XV
A SOUND IN A DREAM
Marco slept peacefully for several hours. There was nothing to
awaken him during that time. But at the end of it, his sleep was
penetrated by a definite sound. He had dreamed of hearing a
voice at a distance, and, as he tried in his dream to hear what
it said, a brief metallic ringing sound awakened him outright.
It was over by the time he was fully conscious, and at once he
realized that the voice of his dream had been a real one, and was
speaking still. It was the Lovely Person's voice, and she was
speaking rapidly, as if she were in the greatest haste. She was
speaking through the door.
``You will have to search for it,'' was all he heard. ``I have
not a moment!'' And, as he listened to her hurriedly departing
feet, there came to him with their hastening echoes the words,
``You are too good for the cellar. I like you!''
He sprang to the door and tried it, but it was still locked. The
feet ran up the cellar steps and through the upper hall, and the
front door closed with a bang. The two people had gone away, as
they had threatened. The voice had been excited as well as
hurried. Something had happened to frighten them, and they had
left the house in great haste.
Marco turned and stood with his back against the door. The cat
had awakened and she was gazing at him with her green eyes. She
began to purr encouragingly. She really helped Marco to think.
He was thinking with all his might and trying to remember.
``What did she come for? She came for something,'' he said to
himself. ``What did she say? I only heard part of it, because I
was asleep. The voice in the dream was part of it. The part I
heard was, `You will have to search for it. I have not a
moment.' And as she ran down the passage, she called back, `You
are too good for the cellar. I like you.' '' He said the words
over and over again and tried to recall exactly how they had
sounded, and also to recall the voice which had seemed to be part
of a dream but had been a real thing. Then he began to try his
favorite experiment. As he often tried the experiment of
commanding his mind to go to sleep, so he frequently experimented
on commanding it to work for him --to help him to remember, to
understand, and to argue about things clearly.
``Reason this out for me,'' he said to it now, quite naturally
and calmly. ``Show me what it means.''
What did she come for? It was certain that she was in too great
a hurry to be able, without a reason, to spare the time to come.
What was the reason? She had said she liked him. Then she came
because she liked him. If she liked him, she came to do
something which was not unfriendly. The only good thing she
could do for him was something which would help him to get out of
the cellar. She had said twice that he was too good for the
cellar. If he had been awake, he would have heard all she said
and have understood what she wanted him to do or meant to do for
him. He must not stop even to think of that. The first words he
had heard--what had they been? They had been less clear to him
than her last because he had heard them only as he was awakening.
But he thought he was sure that they had been, ``You will have to
search for it.'' Search for it. For what? He thought and
thought. What must he search for?
He sat down on the floor of the cellar and held his head in his
hands, pressing his eyes so hard that curious lights floated
before them.
``Tell me! Tell me!'' he said to that part of his being which
the Buddhist anchorite had said held all knowledge and could tell
a man everything if he called upon it in the right spirit.
And in a few minutes, he recalled something which seemed so much
a part of his sleep that he had not been sure that he had not
dreamed it. The ringing sound! He sprang up on his feet with a
little gasping shout. The ringing sound! It had been the ring
of metal, striking as it fell. Anything made of metal might have
sounded like that. She had thrown something made of metal into
the cellar. She had thrown it through the slit in the bricks
near the door. She liked him, and said he was too good for his
prison. She had thrown to him the only thing which could set him
free. She had thrown him the KEY of the cellar!
For a few minutes the feelings which surged through him were so
full of strong excitement that they set his brain in a whirl. He
knew what his father would say--that would not do. If he was to
think, he must hold himself still and not let even joy overcome
him. The key was in the black little cellar, and he must find it
in the dark. Even the woman who liked him enough to give him a
chance of freedom knew that she must not open the door and let
him out. There must be a delay. He would have to find the key
himself, and it would be sure to take time. The chances were
that they would be at a safe enough distance before he could get
out.
``I will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees,'' he said.
``I will crawl back and forth and go over every inch of the floor
with my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall
find it.''
So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him
and purred.
``We shall get out, Puss-cat,'' he said to her. ``I told you we
should.''
He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves,
and then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small
one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over
every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in
the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not
sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled
backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He
crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he
crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had
had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in
his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it for
several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at
last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees
were beginning to feel bruised, and the skin of his hands was
sore as a result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her
kittens had gone to sleep and awakened again two or three times.
``But it is somewhere!'' he said obstinately. ``It is inside the
cellar. I heard something fall which was made of metal. That
was the ringing sound which awakened me.''
When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired.
He stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs.
``I wonder how long I have been crawling about,'' he thought.
``But the key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar.''
He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on
the shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of
another experiment.
``I am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. `Thought
which Knows All' ''--he was quoting something the hermit had said
to Loristan in their midnight talk--``Thought which Knows All!
Show me this little thing. Lead me to it when I awake.''
And he did fall asleep, sound and fast.
He did not know that he slept all the rest of the night. But he
did. When he awakened, it was daylight in the streets, and the
milk-carts were beginning to jingle about, and the early postmen
were knocking big double-knocks at front doors. The cat may have
heard the milk-carts, but the actual fact was that she herself
was hungry and wanted to go in search of food. Just as Marco
lifted his head from his arm and sat up, she jumped down from her
shelf and went to the door. She had expected to find it ajar as
it had been before. When she found it shut, she scratched at it
and was disturbed to find this of no use. Because she knew Marco
was in the cellar, she felt she had a friend who would assist
her, and she miauled appealingly.
This reminded Marco of the key.
``I will when I have found it,'' he said. ``It is inside the
cellar.''
The cat miauled again, this time very anxiously indeed. The
kittens heard her and began to squirm and squeak piteously.
``Lead me to this little thing,'' said Marco, as if speaking to
Something in the darkness about him, and he got up.
He put his hand out toward the kittens, and it touched something
lying not far from them. It must have been lying near his elbow
all night while he slept.
It was the key! It had fallen upon the shelf, and not on the
floor at all.
Marco picked it up and then stood still a moment. He made the
sign of the cross.
Then he found his way to the door and fumbled until he found the
keyhole and got the key into it. Then he turned it and pushed
the door open--and the cat ran out into the passage before him.
