15
TOO LATE
For a moment the two stood in silence; Bulan tortured
by thoughts of the bitter humiliation that he must
suffer when the girl should learn his identity;
Virginia wondering at the sad lines that had come
into the young man's face, and at his silence.
It was the girl who first spoke. "Who are you,"
she asked, "to whom I owe my safety?"
The man hesitated. To speak aught than the truth
had never occurred to him during his brief existence.
He scarcely knew how to lie. To him a question demanded
but one manner of reply--the facts. But never before
had he had to face a question where so much depended
upon his answer. He tried to form the bitter,
galling words; but a vision of that lovely face
suddenly transformed with horror and disgust throttled
the name in his throat.
"I am Bulan," he said, at last, quietly.
"Bulan," repeated the girl. "Bulan. Why that
is a native name. You are either an Englishman
or an American. What is your true name?"
"My name is Bulan," he insisted doggedly.
Virginia Maxon thought that he must have some good
reason of his own for wishing to conceal his identity.
At first she wondered if he could be a fugitive from
justice--the perpetrator of some horrid crime,
who dared not divulge his true name even in the remote
fastness of a Bornean wilderness; but a glance at
his frank and noble countenance drove every vestige
of the traitorous thought from her mind. Her woman's
intuition was sufficient guarantee of the nobility
of his character.
"Then let me thank you, Mr. Bulan," she said, "for the
service that you have rendered a strange and helpless woman."
He smiled.
"Just Bulan," he said. "There is no need for Miss
or Mister in the savage jungle, Virginia."
The girl flushed at the sudden and unexpected use of her
given name, and was surprised that she was not offended.
"How do you know my name?" she asked.
Bulan saw that he would get into deep water if
he attempted to explain too much, and, as is ever the way,
discovered that one deception had led him into another;
so he determined to forestall future embarrassing queries
by concocting a story immediately to explain his presence
and his knowledge.
"I lived upon the island near your father's camp,"
he said. "I knew you all--by sight."
"How long have you lived there?" asked the girl.
"We thought the island uninhabited."
"All my life," replied Bulan truthfully.
"It is strange," she mused. "I cannot understand it.
But the monsters--how is it that they followed you and
obeyed your commands?"
Bulan touched the bull whip that hung at his side.
"Von Horn taught them to obey this," he said.
"He used that upon them?" cried the girl in horror.
"It was the only way," said Bulan. "They were almost brainless--
they could understand nothing else, for they could not reason."
Virginia shuddered.
"Where are they now--the balance of them?" she asked.
"They are dead, poor things," he replied, sadly.
"Poor, hideous, unloved, unloving monsters--they gave
up their lives for the daughter of the man who made
them the awful, repulsive creatures that they were."
"What do you mean?" cried the girl.
"I mean that all have been killed searching for you,
and battling with your enemies. They were soulless
creatures, but they loved the mean lives they gave up
so bravely for you whose father was the author
of their misery-- you owe a great deal to them, Virginia."
"Poor things," murmured the girl, "but yet they are
better off, for without brains or souls there could
be no happiness in life for them. My father did them
a hideous wrong, but it was an unintentional wrong.
His mind was crazed with dwelling upon the wonderful
discovery he had made, and if he wronged them
he contemplated a still more terrible wrong
to be inflicted upon me, his daughter."
"I do not understand," said Bulan.
"It was his intention to give me in marriage to one
of his soulless monsters--to the one he called Number
Thirteen. Oh, it is terrible even to think of the
hideousness of it; but now they are all dead he cannot
do it even though his poor mind, which seems well again,
should suffer a relapse."
"Why do you loathe them so?" asked Bulan. "Is it because
they are hideous, or because they are soulless?"
"Either fact were enough to make them repulsive,"
replied the girl, "but it is the fact that they were
without souls that made them totally impossible--
one easily overlooks physical deformity, but the moral
depravity that must be inherent in a creature without
a soul must forever cut him off from intercourse
with human beings."
"And you think that regardless of their physical appearance
the fact that they were without souls would have been apparent?"
asked Bulan.
"I am sure of it," cried Virginia. "I would know the
moment I set my eyes upon a creature without a soul."
With all the sorrow that was his, Bulan could scarce
repress a smile, for it was quite evident either that
it was impossible to perceive a soul, or else that he
possessed one.
"Just how do you distinguish the possessor of a soul?"
he asked.
The girl cast a quick glance up at him.
"You are making fun of me," she said.
"Not at all," he replied. "I am just curious as to how
souls make themselves apparent. I have seen men kill
one another as beasts kill. I have seen one who was
cruel to those within his power, yet they were all men
with souls. I have seen eleven soulless monsters die
to save the daughter of a man whom they believed had
wronged them terribly--a man with a soul. How then
am I to know what attributes denote the possession
of the immortal spark? How am I to know whether
or not I possess a soul?"
Virginia smiled.
"You are courageous and honorable and chivalrous--
those are enough to warrant the belief that you have a soul,
were it not apparent from your countenance that you are
of the higher type of mankind," she said.
"I hope that you will never change your opinion of me,
Virginia," said the man; but he knew that there lay
before her a severe shock, and before him a great
sorrow when they should come to where her father
was and the girl should learn the truth concerning him.
That he did not himself tell her may be forgiven him,
for he had only a life of misery to look forward
to after she should know that he, too, was equally
a soulless monster with the twelve that had preceded him
to a merciful death. He would have envied them but
for the anticipation of the time that he might be alone
with her before she learned the truth.
As he pondered the future there came to him the thought
that should they never find Professor Maxon or von Horn
the girl need never know but that he was a human being.
He need not lose her then, but always be near her.
The idea grew and with it the mighty temptation to lead
Virginia Maxon far into the jungle, and keep her forever
from the sight of men. And why not? Had he not saved her
where others had failed? Was she not, by all that was
just and fair, his?
Did he owe any loyalty to either her father or von Horn?
Already he had saved Professor Maxon's life, so the obligation,
if there was any, lay all against the older man; and three times
he had saved Virginia. He would be very kind and good to her.
She should be much happier and a thousand times safer than
with those others who were so poorly equipped to protect her.
As he stood silently gazing out across the jungle
beneath them toward the new sun the girl watched him
in a spell of admiration of his strong and noble face,
and his perfect physique. What would have been
her emotions had she guessed what thoughts were his!
It was she who broke the silence.
"Can you find the way to the long-house where my father is?"
she asked.
Bulan, startled at the question, looked up from his reverie.
The thing must be faced, then, sooner than he thought.
How was he to tell her of his intention? It occurred
to him to sound her first--possibly she would make no
objection to the plan.
"You are anxious to return?" he asked.
"Why, yes, of course, I am," she replied. "My father
will be half mad with apprehension, until he knows that
I am safe. What a strange question, indeed." Still,
however, she did not doubt the motives of her companion.
"Suppose we should be unable to find our way to the
long-house?" he continued.
"Oh, don't say such a thing," cried the girl.
"It would be terrible. I should die of misery
and fright and loneliness in this awful jungle.
Surely you can find your way to the river--
it was but a short march through the jungle
from where we landed to the spot at which
you took me away from that fearful Malay."
The girl's words cast a cloud over Bulan's hopes.
The future looked less roseate with the knowledge
that she would be unhappy in the life that he had been
mapping for them. He was silent--thinking. In his breast
a riot of conflicting emotions were waging the first
great battle which was to point the trend of the man's
character--would the selfish and the base prevail,
or would the noble?
With the thought of losing her his desire for her
companionship became almost a mania. To return her
to her father and von Horn would be to lose her--
of that there could be no doubt, for they would not leave
her long in ignorance of his origin. Then, in addition
to being deprived of her forever, he must suffer
the galling mortification of her scorn.
It was a great deal to ask of a fledgling morality
that was yet scarcely cognizant of its untried wings;
but even as the man wavered between right and wrong
there crept into his mind the one great and burning question
of his life--had he a soul? And he knew that upon
his decision of the fate of Virginia Maxon rested
to some extent the true answer to that question, for,
unconsciously, he had worked out his own crude soul
hypothesis which imparted to this invisible entity
the power to direct his actions only for good.
Therefore he reasoned that wickedness presupposed
a small and worthless soul, or the entire lack of one.
That she would hate a soulless creature he accepted
as a foregone conclusion. He desired her respect,
and that fact helped him to his final decision, but the
thing that decided him was born of the truly chivalrous
nature he possessed--he wanted Virginia Maxon to be
happy; it mattered not at what cost to him.
The girl had been watching him closely as he stood
silently thinking after her last words. She did not know
the struggle that the calm face hid; yet she felt that
the dragging moments were big with the question of her fate.
"Well?" she said at length.
"We must eat first," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone,
and not at all as though he was about to renounce
his life's happiness, "and then we shall set out
in search of your father. I shall take you to him,
Virginia, if man can find him."
"I knew that you could," she said, simply, "but how my
father and I ever can repay you I do not know--do you?"
"Yes," said Bulan, and there was a sudden rush of fire
to his eyes that kept Virginia Maxon from urging a
detailed explanation of just how she might repay him.
In truth she did not know whether to be angry,
or frightened, or glad of the truth that she read there;
or mortified that it had awakened in her a realization
that possibly an analysis of her own interest in this
young stranger might reveal more than she had imagined.
The constraint that suddenly fell upon them was
relieved when Bulan motioned her to follow him back
down the trail into the gorge in search of food.
There they sat together upon a fallen tree beside
a tiny rivulet, eating the fruit that the man gathered.
Often their eyes met as they talked, but always
the girl's fell before the open worship of the man's.
Many were the men who had looked in admiration
at Virginia Maxon in the past, but never, she felt,
with eyes so clean and brave and honest. There was
no guile or evil in them, and because of it she
wondered all the more that she could not face them.
"What a wonderful soul those eyes portray," she thought,
"and how perfectly they assure the safety of my life
and honor while their owner is near me."
And the man thought: "Would that I owned a soul that I might
aspire to live always near her--always to protect her."
When they had eaten the two set out once more
in search of the river, and the confidence that is born
of ignorance was theirs, so that beyond each succeeding
tangled barrier of vines and creepers they looked to see
the swirling stream that would lead them to the girl's father.
On and on they trudged, the man often carrying the girl
across the rougher obstacles and through the little
streams that crossed their path, until at last came
noon, and yet no sign of the river they sought.
The combined jungle craft of the two had been insufficient
either to trace the way that they had come,
or point the general direction of the river.
As the afternoon drew to a close Virginia Maxon
commenced to lose heart--she was confident that they
were lost. Bulan made no pretence of knowing the way,
the most that he would say being that eventually they
must come to the river. As a matter-of-fact had it not
been for the girl's evident concern he would have been
glad to know that they were irretrievably lost;
but for her sake his efforts to find the river
were conscientious.
When at last night closed down upon them the girl was,
at heart, terror stricken, but she hid her true state
from the man, because she knew that their plight was
no fault of his. The strange and uncanny noises
of the jungle night filled her with the most dreadful
forebodings, and when a cold, drizzling rain set
in upon them her cup of misery was full.
Bulan rigged a rude shelter for her, making her lie
down beneath it, and then he removed his Dyak war-coat
and threw it over her, but it was hours before her
exhausted body overpowered her nervous fright and won
a fitful and restless slumber. Several times Virginia
became obsessed with the idea that Bulan had left her
alone there in the jungle, but when she called his name
he answered from close beside her shelter.
She thought that he had reared another for himself nearby,
but even the thought that he might sleep filled her with dread,
yet she would not call to him again, since she knew that
he needed his rest even more than she. And all the night
Bulan stood close beside the woman he had learned to love--
stood almost naked in the chill night air and the cold rain,
lest some savage man or beast creep out of the darkness
after her while he slept.
The next day with its night, and the next, and the next
were but repetitions of the first. It had become an
agony of suffering for the man to fight off sleep longer.
The girl read part of the truth in his heavy eyes and worn face,
and tried to force him to take needed rest, but she did not
guess that he had not slept for four days and nights.
At last abused Nature succumbed to the terrific strain
that had been put upon her, and the giant constitution
of the man went down before the cold and the wet,
weakened and impoverished by loss of sleep and
insufficient food; for through the last two days
he had been able to find but little, and that little he
had given to the girl, telling her that he had eaten
his fill while he gathered hers.
It was on the fifth morning, when Virginia awoke, that
she found Bulan rolling and tossing upon the wet ground
before her shelter, delirious with fever. At the sight
of the mighty figure reduced to pitiable inefficiency
and weakness, despite the knowledge that her protector
could no longer protect, the fear of the jungle faded
from the heart of the young girl--she was no more
a weak and trembling daughter of an effete civilization.
Instead she was a lioness, watching over and protecting
her sick mate. The analogy did not occur to her,
but something else did as she saw the flushed face
and fever wracked body of the man whose appeal to her
she would have thought purely physical had she given
the subject any analytic consideration; and as
a realization of his utter helplessness came to her
she bent over him and kissed first his forehead
and then his lips.
"What a noble and unselfish love yours has been,"
she murmured. "You have even tried to hide it that
my position might be the easier to bear, and now that
it may be too late I learn that I love you--that I
have always loved you. Oh, Bulan, my Bulan, what a cruel
fate that permitted us to find one another only to die together!"
