Matthew stood awhile looking at the door where the Indian with low salaam had disappeared. Then, turning hastily, he put a few things into his handbag, and going out, closed the door. He left a note and key under the doormat and started downstairs, almost colliding with a boy who was racing up, two steps at a time.
“Looking for a man named Towns—know where he stays?”
“I’m Matthew Towns.”
“Long distance wants you—quick—drugstore—corner.” And he flew down, three steps at a time. Matthew stood still a long minute. He could not go away leaving her standing, waiting, listening. No. This thing must be faced, not dodged. He must talk to her. If she asked, he must even go to her. She, too, was no coward. Eye to eye and face to face, she would say the last word: she was summoned home to India. And then the final parting? He could say it—he would. They must work for the world—but she in her high sphere, and he in his, more lowly: forever parted, forever united in soul.
And more: this meeting which she had announced was of the highest importance. He must attend it and make it successful. He must show Kautilya that her return to India need not hinder nor in the slightest degree retard the Great Plan.
He descended slowly and went into the drugstore and into the little booth. How curious that he had never thought of evoking this miracle before in his heavy loneliness! Yet it was well. There was, there could be, but this ending; out of time and space he was calling a memory.
“Hello—hello! New York—hello, Richmond—go ahead.”
At first the voices came strained, far-off, unnatural, interrupted with hissings and brazen echoes. Then at last, real, clear, and close, a voice came pouring over the telephone in a tumult of tone:
“Matthew, Matthew! I have heard the great good news. I am happy, very, very happy. And, Matthew, the friends are waiting. They want you here at sunrise.”
“But, Kautilya—is it necessary that I come? Is it wise? I have been thinking long, Kautilya—”
“Matthew, Matthew, what is wrong? Why would you wait? Are you ill? Has something happened?”
“No, no, Kautilya, I am well—and if you wish me, I am coming—if the friends insist. But I have been wondering if I could not meet them elsewhere, a little later?”
“Later! Matthew—what do you mean?”
“I mean, Kautilya, that I have a duty to perform toward you and the world.”
“Matthew, do you mean that you have changed toward me?”
“Changed? No, never. But I see more clearly—as clearly as you yourself saw when you bade me drain the cup.”
“What have you feared, Matthew?”
“Nothing but myself. And now that fear is gone—I have drained the cup.”
“Yes, dear one. And yet you knew that never and to no one could I give you up?”
“Rather I knew that each must surrender the other.”
“To whom, Matthew?”
“To God and the Maharajah of Bwodpur.”
A sound that was a sigh and a sob came over the phone.
“Oh, God!” it whispered—“the Maharajah of Bwodpur!”
“Listen, Kautilya—I know—all.”
“All?” she gasped.
“All! A Maharajah is to be crowned in Bwodpur.”
A little cry came over the wire.
“And you have been summoned to the coronation—is it not true?”
“Yes.”
“And you must go. Bwodpur—the darker peoples of the world call you. Would it not be easier if—if with this far farewell you left me alone to meet the committee and draft the plan?”
“No—no—no, Matthew—you do not—you can not understand. You must come—unless—”
“Kautilya, darling, then I will come—of course I will come. I will do anything to make the broad straight path of your duty easier to enter. Only one thing I will not do, neither for Wealth nor Power nor Love; and that is to turn your feet from this broad and terrible way. And so to bid you Godspeed—to greet you with farewell and to hold you on my heart once more ere I give you up to God—I come, Kautilya.”
Her voice sang over the wires:
“Oh, Matthew—my beautiful One—my Man—come—come!—and at sunrise.”
“I am coming.”
“And at sunrise?”
“But—impossible.”
“Have you read the rescript? By sunrise, the first of May.”
“But, dear, it is April 30. It takes a train—”
“Nonsense. There is an airplane fueled, oiled, and waiting for you at the Maywood flying field. Stop for nothing—go now; quickly, quickly, oh, my beloved.”
Click. Silence. Slowly he let the receiver fall and turned away. He would not falter, and yet almost—almost he wished the truth otherwise. It would have been hard enough to surrender a loved one who wanted to be free, but to send away one who clung to him to her own hurt called for bitter, bitter courage; and dark and bitter courage stood staunch within him as he took out his watch. Or, perhaps, she too was full of courage and blithe and ready to part? He shivered. It was ten o’clock at night. The field was far away. He glanced up at his room, then paused no longer.
“Taxi—Maywood flying field. And quick!”
“Good Lord, boss, that’s forty miles—it’ll cost you near—”
“It’s worth twenty-five dollars for me to get there in two hours.”
The taxi leapt and roared. …
The pilot glanced scowling at the brown face of his lone passenger and climbed aloft. Matthew crawled into the tiny cabin. It was entirely closed in with glass save where up a few steps at the back perched the hard-faced pilot. There were seats for three other passengers, but they were empty.
There arose a roar—a roar that for seven hours never ceased, never hesitated, but crooned and sang and thundered. They moved. The lights of Chicago hurried backward. It was midnight. The lights swayed and swam, and suddenly, with a sick feeling and a shiver of instinctive fright, Matthew realized that they were in the air, off the earth, in the sky—flying, flying in the night.
Slowly and in a great circle they wheeled up and south. The earth lay dark beneath in dim and scattered brilliance. They left the great smudge of the crowded city and swept out over flat fields and sluggish rivers. Fires flew in the world beneath and dizzily marked Chicago. Fires flew in the world above and marked high heaven. Between, the gloom lay thick and heavy. It crushed in upon the plane. The plane roared and rose. Matthew could hear the beating and singing of wings rushing by in the night as though a thousand angels of evil were battling against the dawn. He shrank in his strait cabin and stared. His soul was afraid of this daring, heaven-challenging thing. He was but a tossing, disembodied spirit. There was nothing beneath him—nothing. There was nothing above him, nothing; and beside and everywhere to the earth’s ends lay nothing. He was alone in the center of the universe with one hard-faced and silent man.
Then the strange horror drew away. The stars, the “ancient and the everlasting stars,” like old and trusted friends, came and stood still above him and looked silently down: the Great Bear, the Virgin, and the Centaur. East curled the Little Bear, Hercules, and Boötes; west swung the Lion, the Twins, and the Little Dog. Vega, Arcturus, and Capella gleamed in faint brilliance.
The plane rocked gently like a cradle. Above the clamor of the engine rose a soft calm. Below, the formless void of earth began to speak with the shades of shadows and flickering, changing lights. That cluster of little jewels that flushed and glowed and dimmed would be a town; that comet below was an express train tearing east; that blackness was a world of farms asleep. In an hour Indianapolis was a golden scintillating glory with shadowy threads of smoke. In another hour Cincinnati—he groped at the map—yes, Cincinnati—lay in pools of light and shade, and the Ohio flowed like ink.
Suddenly the whole thing became symbolic. He was riding Life above the world. He was triumphant over Pain and Death. He remembered death down there where once the head of Jimmie thumped, thumped, on the rails. He heard the wail of that black and beautiful widowed wife. “They didn’t show me his face!” He saw Perigua lying still in death with that smile on his lips, and he heard him say, “He didn’t have no face!” Then came the slippers, her white and jeweled feet that came down from heaven and opened the gates of hell. Someone touched his shoulder. He knew that touch. It was arrest; arrest and jail. But what did he care? He was flying above the world. He was flying to her.
A soft pale light grew upon the world—a halo, a radiance as of some miraculous virgin birth. Lo! in the east and beneath the glory of the morning star, pale, faintly blushing streamers pierced the dim night. Then over the whole east came a flush. The dawn paused. Mountains loomed, great crags, gashed and broken and crowned with mighty trees. The wind from the mountains shrieked and tore; the plane quivered. A moment it stood still; then it dipped and swerved, swayed and curved, dropped, and shot heavenward like a bird. It pierced the wind-wound mists and rose triumphant above the clouds. The sun sprayed all the heavens with crimson and gold, and the morning stars sang in the vast silence above the roar, the unending roar of the airplane.
Matthew’s spirit lifted itself to heaven. He rode triumphant over the universe. He was the God-man, the Everlasting Power, the eternal and undying Soul. He was above everything—Life, Death, Hate, Love. He spurned the pettiness of earth beneath his feet. He tried to sing again the Song of Emancipation—the Call of God—“Go down, Moses!”—but the roar of the pistons made his strong voice a pulsing silence.
The clouds parted, melted, and ran before the gleaming glory of the coming sun. The earth lay spread like a sailing picture—all pale blue, green, and brown; mauve, white, yellow, and gold. He faintly saw cities and their tentacles of roads, rivers like silver ribbons, railroads that shrieked and puffed in black and silent lines. Hill and valley, hut and home, tower and tree, flung them swift obeisance, and down, down, away down on the flat breast of the world, crawled men—tiny, weak, and helpless men: some men, eyes down, crept stealthily along; others, eyes aloft, waved and ran and disappeared.
Out of the golden dust of morning a city gathered itself. Its outstretched arms of roads moved swiftly, violently apart, embracing the countryside. The smudge of its foul breath darkened the bright morning. The living plane circled and spurned it, roared to its greeting thousands, swooped, whirled to a mighty curve, rose, and swooped again. Matthew’s heart fell. He grew sick and suddenly tired with the swift careening of the plane. The sorrows of earth seemed to rise and greet him. He was no longer bird or superman; he was only a helpless falling atom—a deaf and weary man. They circled a bare field and fell sickeningly toward it. They dropped. His heart, his courage, his hopes, dropped too. They swooped again and circled, rose, and swooped, until dizzy and deaf they landed on an almost empty field and taxied lightly and unsteadily to a standstill. The engine ceased, and the roar of utter silence arose.
Matthew was on earth again, and on the earth where all its pettiest annoyances rose up to plague him. A half-dozen white men ran out, eager, curious. They greeted the pilot vociferously. Then they stared. Matthew climbed wearily down and stood dizzy, dirty, and deaf. They whispered, laughed, and swore, and turning, took the pilot to his steaming bath and breakfast and left Matthew alone.
Matthew stood irresolute, hatless, coatless in the crisp air, clad only in his jersey and overalls. Then he took a deep breath and walked away. In a wayside brook he bathed. He walked three miles to Richmond and boarded a train at six for his home. He found the Jim Crow car, up by the engine, small, crowded, and dirty. The white baggage men were washing up in it, clad in dirty undershirts. The newsboy was dispossessing two couples of a double seat and piling in his wares, swearing nobly. Matthew found a seat backward by a window. Leaning out, he spied a boy with lunches hurrying up to the white folks’ car, and he induced him to pause and bought a piece of fried chicken and some cornbread that tasted delicious. Then he looked out.
The Spring sang in his ears; flowers and leaves, sunshine and shade, young cotton and corn. He could not think. He could not reason. He just sat and saw and felt in a tangled jumble of thoughts and words, feelings and desires, dreams and fears. And above it all lay the high heart of determination.
They rolled and bumped along. He sat seeing nothing and yet acutely conscious of every sound, every movement, every quiver of light, the clamor of hail and farewell, the loud, soft, sweet, and raucous voices. The movement and stopping, the voices and silence, grew to a point so acute that he wanted to cry and sing, walk and rage, scream and dance. He sat tense with half-closed eyes and saw the little old depot dance up from the far horizon, slip near and nearer, and slowly pause with a sighing groan. No one was there. Yes—one old black man who smiled and said:
“Mornin’, Matthew, mornin’. How you comin’ on?”
But Matthew with a hurried word had stridden on, his satchel in hand, his eyes on the wooded hill beyond. He passed through the village. Few people were astir:
“Hello, Matthew!”
“By God, it’s Mat!”
The sounds fell away and died, and his feet were on the path—his Feet were on the Path! and the surge of his soul stifled his breath. He saw the wood, the brook, the gate. Beyond was the blur of the dim old cabin looking wider and larger.