LIKE UNTO ADONIS
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
McCarthy, Justin H. (Justin Huntly)
Argathona, bending on one knee over the wounded man, lifted his shoulders with firm, supple fingers upon the other knee, and, tenderly supporting the bruised head with one hand, breathed quickly and repeatedly upon his parted lips. The breath of those who are deathless can fan the dying flame of the lamp of life till it burns again serenely. As she worked thus, tending a mortal man for the first time, touching the curling young head and the smooth young skin, unwonted tremors stirred her and unwonted fancies fumed. "If it were not for the red blood," she thought, "surely this youth might be of kin with the immortal gods. Adonis must have looked so when he lay with his life-blood dabbling the brake and reddening the petals of the roses, and widowed Aphrodite wept."
There were tears in Argathona's eyes as she thought thus, and they fell warm upon the cold face and kindled color in it, for the tears of those that are deathless quicken the flesh as the rains from heaven quicken the earth. After a little the youth opened his eyes and looked up in wonder at the beautiful, sad face that compassionated him, the beautiful body that neighbored him.
"Who are you?" he asked, faintly, wondering where he was, for his wits were still wool-gathering, and wondering why his voice sounded so weak and foolish to him, as voices sometimes sound in dreams.
"I am—" Argathona began, and faltered. She thought that she would not again tell a stranger the truth about herself and be doubted, as Simon had doubted her, so she changed her purpose a little and went on:
"I am a woman, and I live in this wood."
Rainouart struggled somewhat to get up, for it vexed his strength exceedingly to feel helpless and it fretted his courtesy to trouble a woman with such care of him. But Argathona gently laid a hand upon his breast, and for all his strength he could not resist that pressure, and she kept him pillowed on her knee. He put a hand that seemed unusually clumsy to his aching head, and then stared in amazement at his naked chest and weakly strove to claw his coat together. Argathona whispered to him very softly, and he understood her without marvelling, being unable for the moment to marvel at anything.
"Robbers set on you—wounded you."
Again Rainouart struggled to rise.
"Now I remember," he said, fiercely; and looking about him, though it hurt him much to move his head, he saw how his sword lay on the grass a-nigh him, and he made a grab for the weapon. But Argathona put her beautiful, strong arms about him, and held him thus while she whispered motherly to him, as children have whispered to their dolls since the first child played with the first mandrake:
"You must keep still; you are sorely hurt, but I have stanched the blood."
Rainouart's wits were none too muddled to forget reverence. He stooped his head and kissed the girl's hands where they met about his breast. The touch of his lips upon her seemed to sting her virgin flesh through to the pure heart, and she unclasped her hands with a little moan. Rainouart looked up at her.
"Why do you cry out? Why do you withdraw your hands? My gratitude would never offend you."
"You do not offend me," Argathona whispered, very softly, so softly that he could scarcely hear her. But he did hear her, and so hearing he now wondered, as Simon before him had wondered, how it happened that his own dear French speech should sound at all strange to him. As the girl's hands no longer restrained him, he struggled a little and sat erect, and stared into her eyes as she kneeled beside him. His troubled thoughts seemed to lapse again into a trance; surely he had strayed in the guarded garden, surely he lay in the mystical pleasance, surely he had touched with his lips the petals of the noble rose.
"What is your name?" he whispered, and she told him, and he repeated it softly, "Argathona," and found it very sweet to say and hear.
"When I kissed your hands, Argathona," he murmured, "all the pain of my wounds seemed to leave me, and I drew new life, new vigor, from the kiss. But when you withdraw your touch from me the smart returns and my head aches wearily. If you will let me kiss your hands once more I think that would surely banish pain."
He pleaded not because he dreaded to bear pain, but because he longed with all his heart to kiss her hands again, and he hoped to win her to yield through pity. He asked no more in his speech than to kiss her hands, and he asked no more in his heart. For this, though he knew it not, was his first acquaintance with the meaning of love, and his white chivalry would have died blithely for less grace than this from the loved one.
"You must not suffer pain," the girl said, looking with troubled doubt into his bright, mortal eyes. For this, though she knew it not, was her first acquaintance with the meaning of love. Then she yielded her hands to him sweetly as one who, being great, grants a favor, and granting it is glad to be humble in the granting. The young French knight took her white fingers in his and kissed them very tenderly, very courteously, and as he kissed them he looked up into her pitying eyes and longed to weep for the very keenness of the joy that filled his being. It seemed to him on the instant that he had waited through all the love-loneliness of his spring for the touch of those hands, for the regard of those eyes. Surely Lord Love had locked his heart with a golden key, to keep it as a shrine vacant till this hour and dedicated to this image.
"You have the most wonderful hands in all the world," he stammered, tremulous with a sense of intimate revelation. "Their touch yields life. But you have the most wonderful face in the world, the most wonderful eyes."
He had clean forgotten how he came there, he had clean forgotten Athens, forgotten everything except the glorious certainty that he had found the rose of the world. Argathona neared her face to his till she almost touched his cheek with her lips. She knew with the wisdom of the wood that he spoke the truth of his heart. She would have known even, if she had been wise in the wisdom of the world, from the loyalty of his voice, and she gave back the truth of her heart with the frankness of the dawn of time.
"Your hands are strong and shapely, like the hands of the gods; your eyes are bright, like the eyes of the gods; you are good to behold."
Rainouart colored, a little bashful as a gallant lad should be at the high praise of a fair girl, and tried, manlike, to put it by in spite of his wild pleasure at its sound and sense.
"So long as a man be brave, it matters little how he be formed and featured, at least so all men say, but I have heard that some ladies think otherwise." And he smiled shyly at her, hotly glad that she should think well of him, spirit and substance together glad to madness with happiness.
The dryad looked at him gravely. "Are there many mortals like this," she pondered—"so modest, so brave, so fair?" Her heart assured her that this must be the pride and idol of the time.
"Comeliness is a mark of the favor of the gods," she asserted.
Rainouart pressed her hands closely, his spirit rekindling at the exquisite contact, his soul desiring nothing better than this bright hour. Yet he wondered at her words.
"Why do you speak like a pagan?" he asked. "The gods have gone long ago."
The dryad sighed as she thought of the splendid figures riding to the twilight land. Was it yesterday?
"Ay," she sighed, "the gods have gone long ago," and she stared across the moonlit space into the blackness of the wood, and wondered what had happened to her which had changed so strangely the ancient way.
There was a little silence; mortal and immortal troubled with new thoughts. Then Rainouart made to rise. It was strangely sweet to lie there supported by this woman's arms; but Rainouart was a man and a knight, and must not presume on a fair lady's patience. So he got to his knees, and she helped him to his feet with her strength, which could have aided a greater than he; and they stood face to face in the moonlight, mortal boy and immortal girl, and to both alike the moment of mortal immortality had come. The night wind was very quiet, the wood seemed still with a kind of sacred stillness; it was as if the world were asleep and only they awake in all the world. The hearts of youth beat with the mutual pulses of a great passion.