, Kabir, and by hisdecision I will abide."
The Phoenician nodded approval. It was a simple solution of a puzzlewhich, after all, did not really concern him. As a matter of fact itwould have been hard enough for him to tell why he was takingsuch an unaccountable interest in this impulsive and irresponsibleshepherd-boy--he, a man who had cared for neither man nor woman all hislife through, whose whole interest had hitherto been centred in materialthings. But he was, as many others had been and would be, under theinfluence of the peculiar charm of the young Greek, a charm thatemanated not more from the incomparable beauty of his physique than fromthe frank and ingenuous sincerity of his manner.
At the conclusion of their peculiar conversation, the two men passedinto the living-room, to find their morning meal just ready and Theronand his son sitting down to table, while Heraia still bent over thehearth where bread was baking.
Charmides gave his usual morning salutation to his father and mother,and then seated himself in silence. During the meal he said not a word,though Phalaris was in a lively mood, and conversation flowed easilyenough among the others. When the athlete had risen, however, and Kabirwas detaining the others by making a pretence of eating in order towatch the shepherd, Charmides turned to his father and asked, boldly:
"Father, may one break a vow made within his temple to Apollo?"
Theron looked at his son carefully. "You know that he may not. Why haveyou asked?"
"Because I have made such a vow. Last night, after a great vision, itwas wrung from me."
Phalaris came back and seated himself quietly at the table. Then Heraialeaned forward, looking at her son as if something long expected, longhoped for, had come to pass.
"A vision? Of what? Where?"
"At midnight, unable to sleep for the chaos of my thoughts, I went tothe acropolis and entered into the temple of my god. There I heard themusic of the gods, most marvellous, most incomprehensible; and there agreat vision was before me--a silver cloud in which the goddess Istar ofBabylon appeared to me and called to me. Thereupon I vowed to Apollo toset forth into the East, seeking her to whom, ere the year be fallen, Imust proffer my homage."
Buoyed up by the pleasure and sympathy in his mother's eyes, Charmideshad spoken quite cheerfully. Looking into her face after his last words,however, he found there something that caused his head to droop innew-found dejection, while he waited for his father's decision. It didnot come. There was a heavy silence, finally broken by Phalaris, whosaid, a little contemptuously:
"You had a dream, Charmides. You did not leave the room in which I sleptlast night."
Heraia raised her head in sudden hope, but here Theron broke in:
"Nay--even if it were but a dream, the gods have more than once appearedto favored mortals in sleep."
"But this, Theron, was no dream. I followed Charmides to the temple. Itis true that I saw no vision, and all the music that came to my ears wasmade by Charmides himself, who sang an inspired hymn to the goddess. Buthis vow to Apollo was most certainly made. The shepherd has spokentruth."
There was another pause. Then Theron sighed heavily and spoke. "He mustabide by the vow. You, O Phoenician, will you take him in the galley toyour far city, on his way to the abode of the goddess?"
"That I promised him last night."
"But," interrupted Phalaris, still incredulous, "how did you both passthe guard at the gate by which you entered the acropolis?"
"He slept!" replied Charmides and Kabir, in the same breath.
Heraia let a faint sigh that was more than half sob escape her; andCharmides drew a hand across his brow. "You bid me go, father?" he said.
Theron hesitated. Finally, in a tone of grave reproval, he replied, "Itis not I that can bid you go. You yourself owe obedience to your patrongod and to the strange goddess that put this thing into your heart.Though I shall lose you, though the heart of your mother is faint at thethought of your departure, yet I dare not command you to break the vow.Yes, Charmides--you must go."
A momentary spasm of pain crossed Charmides' young face, and was gone asit had come. Only by his straightened mouth could one have guessed thathe was not as usual. Heraia's eyes were bright with tears which she didnot allow to fall; and even Phalaris, the true Spartan of the family,who was a little scornful of his brother for permitting his feelings tobetray themselves even for a moment, himself felt an unlooked-for quiverat the heart when he thought of a life empty of his girlish brother'spresence. Both he and his mother sat absently looking at the rhapsode,till Theron, seeing danger of weakness in the scene, abruptly rose:
"Come, Phalaris, we will go down together to the galley. I will speakwith Eshmun on behalf of Charmides. Perhaps you, also, Kabir, will careto come?"
"And I. I will work now upon the ship till she sails again. Sardeis cantake the flock."
"Eager to be gone, boy?" asked Theron, smiling rather sadly; but hisquestion needed no other answer than his son's expression. So,presently, the four men left the house, and Heraia was left alone toface this all-unexpected grief that ha
d come to her--the loss of thechild that had made her life beautiful.
The next ten days flew by on wings--wings of grief and dread forebodingfor those in Theron's house. Work on the galley proceeded vigorously.Down from the hills, far to the east of the city, a long, taperingcedar-tree was brought. Its branches were hewn off, its bark strippedaway, and the bare trunk set up in the place of the old, broken mast.New sails were an easy matter of provision, for the Selinuntians wereadepts at making them, and three days sufficed for the shaping andsewing of these. Oars took more time, for strong wood was hard toprocure around Selinous, and only two or three men in the city had anyidea of the manner of carving out these heavy and unshapely things. Themending of the torn bottom of the ship and the replacing of her crushedbulwarks and sides required many days of skilful carpentry; and when allthis was done, the heavy-clinging barnacles were carefully scraped fromtheir comfortable abiding-place, and the good ship set right side uponce more. Finally, on the last day of April, Eshmun declared her readyfor the new launching, and sent word to all his crew that in forty-eighthours more their journey would be recommenced, and that on the eveningbefore their start prayers and a sacrifice for a safe journey would bemade at an altar erected on the sands.
Charmides had worked well and steadily at the remantling of the ship;and in this way became acquainted with her captain and all the crew,who, when they learned that he was to sail with them for Tyre, took somepains to show him courtesy. During this fortnight of labor Charmides'thoughts were busier than his hands, and they moved not wholly throughregretful ways. It would have been wonderful had his young imaginationnot been excited by the prospect before him, that of strange lands andpeoples, of pleasures and dangers with which he was to becomeacquainted. His fancy strayed often through pleasant paths, so thatsometimes half a day went by before a remembrance of the comingseparation from his home and from his mother brought a shadow across hisnew road.
The prospect of departure was, too, far easier for Charmides tocontemplate than it would have been for Phalaris, with all the athlete'saffected stoicism. Up to this time Charmides had led a lonely life; notastes that rendered him companionable towards others, or, rather,holding within himself resources that enabled him to lead a life inwhich the presence of others was unnecessary and undesirable. Theexistence that his imagination conjured up from the lands of the unrealhad become dearer to him than that of actualities. He had created aworld for himself, and peopled it with creatures of his fancy. Withthese he walked and held converse, and no one but Heraia, his mother,could have understood how completely they satisfied his every need ofcompanionship. Thus he was able to take away with him almost all of hisformer life; and Charmides and Heraia both realized, in their secrethearts, that the way of another in his place would have been far harderthan it promised to be for him.
During the last week before the sailing of the ship, Charmides held oneor two long and serious talks with his father and brother. Theron, withgrave, undemonstrative affection, gave him good counsel and excellentadvice as to his dealings with men, and his behavior in various possiblesituations with them. Theron was not a poor man, neither was he anungenerous one; and the bag of silver coins given the shepherd to carryaway with him contained enough to transport him to the gates of thegreat city itself. Regarding the object of that journey, the father,after the first morning, said not one word. He felt that Charmides knewbest what he intended to do; and it must be confessed that, despite hispiety and his reverence for the gods of his race, the Selinuntian felthis credulity much taxed when it came to Istar, the living goddess ofBabylon, of whose existence Kabir was their single witness, and at thata witness only at second hand, according to the Tyrian's own admission.Phalaris shared his father's views on this point; but, to his credit beit said, not the least suggestion of this feeling ever escaped him inhis brother's presence after Charmides' decision to go had been finallyand irrevocably made.
Kabir, in the mean time, found his admiration of the shepherdincreasing. Charmides now held many a talk with him on practical things,and the Phoenician found his prospective companion by no means lacking incommon-sense. The young Greek very soon read enough of the other'snature to realize that poetry and imagination held small places in hiscategory of desirable characteristics; and the young man ceased to laybefore the older one any pretty notions regarding sea-myths in which hewas indulging himself when contemplating the long, eastward voyage. Nowand then they spoke of Istar, and Tyre, and Babylon, which Kabir knewwell by hearsay. But legends of mischievous Tritons and dangerousSirens, of fair Nymphs and hideous sea-monsters, and stories of Delosand Naxos, of Crete and Halicarnassus, the rhapsode kept for himself andhis lyre.
At length came the dawning of the last day of the shepherd's old life.The galley was launched and ready to sail. Food and water were stowedaway on board; and the libations and sacrifices had taken place on thebeach the evening before. Now, on this last afternoon, Charmides satalone, a little way in front of the house, looking off upon the seas towhich, to-morrow, he was to trust himself for safe convoy to suchdistant lands. It was a fair afternoon, and very warm. The rhapsode,basking in the sunlight, felt his emotions dulled under the beautyaround him. His blue eyes wandered slowly over the familiar and yetever-changing scene. His mind was almost at rest. Indeed, his eyelidshad begun to droop with suspicious heaviness, when a gentle hand waslaid upon his shoulder, and he turned to find his mother at his side.
"Charmides!" she said, in a strained voice. And then again: "MyCharmides!"
"My mother!" And she was held close in his arms, her tears raining downupon his face, his head drawn close upon her breast.
"Charmides! My boy, my beloved, my companion! How can I give thee up?"
The shepherd stood still and silent while her hands caressed his shininghair and her breath came and went in a vain effort to re-establish herself-control. After two or three minutes, in which his thoughts spundizzily, he took both her hands in his own and lifted them to his lips.
"Mother," he said, rather brokenly, "Apollo will forgive, will releaseme from the vow. I will not go away. I will not leave thee here--alone."He kissed the hand again. "Come with me to the temple of the god, and Iwill absolve myself from the vow."
Heraia drew the boy still closer, and put her lips to the hair thatclustered about his ear. "The gods bless thee, my dear one. Apollo willhardly forgive my weakness. Nay, Charmides, I did not come here togrieve over you, but to talk with you on many things that a mother hasin her heart to say to her children. Let us sit here together and lookoff upon the sea--the sea that I must hereafter watch alone."
Thus speaking, she drew him down upon the ground beside her, into one ofthe daisy drifts, and they sat in silence for a little, looking offtogether over the far expanse of shimmering blue, with the turquoisehorizon-line melting into the still bluer tint of the sky above. Andwhen Heraia began again to talk, her tone was so low and so even thatthe words seemed to her listener to mingle with the afternoon, becomingat length so entirely a part of their surroundings that in his memory ofthe scene, as his mind held it in later years, her voice was foreveraccompanied by the shining of bright waters and the faint fragrance ofthe carpet of flowers surrounding her.
"Your father, my Charmides, has talked with you of your long and lonelyjourney, of men, the ways of men, and your dealings with them. Obey hiswishes in all these things, for his advice is that of one who has livedlong and wisely in the world. But I, dear son, must speak to you inanother way, of things which, were you not as you are, I should notmention before you. But you are young, and you are very pure; and yournature, with its hidden joys and hidden woe, I understand through myown.
"Your face and form, my Charmides, are beautiful--more beautiful andmore strange than those of any man I have ever seen." She paused for amoment to look wistfully into that face, with its golden frame of hair,while the boy, astonished and displeased, muttered, resentfully:
"My face is that of a woman!"
His mother smiled at his disgust.
"Nay, child, thy face has the man init most plainly written. There is in it what women love--and it is ofthis that I would speak.
"Excepting myself, Charmides, you have known no woman well; and thefeeling of a man for his mother is never his feeling for any otherof her sex. Woman's nature is as yet, I think, closed to yourunderstanding. In this long journey upon which you are faring forth, Ido not doubt that you will encounter women, more than one, who will seekyou for the beauty of your face. For women love beauty in men, as mendesire it in them.
"In your connection with women, whether the acquaintance be of theirseeking or of yours, remember this one thing, that I most firmlybelieve: All women, all in the world, of any land, I think, have in themtwo natures--one that is evil, and one that is good. It will rest withyou alone which one you choose to look upon. For there is no woman sodegraded, so lost to virtue, that she cannot remember a time of puritywhich you can reawaken in her. And there is no woman so good that, forthe man she truly loves with her heart and with her soul, she will notfall; for so men have taught them, through the ages, to love. Therefore,my son, may the greatest of all humiliations come upon you if, knowingwhat I say to be true, you treat any woman with other than reverence andhonor. For a woman who clings in dishonor to the man she loves is not tobe blamed by the gods so much as the man she has trusted. For a man isstrong and should have control over all his senses; but to a woman loveis life; and it is decreed that life is all in all to us.
"Yours, Charmides, is a white soul, a soul as beautiful as the body thatholds it. As yet it is unspotted by a single act of wrong-doing. Thatyou keep that soul pure throughout your life is my one prayer for you. Igive you up to the wide world--to poverty, to wretchedness, to sufferingperhaps--but in this I trust you to keep faith with me. Remember that Ihold your honor as my own. Though Apollo may not vouchsafe that I seeyou again after to-morrow--ever; though the memory of me shall grow dimin your after-life; yet remember--strive to remember always--my lastwords, spoken out of my great, my aching love for you. For in thesewords my motherhood reaches its end. Your manhood has begun."
She kept her voice steady, her tears from falling, till the end. Not sothe boy. When the last word had left her lips and she had bowed her headunder her weight of sorrow, Charmides could not speak for the strainingof his throat; and his eyes, brimming with salt tears, looked blindlyupon the flushing clouds. For many minutes they were silent, sittingtogether for the last time, while the sunset hour drew on and the goldenshadows fell athwart the daisies, and Heraia's words sank deeper intothe shepherd's heart. Finally they rose, and moved, hand in hand, in thedeepening twilight, back through the field to Theron's house. ThereCharmides passed once more through the door-way of his youth.
The evening was long and very sad. After the forlorn supper the littlegroup sat close together, saying little, yet loath to make a proposal ofbed, for it had come home poignantly to all of them how very empty lifewould seem with Charmides taken away. After a time Kabir thoughtfullyleft them and went out to walk alone in the starlight. Then the twoslaves, Doris and Sardeis, crept in and seated themselves in a distantcorner of the living-room. Doris' wide eyes were tinged with red, andher mien was as dejected as Heraia's; for Charmides had been her comradealways. He had helped her in her tasks, had sung his shepherd songs toher from the fields, had not seldom procured pardon for her for someneglect of duty. And Sardeis, the skilful but rather churlish slave, whohated Phalaris and all his ways, and treated Theron with respect onlybecause it meant a whipping if he failed to do so, had never onceobjected in his own heart to taking Charmides' flock from him as oftenas the youth desired lazy freedom, or to performing numberless littlekindnesses for him that no beating could have drawn forth for theathlete. He, too, on this eve of the boy's departure, was beyond speech.
After nearly an hour of cheerless silence, Phalaris, with a desperateeffort to relieve the general strain, brought out his brother's lyre andput it into Charmides' hands. There was a little repressed sob fromHeraia, but the rhapsode's face brightened. For a few seconds helovingly fingered the instrument. Then, lifting up his voice, he sang asong to the sea, a quaintly rhymed little melody, in his invariableminor. Finishing it, he began again, improvising as he went, with anease and carelessness that produced wonderfully happy combinations. Now,as always, he found consolation for every grief in his incomparabletalent. And when, after a last merry little tune that rose continuallyfrom its first tones till it ran out of his range at the end, he finallyput the instrument away, Heraia and the slave alike had ceased to weep,Phalaris was smiling, and Theron rose cheerfully:
"Now, Charmides, you must rise at dawn; therefore I bid you go to rest.Be up with the earliest light, and I will go with you to the temple,where, before Archemides, you will renew your vow and offer sacrifice ofthe youngest lamb in our fold. Kabir will join us there after theservice is ended, and with him you will go down to the ship. Good-night.The gods grant you sleep."
Before Charmides had left the room Kabir came in again, and presentlywent off to his couch with the brothers.
Charmides' rest was broken, filled with dreams of far countries and withuncertain visions of her whom he was to seek. Disconnected sounds ofmusic, bells, and phrases of charmed melody rang through hisunconsciousness. Only in the last hour before dawn did he sink intountroubled slumber, from which, with the first glimmer of day, he rose.His mind was at rest, his heart filled with peace in the inwardknowledge that what he was going forth alone to seek was no chimera, buta marvellous reality. It was, then, with a great, confident joy writtenupon his face that, at the rising of the sun, he stood before the altarof Apollo, and, in the presence of Archemides, the high-priest,surrounded by his father, brother, and the elders of Selinous, renewedhis solemn vow and offered prayer and sacrifice to the Olympian of theSilver Bow.
The hour following the ceremony was painful enough. As the boy lookedback upon it afterwards, it was only a haze of tears, filled with hismother's incoherent words, his father's irrelevant advice, Phalaris'poor attempts at laughing at the rest: all of these things finallyending in a choked prayer and kiss from Heraia. Her last embrace, givenas they stood upon the shore beside the little boat that was to row himout to the galley, sent a sharp pang through his heart. He knew that hisfather gently loosened her arms from his neck. He had a decided memoryof the last mighty grip of Phalaris' fingers. Then he and the Phoenician,each with his bundle of clothes and money, stepped into the boat andwere pulled over the smooth waters to the side of the _Fish of Tyre_,resplendent in her new rigging and furnishing.
They were the last to go on board. Eshmun awaited them anxiously,wishing to get away at once, into the fresh easterly breeze that wasbellying out the ready-hoisted sail. Thus the pain of lingering in sightof the city, his home, was not protracted for the rhapsode. Ten minutesafter he had stepped upon the deck of the ship her anchor was weighed,the tiller was pushed hard down, the sails sprang full, and the shoreand rocky heights of the Greek city began slowly to recede from view.
Now came, for Charmides, twelve days of pure delight. He was alive andhe was living upon the sea, that moving plain, every aspect of which wasone of new beauty. From dawn to dusk, and back again in dreams to dawn,he fed his mind upon the all-abiding peace, the stillness made morestill by the music of the ripples. Perfect freedom was his. He was as inthe very centre of the world, the sea around him unbroken, as far as eyecould reach, or perhaps some low-hanging, faintly olive-green cloud thatothers called an island, just touching the distant horizon-line, west orsouth. It was here and now, only, that the image of Istar, as heconceived her, took absolute possession of his soul. By day he walkedwith her, by night she watched over his light sleep. He talked to her,believing that she answered him. He sang to her and dreamed of her andprayed to her as something especially his own. Yet, near as was thisimage of his mind, Charmides never looked straight upon her faceunveiled. Dimly, many times, he conjured up her features. Her eyes shoneupon him out of the spangled night, but their color he did not know. Herche
ek, smooth, warm, semi-transparent, tinted as the petal of theasphodel, was near his lips, but never desecrated by them. And while shethus moved near him, drawing him onward with intenser desire towards herfar abiding-place, she was forever the goddess, in that she kept himalways from all desire of a more human approach than this mystic,half-mental companionship.
During the voyage the sailors regarded Charmides with a curiosity tingedwith dislike. Eshmun himself was at a loss to comprehend the unsociableand idle existence of the youth, who lay all day long on the high stern,under the awning, singing to his lyre and watching the sea. And Kabirpassed a good deal of time studying this intense phase of the shepherd'smalady, and seeking to think out its cure. Considering the trader'seminent practicality, he conceived, with remarkable penetration, theworkings of a poetically unbalanced mind. Only he, out of all the ship'scompany, cared to listen to the rhapsode's music. Only he lay awake bynight to listen to and piece together the strange words that Charmidesspoke in his sleep. But even he, it must be confessed, did not respectthe effeminate romance that could lead a grown man into such ecstasiesover a divine ideal.
The _Fish of Tyre_ took her course down the high coast of southernSicily, halting once at Akragas and again at the easternmost point,Syracuse, where more water was taken on, and purchase made of a numberof jars of a rosier, sweeter liquid. Then away to sea they sailed again,southward, round the heel of Italy, and north once more to the shores ofMother Greece herself, stopping finally at many-storied Crete, where thelong sand-stretches on the coast yielded every year to the Phoenicians astore of their wonderful little dye-mollusks. Leaving the city of tyrantkings, the galley entered upon the waters that formed a setting forthose jewels of the Mediterranean, the Grecian Isles, that rose like somany emeralds upon their amethystine waters, shot with gold by day,lying dim and murmurous by night under the dome of lapis-lazuli prickedwith diamond stars. The galley, homeward bound, carrying her burden ofhomesick men, made no halt between Crete and Cyprus, which last was, toTyrians, a second home. Charmides witnessed, with a little tug at hisheart-strings, the great joy of his comrades, even Kabir and Eshmun, atonce more beholding the familiar shores. A night was spent in theKarchenian harbor, for it was but one day's journey now to Tyre herself.
During that last night, while they were at anchor, Charmides, in hisaccustomed place on the deck, lay wide awake. The moon, half-grown, setabout midnight over the land. The night was still and sweet, and the airwarm with approaching summer. The planets shone like little moons, moreradiant than Charmides had ever known them before. Now and then, fromthe town on shore, came the baying of a dog. The Greek's heart swelledwith a painful longing that he could not define. It was the first twingeof homesickness, the first realization of the greatness of the worldaround him, and his own insignificance within it. Istar, the goddess,might indeed be near him; but the shepherd longed less for divinity thanfor the clasp of a warm human hand upon his own.
It was better when the dawn, red-robed, came up out of the east. Therewas a bustle of sailors on deck, a creaking of ropes, and a flapping ofsail-cloth. Then came the hoarse shouts of Sydyk, rousing the slavesfrom their chained slumber, bidding them bend cheerily to their oars,for the end of their eight months of agony and toil was near its end.The little ship sped out of the friendly harbor, gallantly distancingthe waves, sending forth two hissing curls of foam off her prow, herrudder cutting a deep, pale line in the smooth wake. As the morning stardied on the crimson of the east, the breeze freshened. The whole longhorizon was shot with rosy clouds and topped by a line of gold thatpaled into delicate green as it melted towards the fair blue of theupper sky, in which the white stars had now long since hidden themselvesaway.
Charmides let his lyre rest as he stood by one of the bulwarks watchinga bird float away from the ship, back towards the receding Cyprenianshore. Presently Kabir came to join him, and the two sat down together,cross-legged, on the deck. In one hand the Phoenician had brought aplatter of cooked fish and some bread, while in the other he had a smalljar of sweet wine.
"Food, my poet; food for the morning. Pray Apollo to make it sweet."
"You should be returning thanks to Melkart and Baal for the approachingend of the voyage," returned the Greek, speaking Phoenician in rather asubdued voice.
Kabir smiled to himself, but made no answer other than to hold out foodto Charmides, who helped himself not too bountifully. The rhapsode,indeed, was in danger of falling into a melancholy reverie at this thevery beginning of the day. But, after ten minutes' silence, hisself-appointed friend fortunately broke in upon him.
"Aphrodite's rites you practise, Charmides. Istar of the Babylonians youhave come to seek. But our Nature goddess, our divinity of fertility andbeauty, you know nothing of. In Tyre, before you move farther to theeast, you must let me show you how we are accustomed to worshipAshtoreth. Across the bay, on the mainland opposite the great Sidonianharbor, she has a vast sanctuary. We shall go there together, you and I,and you shall learn--" Kabir stopped speaking, and regarded the boycontemplatively.
"Learn--what?" asked Charmides, turning towards him slightly.
"Many things, Charmides, that it will be well for you to know. Will youdrink of this? And there is new bread, also."
But the Greek refused more food, and was not sufficiently interested inthe conversation begun to question Kabir further on the things that heshould learn. The sun was rising now--a great, fiery wheel, burnishedand dripping, sending its rays of dazzling drops high up the curved way,while it came on more slowly, more surely, till it rolled clear of thehorizon, in a cloud of glorious, blinding flame.
Charmides prayed silently till the day was well begun, and sea and skywere resolved into their ordinary hues of blue and white and gold. Then,Kabir having gone again, the rhapsode, spent with his wakeful night, andsorrowful at heart with longing for his distant home, lay down upon theplanks and slept. It was near noon when he woke again; and over all theship one could feel the vibrations of excitement at thought of thenearness of Tyre, the home city. It should show along the horizon bysunset, and for that hour every soul on board was eagerly, impatientlywaiting.
To Charmides, standing forlornly near the prow, it appeared, at last, ina dream-like mist of scarlet and gold. Rushing water and green eddiesand that marvellous, blinding haze mingled together and melted away tomake room for the long-dreamed-of cloud picture that rose, like aconjured vision, out of the east. It was a mirrored city of white wallsand drooping cypress-trees that stood far out in front of the graduallyheightening coast-line behind them. It was Tyre, the city of the risingsun, viewed thus for the first time at the day's end. It was the gate ofthe new world. Charmides had stood long before its closed door, waiting,watching for admittance. Now, at last, the key was in his hand.
"It is fair, my home," observed Kabir, coming to stand at his shoulder,his tone fraught with suppressed joy and pride.
Charmides assented quietly. "Oh yes, Kabir. It is, indeed, fair.Very--fair."
Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy Page 7
