Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-08-07
CHAPTER XXI.
A MOonlit Day.
Copyright. 1910.
By the Century Company


somber purple of the snow to silver. The
snow lay everywhere. save upon the
vertical face of the cliff itself, an unrent,
immaculate mantle over all this arctic
world. The valley, the hills, the beach
and the frozen sea all lay at. peace be-
meath it, as if asleep or dead.
To Cayley. where he lay, suspended in
mid-sky. the moonlight cleaning upon
the sensitive fabric of his planes. as it
CLEANS upon the faint ripples on a mill
pond in the dead of some June night
to Cayley this white, sleeping frozen
world looked very far away. He was a
wing for the first time since that eternity
ago when he had descended upon the
beach beside Jeanne to warn her Of the
approach Of the bear.
How long ago that was by the measure
of hours and days and weeks ne did not
know. He had no data for estimate
that would be better than a guess. He
remembered how desperately they had
worked that night, saving what they
could from the burning hut and carrying
it back into the cave; remembered with
what labor he and Jeanne had climbed
the ice chimney to the only shelter that
now remained to them, the little pilot
house observatory upon the Cliffhead; re-
counted hours while they adjusted their
way of life to the conditions imposed by
the caiamitous loss of the hut.
But after that there were lapses of time
which memory did not cover. During
that time he knew the utmost fury of the
arctic winter had been raging over them,
without cessation. They had been shell
tered from it down in the heart OF the
great drift of snow which the storm had
heaped upon them But even in this Sc
curity the shock of those successive
paroxysms of natures titanic rage reach
ed down and benumbed them, body and
soul.
In some dull. automatic fashion they
had contrived to keep alive. to secure a
little air to breathe, to eat what would
serve to hold off starvation and to keep
from freezing. But the reckoning of the
days had lost itself in the unbroken night
of midwinter Even the months they
had spent in the hut. those days of va
ried. cheerful occupation, the peril with
which Roscoe had threatened them, and
the unsleeping vigilance they had inter
posed against him-all of that had come
to seem remote and incredible to them.
AS for the world of men, of cities and
civilization, of busy. streets. and lights
and the sounds of human activity, that
was to them almost as if it had never
been.
But at last the rage of the storm had
spent itself and had become still. The
bitterness of the cold relaxed and be-
came milder. Cayley had felt the blood
stirring in his veins again, the power of
consecutive thought and the ambition to
live coming once more into his posses
sion. He had gone to work. feebly and
drowsily at first, but with constantly in
creasing Energy and strength, at the task
of opening up once more the tunnel
through the drift which the great storm
had choked.
When he had broken through the outer
crust of the drift and the white radiance
of the midday moon Shone into the black
tunnel where he had been working he
stood for a moment drawing deep breaths
and gazing over the scene which lay be-
meath his eyes. He fastened back into
the little pilot house.
Jeanne was doing upon heap of bear
skins. He reused her with some diff
Guilty; really waking up had been hard
matter lately. almost as hard as really
getting off to sleep. She was still drowsy
when he led her along the tunnel to the
ciff-head.
Breathe deep" he told her. eve were
half poisoned in there. This air will bring
you back to life again, it and the moon
light"
He had been supporting her with his
arm about her waist, but now, as she
held herself a little straighter and he
could feel her lungs expanding with the
pure air she breathed. he withdrew the
arm and let her stand alone. Even the
white moonlight revealed the color that
For a while she did not speak at ALL
then, as if replying to comment of his,
she said:
Yes. it's beautiful But, Philip
it's dead Dead
Not this air. that has ozone sparkling
all through it. 1t is alive enough to make
your blood dance. It's doing that now
He tried to persuade her to take little
exercise along the length of the tunnel.
but she demurred to that. Instead. she
a n hrin hoa
and let her sit there at the cliff-head,
looking out.
And" she supplemented, IF you want
| to know what | should like most of all.
1T would be to have you bring your
wings so that l can see YOU flying again.
and field glass that l can watch you
through
He felt some hesitation. partly out of a
fear of leaving her and partly from a
doubt concerning his own strength: but
neither of these reasons was one he cared
to aVow. So he unfurled the bundle that
had lain disused so long spread and
| frightened and tested it, and at last. with
| nod of farewell to the girl. dived off
the cliff head.
Any doubt he may have had concern
| ing his strength disappeared at once.
The mere touch of those great wings of
his seemed to bring it all back. and hope
and joy and confidence along with it.
He made his dive as shallow as pos
Slble, and in the sheer eXuberance OF de-
| ngnt at being once more awning he beat
his way aloft again by main strength
towering like a falcon. All his old power
was he.e unimpaired, yet every sensa-
ton it brought him was heightened and
made thrilling by long disuse By means
| of those great. obedient wings of his he
played upon the capricious, vagrant air
with the superb inSolence of mastery.
! Every trick of flight was at his COM
mand. the flashing dive of the piratical
| frisate bird, the corkscrew spiral of the
| tern, the pummetlike pounce of the
| hawk, and at last, the majestic, soaring
| drift of the king of them all, the alba
| tross.
| So he hung there in midSky, and the
world. white. frozen. immaculate-looked
far away. The old godlike serenity, UNI
troubled. untrammeled, unaf! aid, came
back to him. The soul opened its gates
up here, lost its boundaries, and all the
| spirit of the sky came in, immense, cold,
clear as the all-pervading ether. This
was Nirvana, though the old Buddhist
adopts who had philosophical about IL
had never conquered the sky. had never
bathed in 1t as Cayley on his wings was
bathing now.
refracting ice crystals that filled the air
| caught its light slantwise and danced
with it so that it fiickered like will-o'-
the-wisp The sky deepened from its
bright steel-blue to purple The silver
light upon the snow faded, through law
ender and lilac. to a purple of it's own,
only less deep than that of the sky itself.
But the stars burned brighter and bright
en- until it almost seemed they sang:
.'Harping in loud and solemn choir
With INEXPENSIVE notes.