Max Brand (11 page)

The big man had heard this speech with eyes that grew rounder and
rounder. Now he caught up the little image and raised his arm to throw
it through the window. But the old man hissed, and Joseph turned with a
shudder.

"You cannot throw Haneemar away," said the other. "Only when some one
takes him freely will you be rid of him."

"It is true," answered Joseph. "I remember the visitor would not take
him back."

"Then," said the old sage, "if the stranger will not take him back, bad
luck has come into the Garden, for only the stranger would carry
Haneemar out again. But do not give Haneemar to one of our friends, for
then he will stay with us all. If you dig a deep hole and bury him in
it, Haneemar may not be able to get out."

Joseph was beginning to swell with wrath.

"The stranger has put a curse on me," he said. "Abraham, what shall I do
to him? Teach me a curse to put on him!"

"Hush!" answered Abraham. "Those who pray to evil spirits are the slaves
of the powers they pray to."

"Then I shall take this Benjamin in my hands!"

He made a gesture as though he were snapping a stick of dry wood.

"You are the greater fool. Is not this Benjamin, this stranger, a guest
of the master?"

"I shall steal him away by night in such a manner that he shall not make
even the noise of a mouse when the cat breaks its back. I shall steal
him away and David will never know."

The loose eyelids of the old man puckered and his glance became a ray of
light.

"The curse already works; Haneemar already is in your mind, Joseph.
David will not know? Child, there is nothing that he does not know. He
uses us. We are his tools. My mind is to him as my hand is to me. He
comes inside my eyes; he knows what I think. And if old Abraham is
nothing before David, what is Joseph? Hush! Let not a whisper go out! Do
not even dare to think it. You have felt the whip of David, but you have
not felt his hand when he is in anger. A wounded mountain lion is not so
terrible as the rage of David; he would be to you as an ax at the root
of a sapling. These things have happened before. I remember. Did not
Boram once anger John? And was not Boram as great as Joseph? And did not
John take Boram in his hands and conquer him and break him? Yes, and
David is a greater body and a stronger hand than John. Also, his anger
is as free as the running of an untaught colt. Remember, my son!"

Joseph stretched out his enormous arms and his voice was a broken wail.

"Oh, Abraham, Abraham, what shall I do?"

"Wait," said the old man quietly. "For waiting makes the spirit strong.
Look at Abraham! His body has been dead these twenty years, but still
his spirit lives."

"But the curse of Haneemar, Abraham?"

"Haneemar is patient. Let Joseph be patient also."

Connor wakened in the gray hour of the morning, but beyond the window
the world was much brighter than his room. The pale terraces went down
to scattered trees, and beyond the trees was the water of the lake.
Farther still the mountains rolled up into a brighter morning. A horse
neighed out of the dawn; the sound came ringing to Connor, and he was
suddenly eager to be outside.

In the patio the fountain was still playing. As for the house, he found
it far less imposing than it had been when lantern light picked out
details here and there. The walls and the clumsy arches were the
disagreeable color of dried mud and all under the arcade was dismal
shadow. But the lawn was already a faintly shining green, and the
fountain went up above the ground shadow in a column of light. He passed
on. The outside wall had that squat, crumbling appearance which every
one knows who has been in Mexico—and through an avenue of trees he saw
the two buildings between which he had ridden the night before. From the
longer a man was leading one of the gray horses. This, then, was the
stable; the building opposite it was a duplicate on a smaller scale of
the house of David, and must be the servants' quarters.

Connor went on toward a hilltop which alone topped the site of the
master's house; the crest was naked of trees, and over the tops of the
surrounding ones Connor found that he commanded a complete view of the
valley. The day before, looking from the far-off mountaintop, it had
seemed to be a straight line very nearly, from the north to the south;
now he saw that from the center both ends swung westward. The valley
might be twelve miles long, and two or three wide, fenced by an unbroken
wall of cliffs. Over the northern barrier poured a white line of water,
which ran on through the valley in a river that widened above David's
house into a spacious lake three or four miles long. The river began
again from the end of the lake and continued straight to the base of the
southern cliffs. Roads followed the swing of the river closely on each
side, and the stream was bridged at each end of the lake. His angle of
vision was so small that both extremities of the valley seemed a solid
forest, but in the central portion he made out broad meadow lands and
plowed fields checkering the groves. The house, as he had guessed the
evening before, stood into the lake on a slender peninsula. And due west
a narrow slit of light told of the gate into the Garden. It gave him a
curiously confused emotion, as of a prisoner and spy in one.

He had walked back almost to the edge of the clearing when David, from
the other side went up to the crest of the hill. Connor was already
among the trees and he watched unobserved. The master of the Garden, at
the top of the hill, paused and turned toward Connor. The gambler
flushed; he was about to step out and hail his host when a second
thought assured him that he could not have been noticed behind that
screen of shrubbery and trunks; moreover the glance of David Eden passed
high above him. It might have been the cry of a hawk that made him turn
so sharply; but through several minutes he remained without moving
either hand or head, and as though he were waiting. Even in the distance
Connor marked the smile of happy expectation. If it had been another
place and another man Connor would have thought it a lover waiting for
his mistress.

But, above all, he was glad of the opportunity to see David and remain
unseen. He realized that the evening before it had been difficult to
look directly into David's face. He had carried away little more than
impressions; of strength, dignity, a surface calm and strong passions
under it; but now he was able to see the face. It was full of
contradiction; a profile irregular and deeply cut, but the full face had
a touch of nobility that made it almost handsome.

As he watched, Connor thought he detected a growing excitement in
David—his head was raised, his smile had deepened. Perhaps he came here
to rejoice in his possessions; but a moment later Connor realized that
this could not be the case, for the gaze of the other must be fixed as
high as the mountain peaks.

At that instant came the revelation; there was a stiffening of the whole
body of David; his breast filled and he swayed forward and raised almost
on tiptoe. Connor, by sympathy, grew tense—and then the miracle
happened. Over the face of David fell a sudden radiance. His hair, dull
black the moment before, now glistened with light, and the swarthy skin
became a shining bronze; his lips parted as though he drank in strength
and happiness out of that miraculous light.

The hard-headed Connor was staggered. Back on his mind rushed a score of
details, the background of this picture. He remembered the almost
superhuman strength of Joseph; he saw again the old servants withering
with many years, but still bright-eyed, straight and agile. Perhaps
they, too, knew how to stand here and drink in a mysterious light which
filled their outworn bodies with youth of the spirit, at least. And
David? Was not this the reason that he scorned the world? Here was his
treasure past reckoning, this fountain of youth. Here was the
explanation, too, of that intolerable brightness of his eye.

The gambler bowed his head.

When he looked up again his soul had traveled higher and lower in one
instant than it had ever moved before; he was staring like a child.
Above all, he wanted to see the face of David again, to examine that
mysterious change, but the master was already walking down the hill and
had almost reached the circle of the trees on the opposite side of the
slope. But now Connor noted a difference everywhere surrounding him. The
air was warmer; the wind seemed to have changed its fiber; and then he
saw that the treetops opposite him were shaking and glistening in a
glory of light. Connor went limp and leaned against a tree, laughing
weakly, silently.

"Hell," he said at length, recovering himself. "It was only the sunrise!
And me—I thought—"

He began to laugh again, aloud, and the sound was caught up by the
hillside and thrown back at him in a sharp echo. Connor went
thoughtfully back to the house. In the patio he found the table near the
fountain laid with a cloth, the wood scrubbed white, and on it the heavy
earthenware. David Eden came in with the calm, the same eye, difficult
to meet. Indeed, then and thereafter when he was with David, he found
himself continually looking away, and resorting to little maneuvers to
divert the glance of his host.

"Good morrow," said David.

"I have kept you waiting?" asked Connor.

The master paused to make sure that he had understood the speech, then
replied:

"If I had been hungry I should have eaten."

There was no rebuff in that quiet statement, but it opened another door
to Connor's understanding.

"Take this chair," said David, moving it from the end of the table to
the side. "Sitting here you can look through the gate of the patio and
down to the lake. It is not pleasant to have four walls about one; but
that is a thing which Isaac cannot understand."

The gambler nodded, and to show that he could be as unceremonious as his
host, sat down without further words. He immediately felt awkward, for
David remained standing. He broke a morsel from the loaf of bread, which
was yet the only food on the table, and turned to the East with a solemn
face.

"Out of His hands from whom I take this food," said the master—"into
His hands I give myself."

He sat down in turn, and Isaac came instantly with the breakfast. It was
an astonishing menu to one accustomed to toast and coffee for the
morning meal. On a great wooden platter which occupied half the surface
of the table, Isaac put down two chickens, roasted brown. A horn-handled
hunting knife, razor sharp, was the only implement at each place, and
fingers must serve as forks. To David that was a small impediment. Under
the deft edge of his knife the breast of one chicken divided rapidly; he
ate the white slices like bread. Indeed, the example was easy to follow;
the mountain air had given him a vigorous appetite, and when Connor next
looked up it was at the sound of glass tinkling. He saw Isaac holding
toward the master a bucket of water in which a bottle was immersed
almost to the cork; David tried the temperature of the water with his
fingers with a critical air, and then nodded to Isaac, who instantly
drew the cork. A moment later red wine was trickling into Connor's cup.
He viewed it with grateful astonishment, but David, poising his cup,
looked across at his guest with a puzzled air.

"In the old days," he said gravely, "when my masters drank they spoke to
one another in a kindly fashion. It is now five years since a man has
sat at my table, and I am moved to say this to you, Benjamin: it is
pleasant to speak to another not as a master who must be obeyed, but as
an equal who may be answered, and this is my wish, that if I have doubts
of Benjamin, and unfriendly thoughts, they may disappear with the wine
we drink."

"Thank you," said Connor, and a thrill went through him as he met the
eye of David. "That wish is my wish also—and long life to you, David."

There was a glint of pleasure in the face of David, and they drank
together.

"By Heaven," cried Connor, putting down the cup, "it is Médoc! It is
Château Lafite, upon my life!"

He tasted it again.

"And the vintage of '96! Is that true?"

David shook his head.

"I have never heard of Médoc or Château Lafite."

"At least," said Connor, raising his cup and breathing the delicate
bouquet, "this wine is Bordeaux you imported from France? The grapes
which made this never grew outside of the Gironde!"

But David smiled.

"In the north of the Garden," he said, "there are some low rolling
hills, Benjamin; and there the grapes grow from which we make this
wine."

Connor tasted the claret again. His respect for David had suddenly
mounted; the hermit seemed nearer to him.

"You grew these grapes in your valley?" he repeated softly.

"This very bottle we are drinking," said David, warming to the talk. "I
remember when the grapes of this vintage were picked; I was a boy,
then."

"I believe it," answered Connor solemnly, and he raised the cup with a
reverent hand, so that the sun filtered into the red and filled the
liquid with dancing points of light.

"It is a full twenty years old."

"It is twenty-five years old," said David calmly, "and this is the best
vintage in ten years." He sighed. "It is now in its perfect prime and
next year it will not be the same. You shall help me finish the stock,
Benjamin."

"You need not urge me," smiled Connor.

He shook his head again.

"But that is one wine I could have vowed I knew—Médoc. At least, I can
tell you the soil it grows in."

The brows of the host raised; he began to listen intently.

"It is a mixture of gravel, quartz and sand," continued Connor.

"True!" exclaimed David, and looked at his guest with new eyes.