Chapter VI · A WANDERER FROM ARABY

Incredible as my assertion may appear to you who have just heard Lord Galonfield relate his remarkable adventures, I may truly say that not at any time since the night on which his lordship told me that he loved me have I believed that his conduct on that occasion was inspired by any motive other than a desire to obtain a fortune which, I was assured, he believed would go with my hand.

Despite the fact that Meschid Pasha introduced me as his daughter, there is not a drop of Moslem blood in my veins. My mother was the daughter of Sir George Bridwell, a member of the British House of Commons. When she was only twenty years of age, she became the second wife of Prince Maranotti, the head of one of the noble families of Italy. By his first wife Prince Maranotti had a son—Victor—who was seven years old at the time of my mother’s marriage.

I was born a year after my mother became the Princess Maranotti. For several months prior to my birth, the Prince’s unreasonable jealousy had caused him to treat my mother with a degree of cruelty that was almost inhuman. After I was born the Prince’s conduct became so unbearable that, when I was only five months old, my mother, with me in her arms, and accompanied only by a maid, fled from Italy. Her brother had been serving as an attaché to the British embassy in Constantinople, and it was to him she fled now for protection.

Upon our arrival in the Turkish capital, my mother learned that her brother, having obtained leave of absence, had set out for England only a few days before. The funds then in her possession were little more than sufficient to take her and her infant and maid to England. This course, however, she hesitated to follow. Her father was a man dominated by a strong sense of duty, and she feared that he would compel her to return to Prince Maranotti, whose vengeful disposition was likely to cause him to inflict some terrible punishment upon her. Despite her fears, she finally decided to go to London, but she resolved that if Sir George reproached her with her conduct she would seek refuge with relatives of her mother.

We were stopping then at a hotel in Pera, and, in order to elude Prince Maranotti, or such agents as he might have employed to seek her, my mother assumed the name of Mrs. Andrew Fenchurch. When her preparations for her journey were completed, she sent for a couple of carriages to take us and our luggage to the vessel on which we were to embark. Entering the first carriage, with me in her arms, my mother directed the maid to seat herself in the second, which contained articles of value, and to meet us at the quay.

As the two carriages drew away from the hotel, my mother, though wearing a thick veil, still feared discovery, and so drew down the curtains of the vehicle in which she was seated.

At length the carriage stopped, and my mother, raising one of the curtains, looked out. Instead of the entrance to the quay, she beheld the richly carved walls of a splendid courtyard. Throwing open the door, my mother called to the driver. The man made no reply, but a few moments later four negroes, seizing her by the arms, forced her to alight and enter a door which was opened at her approach. A fifth negro, closely following the others, carried me in his arms. When the negroes released my mother, she found herself in a sumptuous apartment which, she was informed, was one of a suite in the harem of Meschid Pasha.

Too terrified to question further the black-skinned men who were stationed outside the door, my mother spent nearly twenty minutes of nerve-racking suspense. Then there entered the apartment a man about thirty-five years of age, with pleasing features and a sturdy figure. He was clad in Turkish dress, and in him my mother recognized one of the passengers who had been aboard the vessel that had brought her from Naples.

To my mother this man then made the most ardent protestations of affection. Because of the black garments she had worn since her departure from Italy, he had thought her to be a widow, and had hoped to win her consent to become his wife. My mother indignantly spurned the affection that he offered her, and demanded her liberty.

Apparently thoroughly crestfallen, Meschid retired. On the following day he told my mother he suddenly had been ordered to join the army in one of the Arabian provinces. This assignment, he said, would necessitate his absence from Constantinople for several months. He informed her, however, that during this period she would be treated with the utmost respect by the members of his household, but that she was not to make any attempt to regain her freedom. My mother, who was now a prisoner, resolved to submit to the conditions which the Pasha had imposed upon her until such a time as her brother might return to his post.

Each week English and French newspapers were brought to my mother’s room by respectful attendants, and by means of these she learned that, shortly after his return to London, her brother had married and retired from the diplomatic service. More important than this, however, were reports that Prince Maranotti, believing that there had been ample grounds for his jealousy, was convinced that his wife had eloped with one of her admirers. Accordingly he had divorced her.

When Meschid returned to Constantinople, his wooing of my mother was resumed. This time he did not sue in vain. The light came back to her eyes, and among the first of my memories were the songs she used to sing while the infatuated Pasha, standing beside the piano he had brought to her from Paris, turned the sheets of music that lay before her. In the years that followed she bore to Meschid three sons and two daughters.

Perhaps it was my mother’s many evidences of affection for me, the child of her first marriage, that caused my stepfather to dislike me. But, though I knew I would never share the love that he bestowed upon my brothers and sisters, I never feared him. In his way he was kind to me. When my mother expressed a wish that I might have an English governess who should prepare me for that world that lay beyond the walls of the harem, her fond husband readily consented.

My education was as strange as were my early associations. I was taught English, French and Turkish, and soon became proficient in music and drawing. In my early youth I was inordinately fond of fairy tales. I was taught to read the Bible and the Koran, and of these the Koran was my favorite. But of all the books that were placed in my youthful hands, those which pleased me most were the works of the old Persian poets, whose lutes were attuned to the praise of Oriental loves, the songs of birds, the splashing of fountains and the voices of angels, peris and genii who lurked amid whispering trees and fragrant, nodding flowers.

After her marriage to the Pasha, my mother was free to leave the house whenever she listed. But, whether she walked or rode through the crowded streets, there was none among those she passed who would be bold enough to imagine that the bright eyes that looked through her yashmak, or the graceful form that was enclosed by her farendje were those of a daughter of Old England, who, having been an unhappy Italian Princess, was now the contented wife of a distinguished Mussulman.

Despite the indifference of my stepfather, I think I should have been content to remain in that luxurious, song-haunted harem forever, had not, when I was eighteen years of age, a terrible misfortune befallen me. This was the death of my mother.

Then all light suddenly went out of my life. The songs which had made the harem seem to us like a corner of the Prophet’s paradise were heard no more, except when, like spirit voices, we heard them echoing faintly in the dim-lighted, rose-scented chambers of our memories. No more did Meschid enter the harem with smiling lips and expectant eyes. His face had become more stolid—his gaze more abstracted and severe.

Two of my half-brothers—Abdul and Ildebrin—no longer made their quarters in the harem, and, after the departure of Ildebrin, then fourteen years of age, the place became more cheerless than before. When I was nineteen, my English governess died. I felt that I was quite friendless now.

Fond as I was of dress and jewels, with which I was well supplied, vanity never had been numbered among my faults, but there came a time when the praise of plain-spoken women visitors brought to me the knowledge that my physical attractions were far greater than those of my dark-skinned half-sisters, who resembled their father, rather than their mother. These comparisons were always displeasing to me, for I saw that my sisters were becoming less and less disposed to mask the aversion with which I inspired them. For the first time I realized that I was living on the bounty of a man to whom I was bound by no ties of blood. Meschid was a devout Mussulman while I—half English, half Italian—had not a drop of Moslem blood in my veins.

At length there reached the harem a rumor that Meschid Pasha, who during the lifetime of my mother had no other wife, was about to wed again. I knew that he or his daughters had no love for me, and I wondered what would be my position in the harem when the new wife was placed at its head.

The star of my destiny had risen, however. Meschid had seen it, but not I.

And so it came to pass, while I was preparing to go out among the shops one morning, that Meschid entered the harem, and, by a gesture, bade me accompany him to one of the rooms where we might be alone.

After we seated ourselves, Meschid looked at me long and thoughtfully, without speaking.

“Pauline,” he said, at length, “what is your faith?”

It was the first time he ever had spoken to me on the subject of religion, and I colored with embarrassment.

“My mother died a Christian, did she not?” I murmured.

Meschid nodded.

“Yes—she died a Christian,” he answered, with a sigh. “She made me promise I would not make you change your faith. That promise shall be kept.”

Then, after a little pause, he added, gloomily:

“Your father is a Christian, too.”

I did not reply to this, and for several minutes Meschid sat looking abstractedly at the floor.

What had my stepfather come to say to me? With a fluttering heart I looked around at the walls that once had constituted a part of my mother’s home. I knew that the time was at hand when I should say farewell to them forever.

“Most Moslem girls marry before they are sixteen,” Meschid said, musingly. “You are nineteen, I believe.”

The gates of Dreamland seemed to be opening their portals to me now, and I felt as if peris, standing at my side, were pointing to where the heroes who so often had visited my girlish fancies were gazing on me from the mystic city’s walls.

“Yes—yes, I know,” I faltered.

“If you are to remain a Christian, you must have a Christian husband,” Meschid said.

A great fear smote me. Would there come a time when, like Giaour women, I would have to appear with my face unveiled in city streets?

“And I have one in view,” Meschid added.

I was trembling violently. For better or for worse, my fate was sealed. There was nothing I might do of my own volition—nothing I could say.

Meschid rose.

“We will start for England to-morrow,” he said.

Involuntarily I clapped my hands.

“For my mother’s country!” I exclaimed, half-joyfully. “Ah, it must be very beautiful in England, for my mother loved it so.”

A frown settled on the Pasha’s face, and he looked at me darkly.

“Yes,” he said, sighing as he turned away. “Yes, your mother loved it—once. But, sometimes, I fancied she was happy here.”

He left me then, and, with feverish haste, I began my preparations for the long journey on which I was to set out on the morrow.

When we had embarked on the steamer that was to take us from the Bosphorus to Naples, I laid aside my yashmak, but, in obedience to the command of Meschid, I had all meals served in my stateroom, which I never left without a heavy green or gray veil over my face. At Naples we boarded a train for the north, and, in due time, we arrived in England.

In London a house was in readiness for our occupancy, and I marveled much when I saw how greatly its appointments resembled those of Turkish homes. It had its harem and its selamlik, but here I had less liberty than in Constantinople, for, under no circumstances, was I permitted to leave the harem unless I was accompanied by my stepfather. We took several drives together, and on these occasions I wore one of the French gowns that constituted part of my traveling wardrobe, but I was not permitted to raise my veil, which, unlike a yashmak, had no opening for the eyes.

While I was in this London house I suddenly was summoned to the selamlik and there found myself in the presence of Lord Galonfield. My stepfather bade me remove my veil, and, for the first time since I was ten years old, my face was revealed to a man who was not a member of my stepfather’s household.

Scarcely had I acknowledged my introduction to Lord Galonfield when I became conscious of the fact that a strange person had followed me into the room. This person was clad in a black gown and yashmak, but whose face it was that was concealed by the yashmak I did not attempt to guess.

Believing that in Lord Galonfield I beheld the man who was to become my husband, I studied him critically. His marked admiration for me, his gentle manner and apparent manliness were not without effect. He pleased me, and I told myself that I would be content to be his wife.

When Lord Galonfield left the house, I asked my stepfather whether or not my surmise was correct. He answered, coldly, that nothing had been decided, but that it was more than probable that Lord Galonfield would ask for my hand.

I then sought information concerning the black-garmented woman I had seen.

“It is a lady in whom I have the most implicit confidence,” Meschid replied. “In no circumstances are you to see Lord Galonfield except in her presence. If he asks you who she is, you may tell him that she is Ayesha, a Moslem woman to whose charge you have been confided during your residence in England. Discourage all further questioning on the subject, and abstain from it yourself.”

Lord Galonfield’s visits now became frequent, and, when he called, my stepfather arranged matters so that his lordship, the mysterious Ayesha and I were left together for an hour. It was only at these times that I saw Ayesha at all.

Each visit found Lord Galonfield’s regard for me increasing, and at length he threw aside all restraint and, telling me that he loved me, he asked me to be his wife. I inquired whether he had obtained the consent of my stepfather. He replied that he had not, but would try to do so. Again he asked me if I loved him, but, just as I was in the act of confessing that I did, my stepfather entered the room. Meschid, to my great surprise, bitterly rebuked his lordship for thus declaring his sentiments to me, then he ordered me to return to the harem. I was on my way thither when the idea occurred to me to address the strange woman who had attended me. Turning suddenly to do this, I saw that my companion, believing that I was on the point of entering the apartments of the harem, had removed the yashmak. The face that was revealed by this action was one of the most extraordinary I had ever seen—a face with long, masculine features—the face of a man about fifty years of age, and who, wearing a dark, trailing gown, at once reminded me of descriptions I had read of old astrologers.

This singular person did not perceive that I had seen him, and, almost terrified by my discovery, and fearful of the consequences of the act, I hurried into the harem and closed the door.

Having a premonition that, late as it was, my stepfather might desire to see me after Lord Galonfield left, I made no preparations to retire for the night. I was not mistaken. Twenty minutes later Meschid entered the harem.

My stepfather appeared to be greatly agitated. After severely reproaching me because I had permitted Lord Galonfield to place an arm around me while he was declaring his love, he told me that if I had been so unfortunate as to let the young Englishman find a place in my heart I must banish all thoughts of him from my mind at once.

“I had thought that he would have found your charms sufficient dowry,” he added, bitterly. “But the heathen dog would have me rob my own children by yielding to him with you one-half of my estate.”

My heart grew cold, and a sense of desolation entered it. Then, suddenly, a wild rush of anger and indignation choked me. It was not I, but the dowry he sought, that had appeared so beautiful to his eyes.

“Are all men so base as that?” I gasped, as my wounded pride fluttered in my bosom like a frightened, half-stifled dove in a smoke-filled cage.

“No,” said Meschid, thoughtfully, “but young men are much the same. An older man makes a more affectionate and indulgent husband. But let us have no more of England. You have seen how gray and fog-bound it is, and what we have to expect of its people. Shall we return to Constantinople to-morrow, and forget that we ever have known this grasping man they call a lord?”

“Yes—yes,” I murmured, eagerly.

And the next morning we set forth for the distant Orient.

Tortured as I was by outraged love and the bitter pangs of a proud woman’s humiliation, the journey homeward seemed like one long nightmare. Arriving in Constantinople, I found no one in the house of Meschid Pasha to bid me welcome. My sisters regarded me coldly or with sneers. The man to whom I had been offered as a wife had seen and rejected me.

During the month that followed my return, I saw little of my stepfather. Most of this time, a prey to bitter reflections, I remained in my room, reading or engaged in needlework.

One day there came a knock on my door, and Meschid entered.

“Here is something that may interest you,” he said, carelessly, and, as he spoke, he handed me a French newspaper. Around a paragraph which consisted of five or six lines a pencilled circle had been drawn.

I saw that the article was an announcement of the death of Prince Giuseppe Maranotti—my father.

If Meschid had expected to read in my face any sign of sorrow or satisfaction, he was disappointed. I thanked him coldly, and laid the paper aside. The announcement scarcely had interested me.

On the following day Meschid visited me again. This time, to my utter amazement, he bade me put on my veil and accompany him to his selamlik—an apartment in which Turkish men receive their male friends, and which no female member of the family is supposed to enter.

Upon entering the selamlik, I perceived the figure of a man standing beside one of the windows. As the visitor turned toward me and I saw his face, I started and an exclamation of alarm escaped me.

The man before me was the one who, in the guise of a Turkish woman, had been present at my interviews with Lord Galonfield!

In a low, brusque voice, my stepfather bade me remove my veil. With trembling fingers I did so.

“Pauline,” said Meschid, “this is Mr. Glyncamp, an American, who has honored us by asking for your hand.”

With a little cry of pain, I shrank from the burning eyes and outstretched hand of the long, grim-featured man who now approached me.

“No—no—oh, God, no!” I exclaimed. “Do not tell me that! I cannot—I——”

My stepfather laughed mirthlessly, and then said:

“It is a little sudden, you must admit, Mr. Glyncamp. Even Galonfield disappointed her, for all her dreams of a husband have had a fairy prince for their subject. But, Pauline, my dear, you dreamt better than you knew. Your future husband has powers which are commonly attributed only to fairies. He will make you happy and, taking you without a dowry, he will give to you a home to which you will have a better claim than that which you now have on mine.”

I was now trembling so violently that, I think, I should have fallen, had not my stepfather’s next words assured me that I should have a respite, at least, from the terrible fate that thus confronted me.

“Mr. Glyncamp is going on a long journey to the East, and he will not wed you until his return,” Meschid went on. “It was such a journey that I made when your mother rejected my suit. When I returned, your mother was more favorably disposed. May it be so with you.”

I bowed to Glyncamp, and, summoning all my fortitude, I weakly thanked him for the honor he had done me. He smiled as he told me that, having seen me, the memory of my face would be ever with him on his travels and that, therefore, I would find him looking younger on his return.

Hurrying back to the harem, I entered my room, locked the door and flung myself down on an ottoman. Convinced that life held nothing more for me now that was worth the having, I abandoned myself to despair, and thought of suicide. Then, suddenly, a new idea entered my mind.

I would flee from Meschid as my mother had fled from my father.

But to whom should I turn for aid? My mother’s father and brother were dead, and I knew nothing of her other relatives. Then my thoughts turned to the Maranottis—to Victor, now the head of the house. Was he like his father? Did he, too, share the belief that my mother’s flight had been due to another cause than the cruelty of her husband? Perhaps family pride would impel him to come to my relief. I would send for him.

With the marks of my tears still upon my face, I seated myself at my writing desk and wrote to the young Prince a long letter in which I told him all that I had suffered since the death of my mother. When I finished writing, I read the letter over carefully, then thrust it into an envelope and addressed it to him at his country seat at Basselanto.

Four miserable, heart-breaking, nerve-racking weeks passed, and, as I failed to get a reply to my pitiful appeal, I again resigned myself to despair. But, shortly after leaving the house one day to visit the cemetery in which my poor mother now slept amid the cypresses and flowers, I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. Turning quickly, I beheld a woman who wore a yashmak.

“You are Pauline?” the stranger asked, in English.

The accents were soft and gentle, but I hesitated.

“You are Pauline Maranotti?” the woman asked again.

“Yes, madame,” I answered, faintly.

“Let us walk on,” the other said in a low, confidential voice. “I am from the Prince—your half-brother.”

With a little cry that was almost a sob, I grasped her arm.

“He is here—in Constantinople?” I asked eagerly.

“No, he is not here,” the woman answered. “He was unable to come himself, so he sent me to take you to him. There is a carriage awaiting us in yonder street. Let us hasten to it. We can talk better there.”

Once more fear gripped my heart.

“How am I to know that you——” I began, but the veiled stranger interrupted me.

“Come with me to the carriage,” she said quietly. “You shall be convinced before you confide yourself to my care.”

When we were out of view of Meschid’s house I saw a closed carriage with two horses standing in the street that my guide had mentioned. At the step of the carriage my companion paused and took from her pocket a little leather case. She pressed a spring, and a cover, flying open, disclosed within a beautiful miniature surrounded by a lock of dark brown hair. It was an exquisite portrait of my mother, painted before my birth. I had heard her speak of this gift that she had given to the Prince on her wedding day, and I knew that the lock of hair was her own.

With a little sob, I turned to my guide.

“You may take me where you will,” I said.

The woman who had come to my rescue was Mrs. Woodson, an American, who, with her artist husband, long had lived in Rome. She was a few years older than my mother, whom she had known prior to her marriage to Prince Maranotti.

A few days after my flight from Constantinople, Prince Victor Maranotti welcomed me in Rome. I found my brother to be a singularly kindly and handsome young man, and the moment I looked upon his face, I knew that a merciful fate had led me at last to a natural protector.

After listening to my story, the Prince informed me that, in the circumstances, it would be better for me to remain incognito in Rome until the following week, when it would be necessary for him to start for the United States where he had extensive business interests.

“In America, for a time, at least, you will be safe from the persecutions of Meschid and his friend, Glyncamp, of whose strange performances I often have heard,” he said. “There are several reasons why it is better that you should not assume the title of Princess Pauline Maranotti now.”

What the reasons were, he did not tell me, but I suspected that, despite his friendliness, his family pride prevented him from publicly acknowledging as his sister the daughter of a woman who, having deserted his father, became the inmate of a Turkish harem.

Little did I think when I saw the shores of America rise from the western horizon that here awaited me a new and no less alarming series of misfortunes. I had been fleeing from persons and circumstances which threatened my undoing, but the objects of these fears were known to me. Now, however, I was about to be confronted by conditions which, though constantly threatening me, were involved in mysteries which no art of mine would enable me to fathom.

A few hours before we sighted land, the Prince, seated beside me in a corner of the deck that we had to ourselves, gave to me a clearer idea concerning his plans for me than he had vouchsafed before.

For many years my father had been heavily interested in the development of American mining properties, some of which had yielded him large profits. He had not made these investments in his own name, however, and his principal representative in these transactions was a man named Trevison, who now was well advanced in years, and childless.

Assuring me that it was in my interest that I should not assume the name of Maranotti, the Prince suggested that, as Paula Trevison, I should be known as Mr. Trevison’s daughter. Then he added:

“If you are believed to be the daughter of this old man, who is now pretty close to the grave, you will find yourself in a well-defined position, from which, by reason of your natural charms and your various accomplishments, you may steadily advance. Nearly all the large fortune which Trevison is handling over here, and which really is mine, is believed to belong to him. I will so arrange matters that, after his death, it will appear that you have inherited from him a sum sufficient to give you a comfortable income. Meantime, whenever I visit the United States, I, assuming the name of Trevison, as I am doing now, may be recognized as your brother.”

“You will be known by a false name over here, only in order that you may aid me?” I asked, suspiciously.

The Prince laughed gaily.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Even if I had not brought you with me I would have to be known as Trevison.”

“I am afraid I do not understand,” I murmured, wonderingly.

“Well, then, I will explain,” the Prince went on more gravely. “I am only doing what was done by my father, but in a slightly different way. On his visit to this country he always represented himself as old Trevison’s brother. The reason for it was this: Poor as it is, Italy still retains much of its ancestral pride, and it has not been confronted with the spectacle of the head of a noble family engaging in commercial pursuits. Yet, for more than a quarter of a century, such pursuits have made the house of Maranotti one of the most influential in the kingdom. But the Maranotti who followed these pursuits has been known in America as a Trevison. In the United States his identity was unknown. In Italy, none of the nobles know the name of Trevison.”

On the day of our arrival in New York, my brother and I, who were registered at our hotel as ‘Thomas Trevison and Paula Trevison,’ met the man who had a rightful claim to the surname. He was very old—almost eighty I should say—and his face had an almost unearthly pallor. In a shaking voice, he greeted my princely brother with a familiarity that startled me.

“Well, Tom, the old man beat me out in our race for the grave,” he said. “But I reckon I’ll be spry enough to let out a few links that will make him think he’s standing still, after I catch up with him on the other side. Are you going West this trip?”

Shocked by this old man’s gruesome jocularity, I was glad to escape from his presence. That evening, however, we dined together in a fashionable restaurant where the irreverent patriarch seemed to be perfectly at ease. He was frequently addressed respectfully by men who passed our table, and to several of these he explained that I was his daughter.

“She’s just back from Europe where she’s had a few foreigners completing her training,” he said. “Most people think Europe’s the best place to get female metal out of our Western ore, so Paula’s been passing through the mill over there. Doesn’t look as if it did her much harm, does it now?”

My brother smiled as if he saw some humor in this sort of thing, but I, shocked almost beyond the power of expression by the roughness of it all, felt my face flush hotly as I heard the person addressed chuckle good-naturedly and mutter compliments which, while frank enough, perhaps, were devoid of delicacy.

The following day my brother told me that, as he found it desirable to visit the West, where some of his mining properties were situated, he had arranged that I should spend a few weeks in the Adirondack Mountains, with a widowed niece of Trevison’s. He had been assured that it was a delightful retreat, and that its isolation was of a nature to commend it to us.

Having determined on this course, our preparations soon were made for the journey. As we were passing along the station platform, between two waiting trains, a strange thing happened. The click of a car window, suddenly raised, attracted my attention and a man’s head and shoulders were thrust out.

With a little exclamation of alarm, I drew back. The man’s face was the most grotesque I had ever seen. His eyes, turned suddenly to mine, held my gaze. In the very ugliness of this stranger there was something that fascinated me.

“What is the matter?” asked my brother, who observed that I had stopped.

Quickly recovering my presence of mind, I laughed nervously, and said:

“It is nothing, but I never expected that I would see a live gargoyle. In those wonderful mountains to which you are taking me, I shall not be surprised to encounter peris and genii.”

My brother, whose quick eyes had by this time discovered the face that had caused me such consternation, laughed lightly as he replied:

“By Heaven, you are right! The man is a veritable gargoyle.”

I heard the window close with a slam, but I did not look over my shoulder to assure myself that the strange creature was no longer there. All during that long journey to the mountains, that weird, unearthly face haunted me. I saw it staring at me from the shimmering waters of the Hudson. It took form among the giant boulders and wooden summits of the Catskills, and, at eve, I saw it lurking among the great cloud-curtains that folded in the sunset.

Not until near the close of the second day of our journey did we arrive at our destination, and, ah, how may I describe the splendid spectacle that then revealed itself to my eyes?

Alighting from a “buckboard,” one of the most torture-inflicting vehicles in which man ever traversed rough mountain roads, I found myself on the pebbled margin of a turquoise lake that was dotted everywhere with lily-pads, whose white and yellow flowers sifted into the virile, pine-odored air a perfume that was as fragrant and langorous as the breath of love.

Walled in by great mountain slopes, from the sides of which rose larches as lofty and majestic as cathedral spires, I felt as if I were standing in an enchanted valley. The mountainsides were thickly wooded, and here and there great seams of granite were visible through rifts in the deep, green foliage, so that the valley had the aspect of a crystal-bottomed basin wrought out of a single emerald that had been inlaid with silver tracery. Among the trees fluttered birds unlike any I had ever seen before, but their sweet, full-throated songs seemed to be no more than the pattering of raindrops on the surface of a sea of silence—a silence so weird and illimitable that, appalled, I felt as if I were standing in the vestibule of infinity.

Dazed by the wild splendor of my environment, I felt as the Emperor of China might have done when from his window he for the first time beheld the splendid palace which genii hands had wrought for Aladdin in a single night.

I was roused from my trance by the sounds of strange voices. Then I saw two strangers, clad in rough garments of countrymen, approaching to take charge of the horses that had drawn our two buckboards through the mountains.

As I looked around for the house which was to be my home for the next two weeks, I saw a large, squat structure built of logs. In the door of this stood a portly woman, with gray hair. Despite the charms and reassuring isolation of this mountain retreat, a suspicion that this log-house was the dwelling to which I had been consigned filled me with alarm. I had been told that among these mountains deer, bears and other wild animals were numerous, and the general aspect of the building recalled pictures I had seen of assaults made by Indians on the houses of white settlers. Were there Indians here?

The motherly face of the elderly woman, who was now approaching, partly reassured me, and I saw that the men who were busying themselves with the horses were honest-featured, sturdy and marvelously self-possessed.

The woman—whose name I was informed was Mrs. Seaver—welcomed me with the dignity of a princess in the doorway of her castle. As she led me into the log-house, I gazed about me with the most lively sensation of pleased surprise. The place was as carefully kept as a palace hall, and in the charming rooms through which she led me I beheld all the luxuries of Western civilization—a piano, pictures, shelves of books, the heads of animals which I had seen only in picture form, comfortable chairs, soft rugs, cosy ‘dens’, and beds which I thought were the whitest and neatest in all the world.

Clapping my hands with delight, I laughed as I had not done for many months.

Fanned by balsam-breathing breezes, I slept that night as, I think, I never slept before. I had never thought that in all the world was to be found a place that was capable of inspiring such a sense of ineffable peace as this.

The next day my brother left. But, however kindly I had come to regard him, I was not now conscious of a feeling of loss. The wilderness had taken me into its heart, and, thoroughly enamoured, I was happy there.

Little by little I conquered the pleasurable fear with which the dark recesses of the wood-clad slopes had inspired me. In the course of the first three days an uncontrollable desire to see wild animals in their native haunts took possession of me. I learned to use the paddle of a canoe, and I acted like an overjoyed child when, by my efforts, I succeeded in sending the frail craft out over the shimmering surface of the lily-dotted lake. Turtles, chipmunks, sportive minnows and long-leaping water spiders filled me with delight, and how shall I describe the sensations that overwhelmed me when, as I looked out of my open window late one moonlight night, I saw three deer steal from out a leafy covert and move down to the waterside to drink?

I had been in the Adirondacks a little more than a week, when a new and greater wonder presented itself to my view. Upon awakening, early one morning, I rose and stepped to my window, as was my custom, to steal a glimpse at the great tree-crowded amphitheatre and to inhale the fresh, balsam-laden air before dressing for breakfast. My lips were framing a prayer of heartfelt thankfulness that, here in the heart of this vast wilderness, I was so far from all I feared, when something that was pinned to one of the swaying white curtains of the window attracted and held my attention. As, with wondering eyes, I leaned toward it, I saw that it was a delicately tinted, square envelope on which were inscribed the words: “For Paula.”

The only person who had thus addressed me since my arrival in America was the Prince, and though the handwriting before me now was apparently that of a man, I was certain that my brother was not the writer.

The envelope was unsealed, and, thrusting in my fingers I drew out a sheet of notepaper on which were written the following verses:

Tingling with pleasure, I re-read the lines. These were the first verses I had ever read in the handwriting of their author, and a great wonder filled me as I asked myself whether, indeed, it was I who had inspired them. But this question quickly gave place to one of still greater import.

Who had written them?

I now found myself thoroughly bewildered. Except the Prince and Mr. Trevison, there was no person in the United States with whom I had exchanged more than a few, perfunctory words prior to coming to the mountains, and in my new home Mrs. Seaver and the servants were the only persons who, so far as I had been able to learn, were within many miles of me. That the lines had been written by one of the rough-mannered and illiterate manservants, was, of course, impossible. But what other man had been in the neighborhood? Who was it who had come to my window while I slept?

Once more the old fears took possession of me. Had I been followed from Europe by someone who——? But, no, this, too, was impossible. While there I had only two suitors—Lord Galonfield and Glyncamp. The first had sought me only for the wealth he believed me to possess, and the second had gone to Asia. Thus, except Meschid, Prince Maranotti and Trevison, all men were strangers to me.

I was only a child of the harem, however, and in Moslem harems many superstitions that would be laughed to scorn in Western households are deeply rooted in all minds. And so, assured that there was no man about me who could have written these lines, I fell to speculating as to whether or not the verses had come to me through some supernatural agency.

At breakfast I again inquired of Mrs. Seaver whether any of the neighboring valleys was inhabited.

She shook her head gravely.

“No,” she replied. “We are many miles from any other house. Even the sportsmen who come to the Adirondacks for deer and bear seldom penetrate so far as this. That is one reason why I like it so.”

I resumed my breakfast, and for several minutes the silence that followed remained unbroken. Mrs. Seaver was the first to speak.

“Perhaps, my dear, it is better that you should know something else,” she said, hesitatingly. “What I have told you is the truth, as I understand it. I know of no other habitation than ours, but there are times when rumors reach us that some strange persons occasionally are to be seen about Deadwood Lake—a body of water that lies in the valley immediately north of ours. Who they are we never have been able to learn. My men have seen these strangers on several occasions, but they never succeeded in getting close enough to them to describe them accurately. One undoubtedly is an aged Indian, while the second is a white youth, who, if the rumors are to be credited, is strangely handsome. These two are always together, but a third—a white man of patriarchal appearance, is sometimes observed. It is scarcely likely that you will see them, but, if you do, it is just as well, perhaps, to avoid them as much as possible.”

My breath came quickly. So far from exciting my fears, this information stimulated my curiosity. Who was this mysterious young man whom my prosaic hostess had described as “strangely handsome”? If these three men were the only persons in our neighborhood who were unknown to me, one of them doubtless was the author of the verses I had received. Assuredly, the Indian had not written them, nor was it probable that the “man of patriarchal appearance” had done so. But the other—ay, it might have been this other.

The stream which filled the lake I had come to love so well, entered our valley from the north. This fact indicated that the clear waters over which my canoe daily glided were the outflow of Deadwood Lake. Then, I remembered that one of the menservants had told me that our lake was merely one link of a beautiful crystal chain that extended well back into the mountains.

When breakfast was done, I left the house and, singing as I went, I made my way to where my shining, green canoe was drawn up on the pebbled shore. One of the menservants, who was painting a fishing punt, smiled and nodded a “good-morning” as I drew near.

“You are going out to-day, Miss?” he asked.

I felt my cheeks flush slightly as I answered:

“Yes, I am going to gather some lilies for my room.”

The man rose, and, as he started toward my canoe to run it down the beach, he glanced toward the southwest, and hesitated.

“I wouldn’t go out far or stay too long, Miss,” he said, thoughtfully. “The sky looks bad over yonder, and one who is down in the valley can’t see a bad blow coming till it’s on us. The weather’s been pretty respectful-like since you’ve been here, but there ain’t no other hell on earth that’s quite so bad as an Adirondack storm. Does the missis know you’re going?”

“No,” I answered, coldly. “Mrs. Seaver has never required me to report to her anything which it pleases me to do or not to do.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I meant no harm,” he said, almost curtly. “But when thunder once begins to bellow up here, it’s mighty seldom a strong man can drive a boat inshore before he gets a soaking, and a soaking is the least of it. Small as this lake of ours is, it can kick up waves on shorter notice than the Atlantic can.”

Realizing that I had unkindly slighted one whose only fault had been over-zealousness in manifesting a regard for my safety, I laughed reassuringly and said indulgently:

“You are right, I know, so, though I see no storm clouds, I will not go too far from the shore.”

And, as my canoe glided over the shimmering lake to where the lilies were, I was resolved to keep my word. But the dancing sunlight lured me on and on, and my promise, dying like the song of a bird, went to mingle with the lily-scented airs.

The valley in which Mrs. Seaver’s log-house stood was about three miles long and two miles wide, and the lake covered three-fourths of its bottom. Well out in the lake were five or six tree-covered islets, and on one that lay furthest to the south I had discovered a little leafy nook to which I sometimes went with one of the volumes from Mrs. Seaver’s shelves.

But it was not to the south that I turned this morning. At first I kept the head of my little craft toward the center of the lake, then, as my glance continued to stray curiously toward the north, I found, at last, that, half-unconsciously, I was moving in that direction.

For the first time since my arrival in the Adirondacks, I was dominated by a desire to see the stream whose waters filled the clear lake in our valley. The sun was still shining brightly, when, suddenly determining to give rein to my curiosity, I brought the bow of the canoe directly to the northward, and, in response to the determined paddle-strokes, the little craft moved swiftly over the gleaming waters.

As I approached an indentation in the northern shore I marveled that I never had been inspired with the desire to visit it before. Here the lily-pads seemed to form a great green, white and yellow rug, and the perfume of the blossoms so filled the air that it was no longer possible for me to identify the odor of the pines in the breezes which, rushing down the great mountain slopes, seemed to dally in love-rapt idleness among the langourous spirits of the flowers.

I had been singing as I left the log-house, and I was singing now, but, as I kept glancing to right and left to find places in which to thrust my paddle without breaking lily leaves or blossoms, I was singing a song that had been sung by no human lips before. It was a song in which the words of the verses I had received that morning had adapted themselves to an Arabian air that, in the harem of Meschid Pasha, had been one of the lullabies sung by my mother to each of her little ones.

Thus singing and moving slowly through the lilies and their wide-spread leaves, I suddenly found myself at the very stream I had been seeking. At its mouth it was about a hundred feet in width, but, as I looked up along the course, I saw that it narrowed perceptibly. Laying my dripping paddle across the canoe, I stopped singing and listened.

The very air seemed motionless. Within a distant leafy covert on the mountainside at my right a single woodlark was piping its clear, sad notes. All else was so still that the very perfume that filled the air was eloquent.

For several moments a feeling of fear and awe stole over me, and I looked at the sky. There the blue hue had given place to a pinkish tint, but the sun still was shining and there was scarcely a ripple on the clear, gleaming waters over which I had passed.

Should I go back, and return some other day to explore this unknown watercourse? Surely, I could find no fairer day than this. I would do it now.

Owing to the fact that the beauties of the lake and dingles so often caused me to give no thought to the flight of the hours, it often had happened that the hour for luncheon found me far from the hospitable table in the log-house. Thus it had come to pass that, whenever I left the house in the morning for a stroll or a canoe trip, I took with me, in a little net-work bag, sandwiches, cake and fruit. Fortunately I had done so to-day.

Glancing at my watch, I now saw that it was only a few minutes after ten, then, with a sigh of pleasurable anticipation, I again picked up my paddle and, more reckless concerning the fate of leaves and blossoms than I had been before, I forced the canoe into the sluggish current of the mysterious stream.

As I proceeded, my progress became less and less impeded by sprawling lily-pads. I was now at the feet of two lofty mountains at the bases of which the stream pursued a winding course.

At length, with a little sigh of excitement and pleasure, I saw that the splendors of a second valley were being unfolded to my view.

But, ah, how different was this valley from the one I had just left behind me. The ruggedness of its lofty, bare granite precipices filled me with a half-defined sense of alarm. Over the bosom of this shining stream I seemed to have passed from one of Nature’s pleasure gardens to the vast portal of one of her towering, deserted and crumbling abbeys. A chillness seemed to enter the air. The arms of the giant pine trees appeared to be gently beckoning and nodding to the unseen spirits of the valley.

But, though the valley’s lofty walls thus were revealed to my eyes, of the mysterious lake I saw nothing. Ahead of me was a great expanse of tall rushes through which the stream had cut its way. Around me, however, the waters seemed to have lost their lustre. Like the mountains whose images they reflected they appeared to be dark, sullen and forbidding.

The speed of my canoe was gradually abating for, half-overcome by distrust, I was paddling mechanically.

Darker and darker grew the waters, then a greater chillness smote me. I was about to raise my eyes toward the sky when I beheld something that riveted my attention.

Before me lay the waters of Deadwood Lake and, as I looked, I shrank back in affright. Trunks and roots of fallen trees that had been wrung from the mountainsides by tempests or great avalanches were rotting on the narrow, gray pebbled shores. The waters were of a brownish black, and the hundreds of white-trunked birches that they reflected near their margin gave to them a weird, ghostly effect.

I was not yet clear of the masses of high rushes that grew out of the water, and the channel between them was so narrow that I could touch each green wall with my paddle. Deciding to return at once to the other valley, I was about to reverse my position in the canoe, when I beheld something so startling that I almost dropped my paddle, and for several seconds I seemed to lose the power to breathe.

What I saw was a canoe, fashioned out of the bark of birch trees, and, as I looked, it moved slowly across the thin screen of rushes that separated me from the clear surface of the lake. In this canoe were two human figures, but the appearance of each was so extraordinary that I suspected that they were indeed more than men.

The face of the figure that sat in the stern of the canoe was of a brownish-red color and, despite its wrinkled forehead and cheeks, there was something sphinx-like in its expression. The eyes seemed to be looking fixedly into a storied future that they might live to see embodied in the storied past. But the figure in the bow—ah how shall I describe what then appeared to me to be the head and body of a god?

Though I have heard enthusiastic women describe certain men as “beautiful,” I never believed until that moment that such an adjective could be used appropriately to describe a man’s appearance. But here was a man, scarcely older than I, whose head and shoulders would have put to shame those of the far-famed Apollo Belvidere. His slightly curling black hair had the gloss which shines on the plumage of birds, and though his skin was bronzed by exposure to the weather, it had the rich, transparent coloring of youth. Never had I thought it possible that a human brow, nose or chin could be so exquisitely formed and, at the same time, be so expressive of intellectual and physical vigor. But it was the expression of spiritual virility and omniscience that gave to the classic features a suggestion of divine perfection.

“Is it god or man?” I whispered, and at that moment I seemed to have my answer from the skies.

In the distance I heard a faint, rumbling sound, then, suddenly, a terrific crash of thunder directly above my head filled me with the most indescribable sensation of awe and fear. The mountains seemed to shiver with the sound and, glancing above me, I saw great towering clouds, like enormous, gray-wreathed icebergs drifting swiftly toward the north. Among these advancing monsters lightning was glowing sullenly, at first one point and then another, then there came a flash that almost blinded me, and as, with a low despairing cry, I hid my face in my hands, a second peal of thunder rocked the dreadful valley.

Turning again toward where, only a few moments before, I had seen the birchbark canoe, I saw it had disappeared. But through the screen of reeds I beheld a sight that was scarcely less terrifying than the lightning and the thunder.

The waters of Deadwood lake had assumed an inky blackness, and were covered with great strings of froth that looked as if they had dropped from the mouth of a gigantic rabid hound. From over the mountain tops came a dull, quivering, humming sound that I knew was the voice of the advancing storm.

Half choking with fear, I reversed my position in the canoe, then, seizing the paddle, I started back toward the lake from which, in an ill-omened hour, I, a helpless woman, had been tempted by curiosity.

As my paddle-strokes fell quickly and nervously to right and left, I prayed—to God, to Christ, to Allah, and to Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah. Then, with closed eyes and bowed head, I, paddling blindly, became once more a mere child of the harem, for I prayed to the two genii I had seen in the birchbark canoe.

As a child had I not learned that the appearances of genii often were accompanied by peals of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning? Did not one of the stories of the Thousand and One Nights tell how the Sultan of the Genii assumed the form of a handsome young man when he appeared to Zeyn Alasnam, the young Sultan of Bussorah? And were not those appearances invariably attended by such displays as I had seen just now, while, terror-stricken, I sat in my canoe among the reeds of Deadwood Lake?

Then, in a wild burst of self-reproach, I told myself that I was to blame for the very storm itself—that, by trespassing on these waters frequented by the genii, and stealing a view of two of them, I had invoked the wrath of Heaven.

No drop of rain yet had fallen, but the wind was growing stronger every moment. Around me the high reeds began to lower their heads as if they, too, were inspired by the fears which were overwhelming me. Like men struggling in the grip of engulfing quicksands, the reeds, tugging at their roots, seemed to be making desperate efforts to get to the shore, and, as they swayed and bent low, the little channel through which I had passed was completely hidden from my view.

Half sobbing with fright, and bitterly repenting the folly that had led me there, I succeeded in getting the bow of the canoe turned toward the shore on my right—a low, narrow strip of beach and shingle that lay at the foot of a lofty precipice. This strip I saw over the now low-lying reeds. It was only thirty feet away, but the craven reeds, huddling closer together as they sank lower and lower to the surface of the water, threatened to hold my canoe like a fish in a net.

At length, however, my desperate efforts were rewarded. I felt the bow of the canoe grate on the stones of the beach. Rising from my seat, I reeled forward and, laughing hysterically, I leaped ashore just as a dazzling flash of lightning illumined the valley, which was almost as dark as the last five minutes of twilight. I was raising my trembling hands to my eyes to shut out the glare when a nerve-racking clap of thunder drove me almost to the verge of madness.

Half blinded by the lightning and deafened by the thunder, I plunged into a cluster of young pines, hoping to find shelter there from the rain which I now knew to be imminent. The lightning was beginning to crackle and hiss in a manner which showed it was dangerously near, when, having suddenly found myself at the inner edge of the cluster of evergreens, I stood at the very base of the precipitous mountain wall. Then, as I looked, I saw something that steadied me, and, despite my agitation, filled me with wonder.

Set in the very face of the cliff was the wall of a log-house—about twenty feet wide and twelve feet high. In this wall were two glass-paned windows and a door.

Running quickly to the door, I knocked. As I waited for an answer, something smote one of my hands. I perceived it was a large drop of water, then other drops began to fall around me, and there came another gleaming lightning flash.

The crashing, rolling thunder made it seem impossible that any one who might have been in the shelter of the log wall should hear my continued knocking, so, without further hesitation, I laid a hand on the knob of the door. The knob turned, and, with a cry in which terror and relief were blended, I ran inside.

The light that entered the dust-covered panes was so feeble that it was only when the lightning was playing that I was able to see the whole interior of the apartment I had entered so unceremoniously. This I perceived to be nothing more nor less than a small natural cave to which the hand of man had given a front of logs. Broad at its mouth, the cave tapered back like the end of a canoe, the roof and side walls coming to a point a few feet above the bare ground in the rear. At this point a curious bunk had been roughly hewn out of the massive gray granite and on this bunk lay a soiled mattress and a dilapidated oil-skin coat. Near one of the windows stood a table, the under part of which was rounded and still holding some of the bark of the tree from which it had been taken. Near the table stood two old chairs and a campstool. Against one of the walls leaned an easel which supported a canvas on which an artist had begun to paint a view of Deadwood Lake from almost the very point from which I first had seen it.

The cave was about twenty-five feet in length, and its rough aspect, as revealed by lightning flashes, was not altogether of a nature to reassure me. Still, it afforded shelter from the torrential rainpour that was now thundering down in the valley.

Convinced that I was alone in the cave, I wiped away some of the dust that darkened one of the window panes. As I looked out I saw what appeared to be a vast wall of water under the weight of which the very earth seemed to tremble.

And now the crashes of thunder became less violent, the lightning flashes less keen, and, despite the enormous volume of falling water, the atmosphere assumed a brighter hue.

At length the rainfall began to abate. I could distinguish the outlines of the pines through which I had fled to this place of refuge. I scraped from other panes some of the grime with which they were encrusted, and once more surveyed the apartment.

It now became apparent that this cave once had afforded shelter to a painter. Besides the easel and the campstool, I saw several maulsticks, palettes, paint tubes and torn canvases lying around the place.

As I have said, the canvas on the easel revealed a view of Deadwood Valley. The picture was scarcely more than one-fifth done, but the instruction that I had received in drawing and painting was sufficient to enable me to recognize the work of a master. Satisfied of this, and thinking to find another example of his work, I turned to a piece of canvas that lay on the ground. Like everything else in the place, it was covered with grime, but, as I turned it over, a little cry of astonishment escaped me. The partly obliterated face which was painted upon it was that of the white man, or genie, I had seen in the birchbark canoe!

I had scarcely more than recognized the features, however, when an object moving on the floor about two paces from where I stood caused me to shrink back in affright. It was a dusty brown thing, and looked at first like a piece of stout rope. But no rope moves of its own volition, and one end of this strange object slowly rose, then, with a sudden jerk, the thing assumed the form of a coil. A triangular head moved back, and two beadlike eyes regarded me fixedly, while a broad, dark thread darted in and out of a closed, hideous mouth.

I was confronted by a serpent—a serpent which, by the description I had heard of it, I knew to be a copperhead!

For several moments horror held me spellbound, then a feeling of creepiness stole up my back and settled among the roots of my hair. Breathing heavily, I retreated slowly, rapidly gathering courage as I saw that the reptile made no move to follow me.

Glancing quickly around me, my gaze fell on an iron frying-pan that stood on a wooden stool. Taking hold of the long handle of this, I moved slowly forward toward the dark coil which, except for the nervously darting tongue, still was motionless. When I was three or four paces away from this, I hurled the pan at it and darted backward.

The pan fell upon the coil, and a moment later the reptile, with its tail beating the air, lay writhing on the floor. All fear left me now, and, seizing the stool from which I had taken the pan, I ran forward and hammered the triangular head until it lay flattened at my feet. Then, panting as a result of my exertions, I looked around me apprehensively. Might there not be other serpents lurking here?

And now a rich, mellow light began to filter into the gloomy rock chamber, through the dusty window panes. Hurrying to the door, I flung it open. The terrible storm, as if by enchantment, had changed into a gleaming sunshower, and the air was charged with the fragrant odors of the moistened wilderness. Then, once more, my superstitious fancies took possession of me. The death of the serpent had changed all, and once more I stood at one of the portals of Eden.

The shower, too, soon passed, and as, leaving the gloomy cave behind me, I stepped out into the warm sunshine a great feeling of thankfulness entered my heart. Looking at the watch that was fastened to my waist, I saw that it was half past twelve.

But, as I glanced toward the reeds from which I had so narrowly escaped, a new fear fell upon me. Their mattered masses were now almost covered by the swollen flood which the mountain streams were momentarily reenforcing. Somewhere in that vast tangle of muddy green sticks and leaves was my canoe. How was I to make my way afoot over the soggy ground and flooded banks to Mrs. Seaver’s log-house?

I saw that for a woman to make such a journey without boat or guide was impossible. But, after all, my position was not altogether so unfortunate as it seemed at first. There was little doubt in my mind that, as soon as the lake grew more calm, Mrs. Seaver would send her manservants to seek me. Her log-house commanded a full view of the lake, and it was quite unlikely that the movement of my canoe toward the north shore had been unobserved. The men would look for me here.

Finding consolation in these reflections, I now decided to walk as far as possible in the direction of the lake in the lower valley, hoping that I might succeed in getting to some point from which I might be able to signal to those who came to seek me.

But, alas, I soon found that at a short distance below the cave the swollen waters had risen to the very base of the precipice. I returned, therefore, to the shelter afforded by the pines, for, despite the fall of the temperature that had accompanied the terrible storm, the sun now was blazing fiercely.

Hour after hour I waited in the shadow of the pines, but no human voice came to my ears. Then I began to fancy that, owing to the matted condition of the reeds, the passage of a boat up the stream that connected the two lakes would be impracticable.

At length twilight fell, and, while I watched and prayed, its shadows deepened into night, and the sky was flecked with the stars; then, over one of the dark mountains, the full moon flooded the valley with its light.

A new thought came to me. Several times during the afternoon I found myself repeating, or singing to the air of that old Moslem lullaby, the words of the verses I had found pinned to my window curtain in the morning. In one of these verses the writer had written:

Were these words no more than the mere expression of a poet’s fancy, or did they reveal a truth? If the writer had kept vigil near the windows of my room in which I lay unthreatened by danger, was it not possible that he might be near me now in this hour of my distress? Whether he might be man or genie, I would put his fidelity to the proof.

Then, rising from my seat among the pines, I walked down to the margin of the swollen stream, and, after murmuring a prayer that, lurking somewhere in this mighty, moonlighted wilderness, my unknown lover would hear my voice and come to me, I sang his words to the sweet music of the old Turkish lullaby.

Never before had I been afforded an opportunity to test the full power of my voice, and, as I heard it rising among the lofty crags, I half forgot the object of my effort. A spirit of exaltation seemed to seize my very soul and lift it up so far above the mountain heights that I felt as if I was singing where only angel-voices had been heard before.

At length I came to the close of the last verse:

As the last note left my lips, I stood and listened. Then I started.

Was it an echo that had repeated “dreaming,” or was it a human voice which, far, far among the dark shadows of the great wilderness, had called “Pauline”?

While, trembling with anxious expectancy, I continued listening, hoping that I might hear the sound again, my gaze wandered nervously to my left whence had come a sound like the snapping of a dry stick. Then my heart seemed to leap to my throat, and, gasping with fear and astonishment, I beheld him whose presence I had evoked—the white man I had seen in the canoe—the genie to whom, when under the influence of childish superstitions, some of my incoherent prayers had been addressed.

Half in the shadow of one of the pines, the strange, beautiful face of the young man was turned to mine, but on that face there was an expression of wonder that I could not understand.

Twice or thrice I tried to speak, but the words would not leave my lips. Why did this stranger remain standing thus, regarding me with such a steady, searching and unfathomable gaze? Did he not see the plight to which the storm had brought me? Why did he wait for me to speak?

At length the stranger advanced slowly toward me. His lips moved, but before the words they framed were spoken, the old Indian darted suddenly from a shadow and seized him by the arm. The white man turned impatiently.

“Your hand is on me, Glenagassett,” he said.

Though he spoke quietly, there was an unmistakable note of imperious rebuke in the clear, musical voice, and the hand of the Indian fell.

“Is this a woman?” the young man asked, turning to the Indian, who, standing beside him, was bending on me a gaze that seemed to flash anger and defiance.

“Yes,” replied the Indian, gravely.

The white man turned again to me.

“What brought you here?” he asked, almost roughly.

“I came this morning in my canoe, but, in the storm, it was lost somewhere in that mass of reeds.”

“Why do you not get it out?” he demanded, shortly. “Go—get it now.”

I looked at him in wonder. Was I talking with a madman?

As I hesitated, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” he said. “You women are too weak to do such things. Glenagassett, bring out the canoe.”

The Indian hesitated, then, with stooping shoulders, he turned and moved quickly to the waterside.

The white man, reaching out one of his hands, firmly grasped my arm and turned me so that the moonlight shone upon my face.

“And so you are one of those creatures which men kiss and love, and for which they sell their foolish souls,” he said. “I have read about you, but I never saw you. You talk with the voice of man, but your brain is that of the devil. I have never been told, however, that women sing like the angels. And so I see Nathan has again deceived me.”

Suddenly realizing that I was in the clutches of a victim of insanity, I began trembling violently.

“You will sing again?” he asked.

“Not now,” I faltered.

“But I bid you,” he said, sharply.

“I cannot sing,” I answered.

“Even now I watched and heard you,” he retorted angrily. “In this valley I am lord. I am Rayon Demain. You will sing.”

I saw that I must humor him, and, nodding humbly, I drew back. He watched me curiously as, raising my head, I sang, as earnestly as I had sung the other air, Arthur Sullivan’s beautiful “Lost Chord.”

Not once while I was singing did I look upon the man who had so excited my fears. When the song was done, however, I turned to him.

He was standing as if he had been turned to stone, and the look of wonder on his face was deeper. For several moments he was silent, then, passing a hand across his eyes, he murmured:

“If all devils are like you, it is small wonder that men confuse them with the angels and give their souls into their keeping.”

A sound from the waterside caused me to glance quickly in that direction. Something was moving in the reeds, and, as I looked, I fancied I saw an enormous bird swimming to the shore. One end rose, like a great head and neck, and then I saw that the Indian, having waded out among the reeds, had found my canoe and was bringing it to the bank.

My heart leaped within me, for I felt that the hour of my deliverance was at hand.

“You will send me home—to the log-house in the valley below?” I asked eagerly, turning to the man who called himself Rayon Demain.

He, looking at me earnestly, was about to reply when the tall figure of a man, with flowing white hair and beard, strode quickly from the shade of the evergreens.

“Rayon!” exclaimed the newcomer, sharply.

The young man turned quickly to the speaker.

“You have lied to me again,” he said, angrily. “The valley in which you have kept me is so narrow and high walled that Truth, like the sun, finds me only at noonday. I will go to where it rises and it sets, and will see and know all that lies between. In the books that you have given to me are songs that poets have sung to love, but I have known no love and, therefore, know not how to sing. And yet—to-night—I’ve heard——”

He stopped, and once more I saw him pass a hand over his eyes in that same bewildered manner I had observed before. Then, with his gaze resting on the ground, he went on, half-abstractedly:

“To-night I heard a voice that seemed, at first, to come to me from Heaven, but, as I listened, I knew that it was rising from the earth, and, following the sound, I came here thinking to find an angel singing. But the song was a song of love, and Glenagassett told me that the singer, so far from being an angel, was only one of those creatures which, as you have taught me, are two-thirds devil and one-third man, without a single attribute of divinity. And now I know that the harp of life which you have suffered me to play all these years is nothing more than a mere child’s toy, after all—that from it many chords are missing, and that the chord it most sadly lacks is that lost one of which this strange creature sang to-night—the chord of earthly love.”

“Come!” commanded the graybeard in a hoarse, broken voice. “You have much to learn, and of this knowledge that which has to do with devil-snares is not the least. Come, like Adam in the garden, you have been subjected to the greatest temptation that can befall mankind—fruit of the forbidden tree that is offered to you by one of the daughters of that Eve whose angel beauty and diabolical mind brought shame and sorrow to thousands of generations of men.”

Trembling with shame and horror as the graybeard, pointing one of his long fingers at me, branded me as one of the most despicable of God’s creatures, I shrank from the strange, searching gaze that young Rayon fixed on me while his mentor spoke.

My falling gaze decided all. In it the young man seemed to read a confession of my unworthiness. When I raised my eyes again, Rayon and the graybeard were gone, but in the place where they had been standing I saw the Indian, Glenagassett, who held my canoe paddle toward me.

“Go,” the red man said, and, as he spoke, he pointed imperiously toward where the bow of my canoe was drawn up on the shore.

With trembling fingers, I grasped the paddle the Indian was holding out to me. The redskin, turning from me abruptly, strode quickly toward the cluster of evergreens and disappeared from my view.

From the great wilderness around me there came no sound. Deserted by him to whom my song had been addressed, I stood alone in the shadow of the great, dark precipice.

The story of the fall of man constitutes part of the Mohammedan story of the creation of the world, and I have often thought that in the Koran it is more beautifully told than in the Bible, but this was the first time in my life that I had been brought to know that living men believed that women of their own period were cursed with the frailities of the Eve from whom they are descended. Then it seemed to me that the moonlight lost its splendor, and each star became a stern, accusing eye, while the nightwinds, sighing softly in the pines, seemed to be pitying me because, in my ignorance, I had not known that when men come alone to this great wilderness they find earthly Edens, but when woman enters them their glories begin to fade. Then the forest trees are hewn into boards for summer hotels and bungalows, and the sounds of raucous dance-music and the inane songs of music halls still forever the great hymns which Nature is ever singing in her summer solitudes. The lake yields its lilies to women’s idle whims, and the lily plants, sooner or later, die like bereaved mothers. The gay-plumed singers of the forest no more voice the carols of the Spring, for the daughters of Eve, not content with their own charms, must enhance them with hats on which the feathered choristers are crucified like Him whose death agonies inspire with sorrow those wearers of stolen plumage when they assemble in Christian churches on Easter morning.

And so, beautiful as I might be, I was only a woman, after all—a prettily-tinted reptile that was an enemy to the flowers and birds—or a flame at which things that loved light and life would find destruction!

With a little sigh I had just started to walk down to my canoe when, once more, a sound coming from the evergreens attracted my attention.

It was the sound of a tenor voice that was softly singing the verses I had found in my window, and the air was that to which I had put them—the air of the old Turkish lullaby.

I started, and, fearing to meet again this strange, young man whom the graybeard had induced to leave me, I took a couple of steps in the direction of my canoe.

“Paula!”

The word was so softly spoken that I half believed I had been deluded by my fancy.

“Paula!”

I turned again to the evergreens, but no human figure met my view.

“Well?” I asked, abruptly.

“Go to the canoe and take the forward seat, leaving the paddle behind you,” said the voice. “If you do not look behind you, you will be home in an hour. If, however, you turn to see your boatman, evil will result to you and him. Will you promise?”

I hesitated.

“Yes,” I said.

That I was in an enchanted valley I did not now pretend to doubt. The magnificence of this stupendous wilderness, the flashing of that terrible lightning, the awe-inspiring thunderpeals, the rush of those mighty winds, the sullen rumble of the falling flood, my encounter with the serpent and my extraordinary adventure with the three men united to put to flight all the materialistic impressions that European civilization had made upon my mind during the few weeks I had been under its influence. Once more I was a child of the Orient, as the heroines of the Thousand and One Nights had been. I, Princess Pauline Maranotti, was being confronted by a situation that was no more wonderful than those which confronted other princesses—Badoura, the Princess of China, who became the wife of Camaralzaman; Perie-Zadeh, Princess of Persia, whose brothers were transformed into black stones; and Nouronnihar, Princess of India, whose beauty had caused her three royal cousins to have extraordinary adventures.

Thus resigning myself to the superstitions of the people among whom nearly all my life had been spent, I believed that it was the voice of a genie that had come to me from among the evergreens, and that it was the genie that was to be my boatman on my journey home. But so great was the confidence with which the kindly voice had inspired me that I no longer feared to do its bidding, and, as I walked down to the waiting canoe, I resolved to guard against any incautious movement that would cause me to see the forbidden face.

I entered the canoe resolutely, and, in obedience to the instructions I had received, I sat down on the forward seat.

I had not long to wait. The crunching of the gravel and the snapping of dead reed-sticks soon apprised me of the mysterious boatman’s approach. A few moments later the canoe began to move forward, then it tilted violently from side to side as the boatman entered it.

As the little craft moved on I saw that a way had been cleared for it to the channel of the stream. A more materialistic mind would have suspected that this had been done by the Indian who had brought it to the shore, but, versed in Eastern lore, I knew that the magic of my genie boatman was accomplishing all that.

Having arrived at last at the channel, the bow of the canoe was quickly swung around and, with a speed which, in other circumstances, I would have thought incredible, the little craft, gliding over the swollen current, moved in the direction of the lower lake.

My trip up this stream had occupied nearly twenty-five minutes, for I had been paddling leisurely against a sluggish current, but now less than ten minutes sufficed to bring me to its mouth and the bright, moonlit waters of the lake below.

Thus far the only sounds that gave evidence of the presence of my boatman were the strong, even strokes of his double-bladed paddle.

A faint “hello” now sounded from the north-eastern shore of the lake. I was about to glance over my shoulder when my boatman said abruptly:

“Have a care! Remember the warning!”

A cold chill passed over me, as I replied, contritely:

“Someone is calling. Perhaps Mrs. Seaver’s servants are seeking me.”

“They have sought you all the afternoon, but the lake has been very rough, and one of their boats was capsized.”

In my anxiety I half turned again.

“But those in it got ashore?” I asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Will you let those who are seeking me know that I am safe?” I asked.

The unseen boatman hesitated.

“No,” he answered, quietly, “It is too soon to tell them now.”

For several moments we were silent.

“Why did you go to Deadwood Lake?” my boatman asked.

My cheeks began to burn, but something in me told me it was best to tell the truth.

“I thought I might see the man who was described as so ‘strangely handsome’,” I replied. “If I had known that there were genii there, I would not have gone, of course.”

“If who were there?” asked the boatman.

“Genii.”

There was a pause.

“Ah, you believe in the genii, then?” he said, in a lower voice.

“Having seen them, can I believe anything else?” I murmured.

“You are from the East—the Orient?”

“From Constantinople,” I answered, wonderingly. “Do you not know?”

“I know a little, but you must tell me more.”

From across the widening waters came the voices of men who called my name. To these my boatman gave no heed.

“Tell me why you left Constantinople—why you are here,” he persisted.

Then, as briefly as I could, I told him all.

I told him why I had fled from Meschid to Prince Maranotti and how I was brought to America and represented as being Trevison’s daughter. I told him how I had received the verses in the morning and how I had suspected that the young white man in the neighboring valley was their author.

When I was done, another silence fell. Then the boatman spoke.

“You will find other verses—verses and letters at your window,” he said, quietly. “You may trust the writer, but do not trust others, for I fear that great danger soon will threaten you. You did wrong to go to the upper lake to-day, but it is fortunate that you sang, for the first song of yours brought me to your side. But you must go there no more.”

“You do not speak now as you did when I first met you,” I said, reprovingly. “You spoke then as if you had been taught to hate all women.”

There was a long pause before he answered me.

“Unlike the others whom you saw, I am not a genie,” he replied. “I am a man who is held under enchantment. When this is broken I may take my place with other men. Until then——”

“Until then?” I murmured.

“Until then I must continue to suffer.”

“And how may this enchantment be broken?” I asked.

“By marriage.”

“By marriage!” I exclaimed, wonderingly. “With whom?”

“With you,” he murmured, softly.

I started, and once more I was about to turn my head when the strange companion cautioned me.

“You must not see me,” he said.

Again the cries of the men who had been seeking me came to me from across the water. The voices were more distinct now, and the fact that my friends were drawing nearer assured me that they had seen me.

“With you,” my boatman repeated, softly. “Do you pity me?”

“Yes—yes,” I answered. “How could I fail to pity you?”

I was trembling violently, and even the fresh night airs were stifling me.

I now observed that, though the canoe was headed for the shore, the bow was turned toward a point that was several hundred yards distant from the log-house.

“You are not taking me home,” I murmured.

“Those who follow us will do that,” my boatman said. “They must not see me, nor must you tell your friends that those you saw to-day were genii. You may tell them, however, that an Indian, finding you beside Deadwood Lake, just after the storm, brought you here. You will do this?”

“Yes,” I faltered.

There was a long pause. He was using the paddle more vigorously now, and the shouts that came to our ears from the pursuing boat were louder and more earnest.

The canoe was rapidly approaching the shore, and in front of the log-house I saw the dancing of lanterns. I knew my anxious hostess was preparing to set out to meet the returning boat and was wondering why the canoe in which I sat was not approaching the regular landing place.

“You will not give me your answer now?” my boatman asked.

With a little shrug of the shoulder, I said faintly:

“There is only one to give. If what you say is true—if it is only I who can make you free, I must become your wife.”

The strokes of the paddles ceased abruptly, and a great silence fell around us.

“You will meet me three nights hence, at midnight, at the place at which we are about to land?” he asked in a low, eager, trembling voice.

“I am to marry you then?” I murmured.

“Yes,” he answered. “But it will ruin both of us if, while the ceremony is being performed, or afterward on that night, you raise your eyes to my face. You will be there?”

“Yes, I will be there,” I said.

A voice from the boat that followed cried:

“Miss Trevison.”

“You may answer,” said my boatman, “but do not turn your head.”

“I am here!” I cried.

A few vigorous strokes of the paddle brought my canoe to the shore.

“Remain seated,” said the boatman. “Do not look after me as I go. Three nights hence, at midnight, I will be here, and, except ourselves and the priest I will bring with me, no other person must know.”

The side of the canoe was against the bank of a little cove. The boat rocked from side to side as the boatman left it.

“Good-night, Paula,” he said.

“Good-night, Rayon Demain,” I murmured, with a sigh.

And, as I heard the twigs snapping as he strode quickly into the forest, I suddenly reflected that his name consisted of two French words which, together, signified “a beam of to-morrow.”

“Miss Trevison!”

Looking in the direction from whence this cry had come, I beheld a boat, propelled by two pairs of oars, moving quickly toward me. The rowers were the two menservants from the log-house.

“I am here,” I called back to them.

In a few moments the bow of the boat was against the bank.

“Who was that man that brought you here?” one of the men asked, shortly.

“An Indian,” I replied.

“You have been to Deadwood Lake?”

“Yes,” I answered, coldly. “I was just entering it when the storm overtook me.”

The moonlight enabled me to see a strange look settle on the face of the man who had questioned me.

“I told you, Jim, no good would come of it,” the other muttered, surlily.

“All right, George; it’s no business of ours—now we’ve found her,” Jim said, quietly, then addressing me, he added: “Better get in here with us, Miss. We can tow the canoe better if it is light.”

I got into the boat, and ten minutes later Mrs. Seaver had me in her arms on the beach in front of the log-house.

The story I told was simple. I explained that when the storm broke I had landed on the southern shore of Deadwood Lake, and, after nightfall, believing that the servants would come to seek me, I had been singing in order that my voice would guide them to me. Then an Indian had appeared, and I accepted his offer to take me to the log-house.

“Why did you go there?” asked my hostess, looking at me curiously.

“Because the north end of our lake was the only part of it I had not visited,” I replied. “I saw the stream that entered it, and, through it, I paddled up to Deadwood Lake.”

“You must not go again,” Mrs. Seaver said, thoughtfully. “You will promise me you will not go?”

“Why, yes, I’ll promise you that,” I answered, laughingly.

A warm dinner was soon set before me, but I had little appetite for it. In my mind were ringing those fateful words which had been softly uttered by the unseen boatman: “Three nights hence, at midnight, I will meet you here.”

An hour later, when the lamp in my room was extinguished, the moonlight, streaming through the open window, found me with closed lids, but my dreams were of the strange, god-like man whose name signified “a beam of to-morrow.”

When I woke the sun was shining on the valley and a robin was singing under my window. My heart was beating rapidly as, half-rising, I leaned on my elbow and glanced toward the window curtain on which I had found the verses pinned the morning before.

A few moments later my feet were on the floor, and, with trembling steps, I approached the curtain on which I saw another envelope. The first had been marked: “For Paula.” On this was inscribed the name:—“Pauline.”

Drawing out a sheet of notepaper, I read:—

Twenty-four hours ago the author of the verses I then received was unknown to me, but now the mystery had been solved. The hand that had written the verses yesterday was the same that had penned those of to-day. It was the hand of the mysterious boatman who had guided my canoe over the lake less than ten hours ago—the man whose wife I would be before the week was ended.

But the next morning and the next I looked in vain for the expected envelope. My heart grew heavy with fear as I wondered what had prevented the writer’s coming. Had there been a tightening of the bonds that bound him to that dreadful valley? Would he be unable to keep the appointment he had made with me?

At length the fateful night arrived. I went to my room at nine o’clock, for this was the time my hostess and her servants were in the habit of retiring. For more than an hour I tried to read, but, naturally enough, I was unable to concentrate my thoughts on a book on the eve of such an important event in my life. Time and again I asked myself what would be the result of this unreasonable act I was about to do, but not once did my courage fail me.

It was half past eleven o’clock when, after extinguishing the light that had been dimly burning, I lowered myself from my window to the ground.

Then for several moments I hesitated. The night was darker than I had expected to find it. Large clouds, moving from the northwest, totally obscured the moon from time to time, and the night breezes were freshening.