Frank Owen

“ Her name was Taki. She was born one night when the moon was at the full. It looked that night as though it were a lantern and she gazed at it and made faint sounds as though in adoration. It was a prophecy. Sixteen years later she chanced to pass my shop and paused. She uttered a little cry of joy as she gazed at the lanterns, just as at birth she had gurgled joyfully at the moon. That pause was the turning point in both our lives. It marked the beginning of an epic of happiness such as all the flowery poets of the East would be powerless to tell of. Love, they say, is unknown in China. ”

“ Most men of earth who believe their sense of hearing is very acute are in reality stone-deaf. To listen truly is a fine art. Anyone can hear a mountain fall, but only a genius can hear the music of a flower unfolding in the sun."
He paused, and gazed off toward the jagged, knife-edged cliffs. Presently he spoke again.
"I am Hi Ling," he said. "To my house you are welcome. No human soul dwells with me. And yet there are other voices besides my own, constantly echoing through my house, for every night I open my windows so that all the great winds can blow through. ”

“ For a while that night Visrain and I raved about that room as though we were mad. We cursed and raved as though we had ceased to be human. Often we hear folks envying each other, expressing a desire to be in someone else's place. Now that peculiar position had been vouchsafed to me and I found little of pleasure in it. I longed to be in my own body again. The body at best is but a shell in which we live but it is the shell by which we are known, the tangible thing by which our friends recognize us. ”

“ All nature was soundless as though it had paused for some great event, perhaps to listen to the singing of Lun Pei Lo. My mind at that moment was as clear as crystal. All the worthless dross of life had been washed out. Had life stopped on the island when Lun Pei Lo vanished? Would the current of existence cease to flow onward until her return? These were mad thoughts but at the moment they seemed logical enough. Sanity at best is but a relative condition. A man slightly mad seems normal as compared to a maniac. Pew persons of earth are mentally in absolute balance. ”

“ Yellow jade is one of the rarest of gems. Not till he was quite close did he realize that it was amber, amber as clear as polished crystal.
Mu Lin clutched his arm so tightly his fingers felt like steel claws. Nevertheless Trent made no objection to the pain. It was odd that a man so old should have such strength in his fingers.
"See, I keep her in a Golden Room," Mu Lin whispered. "A red embroidered cloth is spread before the shrine of her beauty. Above, the curtains are of silk as green as jade. Her fragrant mouth is small. Tell me did your eyes ever behold a girl more beautiful?" ”

“ He cast off his clothes and put on the Chinese lounging garments that were spread on a chair beside the bed. They were cooler than his own clothes but still that amber fire burned within him, the fire of love without reason and without regard. He must have the girl, hold her for one immortal moment in his arms though he die for it the next moment. Death would mean nothing to him then, for he would be like unto a man who had drunk the stars and walked through the highroads of the sky. ”

“ These people seemed to lack personality; yet personality of some sort they must have had. When they went into their huts, did they just pass into blackness like candles blown out? Did they have any home life at all? He doubted it. Were their affections, hopes, desires, loves, all blunted? Did they ever read? It was like being in a dead city. No one approached him. No one talked to him. He seldom heard a human voice, for the voices of the people were usually drowned by the frightful screeching of the wind through the mountain passes. ”

“ From the jagged mountain peaks came the constant din and babble of the winds. On up they came from the valleys on a constant trail that is very old—nobody knows how old.
During the days that followed John Steppling felt as if he were living in a dream. The house, the moon-lantern, Hi Ling, all seemed but wraiths in a rather pleasant sleep. Hi Ling took his continued presence as a matter of course. Every night before they supped, Hi Ling opened the massive windows of the room of the jade vase, and the winds came tumbling through. ”

“ Winwood tried to commune with the spirit of Coralie. He went out into the darkness of the mountains, and there he would sit for hours, his eyes closed, trying by the very force of his will to get into touch with her spirit. About him the darkness of the night hung in folds like a velvet canopy. Thousands of sounds echoed faintly to his ears, all in a hushed, subdued tone. Magic could have run rampant in those forests without seeming out of place. But never did Dr. Winwood accomplish his purpose. ”

“ You who have heard the greatest singers of the Occident, have yet to hear anything comparable to the singing of Lun Pei Lo, for when she sang even the flowers joined in the chorus. They blossomed more beautifully and fragrantly than ever, and the trees like great violins softly joined in the music. They swayed in perfect rhythm, and made music which even the spheres might envy. He only is a great singer who can harmonize with nature, and Lun Pei Lo was even greater, for nature harmonized with her. ”

“ Life is a peculiar thing. Men wander through the valley toward the shadowy death caves beyond and always they think of attaining wealth, and riches and power. None of these is of the slightest importance. The wealth of the world is contained in sweet incense, the aroma of tea, in beautiful pictures, in music and in the glory of the skies. When we arrive at that station in life where we can estimate values, there will no longer be any necessity for dying. Life will be complete. On our island little Lun Pei Lo sang and all things joined in her songs. ”

“ Over almost everyone there is a shadow constantly hanging."
As he spoke they emerged into a great room. The air was fragrant with the pungent perfumes of the East, the incense of aloeswood and musk. In the center of a black platform stood a jade-green vase. In the vase was a single branch, withered and old, a branch whose shriveled appearance suggested the gaunt face of Hi Ling. The flower, if flower there had been, had long ago fallen from it. Above the vase hung a soft-toned yellow lantern, as round and coolly brilliant as an autumn moon rising above a range of mist-crested hills. ”

“ Steppling gazed slowly toward the jade vase. The withered branch was withered no longer. Life had come to it again, for on the branch was a flower of the soft warm color of a tea rose, but unlike any flower he had ever known before. The fragrant, cool petals were as velvet-soft as the cheek of any maiden.
Again John Steppling turned to Hi Ling, and he was not surprized that even in death he looked young. For youth had come to him in the return of 'Dawn-Girl', Old age at best is mainly a matter of attitude. ”

“ The blackness was so intense that it seemed peopled with all sorts of wild wraiths and distorted forms. I knew the hallucinations were but the imaginings of my overwrought nerves. Yet the great bulk of blackness seemed to bear down upon me as though it were a solid thing. I felt as though I were suffocating, as though I were engulfed alive in a pit of blackness. My forehead was cold with a dank sweat and my hands shook, as though I were a hundred years old.
I switched on the electric lights and looked at my face or rather I should say Visrain's face, in the mirror. ”

“ In the silence of the forest a simple solution came to me. I marvel I did not think of it before. All along I have been trying to induce the spirit of Coralie to come to me. I failed. But there is nothing to prevent my spirit from temporarily going to hers."
Barlow Garth leaned forward in his chair. "What do you mean?" he cried.
"Merely that death is a door," was the reply, "and I intend to pass through it for a few minutes only. To many, death appears to be a black flood of mystery. They fear it because they do not understand it. But to me death holds no fear. It is a natural thing. ”

“ One, two, three, the minutes dragged past. To Barlow Garth each seemed an age. As the fourth minute came he felt as though his nerves were being drawn taut like rubber bands. He longed for something to happen to break the dreadful spell. Even as the wish came to him, there appeared a bright glow in the room behind him as though someone had lighted a great torch. As he turned he beheld Coralie enveloped in flames. Jumping forward, he seized a great rug and wrapped it about her. He worked as quickly as though he had the energy of a dozen men. ”

“ A sound so beautiful could not be buried in his subconsciousness, for never in his life had he heard music of such haunting beauty. At that moment he became almost as mad as Hi Ling. He knew that he had heard the voice of 'Dawn-Girl', and he did not wonder that Hi Ling had renounced all else in the world for love of her.
For a while longer the singing continued, then it ceased. It ended on a final beautiful note that was almost a moan.
With a start, Steppling came back to reality. The room was now in total darkness. The moon-lantern had been ruthlessly torn from its hanging. ”

“ Nevertheless his eyes were as keen as sharp swords.
With shaking hand Trent applied the lighted match to the chips of fir and pine. They flared up joyously. Had they not been aged and dried for many years by Mu Lin for the moment that would be for him the culmination of his dreams, perhaps bringing him youth once more? But always Mu Lin had hesitated. Suppose his experiment failed, suppose his golden girl was devoured by the flames that consumed the amber. Suppose youth should always remain beyond his fingertips even though success crowned his efforts. ”

“ And the mud rose above the mouth, crept to the nose, the eyes, the head. Then came a series of bubbles, and all was still. In the distance an owl hooted dismally. The horrible life had come to an end. The swamp had reclaimed its own."
Pelegin paused for a moment, then he said:
"That, gentlemen, is my story. I have simply repeated it to prove my point—that one clings to life even though one longs for death. I cannot recall ever having had a desire to live, and yet a score of times I have fought for life with all my strength. In India, especially, existing had grown distasteful to me. ”

“ Each day Steppling roamed for hours about the wind-swept mountain passes. He climbed to lofty pinnacles almost as sharp as needles. Sometimes he rambled over a tableland of rock so vast that the greatest giants of legend might have sat down comfortably around it without bumping elbows. Not infrequently he even ventured to walk about the native haunts of the city, where sod-thatched huts attested the poverty of the people. But the inhabitants looked at him with hostile glances as he passed. ”

“ To invade a man's home and steal his beloved was the most heinous of crimes. That he had released the girl from the amber prison in which for so many ages she had been enclosed, Mu Lin saw fit to overlook. Trent had attempted to captivate her. Therefore, he must die, not only because he had inadvertently invaded the sanctuary of the Red-Haired People but also for his preposterous impudence. Truly no man was ever more deserving of death. And so Mu Lin clawed at Trent's throat, his face convulsed with hatred, but Trent was a trained athlete and easily eluded him. ”

“ Where it is matters less. Sufficient it is that there is such an island, for it is an island like unto none that you have ever chanced upon."
Again he paused for a moment and breathed deeply of the tea aroma. I marveled that he made no effort to lift the dainty green-jade cup to his lips.
"On my island," he continued, "no sound is ever heard. Not a bird sings, not a flower laughs in the wind, even the great tree-tops are subdued. It is an island of sorrow. All nature is mourning, mourning for little Lun Pei Lo who used to make our island a floral garden of loveliness by her singing. ”

“ Sleep dug at his eyes but it would not enter. The silken coverlets were warm to his touch as though a fire had been kindled underneath the kong as is customary in China during four-coat weather. But it was mid-summer, though he was not sure of the season. Time in China is very elastic and one never cares about the days of the week or the weeks of the months. The earth turns without man's effort. Why toil? The heat intensified, the fever of longing which he could not endure. He did not even know the name of the girl enclosed in the amber, yet her image had come to live in his heart. ”

“ Nothing, I thought, could be more beautiful than this. And yet almost immediately I changed my mind, for in a far corner I beheld the form of a lovely girl. Softly I bent over her, and just as the loveliness of the other rooms had been dwarfed by comparison to the wealth of this one, so was the beauty of the great room dwarfed by comparison to the loveliness of Lun Pei Lo, for I knew that it was she. The same voice that urged me to enter the house now acquainted me with the name of the sleeping girl. ”

“ At such moments it seems as though man has a supernatural sixth sense buried in his subconscious mind which warns him of approaching danger. To say I was shocked would not nearly have described my condition. I was in a panic. Fear made of me a total wreck. The very marrow froze in my bones and I felt as sick and weak as though I were a plague victim. Even in my fear I realized that I was in a most unexplainable position, unless the hidden personage should prove to be the soul of Alladina Visrain. ”

“ If she had no personality whatsoever, how did she remember the songs? Had she gone back into the ages and assumed one of the far distant personalities which had been hers in a former existence? Although Dr. Winwood did not exactly believe in reincarnation, the subject interested him. Coralie seemed possessed of a strange, split-off personality. Only songs and woodland grandeur aroused any glow in her. All else she viewed as from a dream. She was undoubtedly mad, but in a calmly beautiful way. She was never loud or violent, but always gentle as a lovely child. ”

“ Together they groped their way through multitudinous rooms, silent, weird, vast, through which scarcely even the faintest suggestion of daylight penetrated.
"I keep my house forever dark and shadowy," explained Hi Ling, "so that it may always be in harmony with life."
"You think, then," said Steppling, "that life is clothed in shadows?"
"I do indeed," was the quick response. "The shadows of earth quite outweigh the pleasures. ”