The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel Read online

  _Five_

  ZORA

  Zora, child of the swamp, was a heathen hoyden of twelve wayward,untrained years. Slight, straight, strong, full-blooded, she had dreamedher life away in wilful wandering through her dark and sombre kingdomuntil she was one with it in all its moods; mischievous, secretive,brooding; full of great and awful visions, steeped body and soul inwood-lore. Her home was out of doors, the cabin of Elspeth her port ofcall for talking and eating. She had not known, she had scarcely seen, achild of her own age until Bles Alwyn had fled from her dancing in thenight, and she had searched and found him sleeping in the misty morninglight. It was to her a strange new thing to see a fellow of like yearswith herself, and she gripped him to her soul in wild interest and newcuriosity. Yet this childish friendship was so new and incomprehensiblea thing to her that she did not know how to express it. At first shepounced upon him in mirthful, almost impish glee, teasing and mockingand half scaring him, despite his fifteen years of young manhood.

  "Yes, they is devils down yonder behind the swamp," she would whisper,warningly, when, after the first meeting, he had crept back again andagain, half fascinated, half amused to greet her; "I'se seen 'em, I'seheard 'em, 'cause my mammy is a witch."

  The boy would sit and watch her wonderingly as she lay curled along thelow branch of the mighty oak, clinging with little curved limbs andflying fingers. Possessed by the spirit of her vision, she would chant,low-voiced, tremulous, mischievous:

  "One night a devil come to me on blue fire out of a big red flower thatgrows in the south swamp; he was tall and big and strong as anything,and when he spoke the trees shook and the stars fell. Even mammy wasafeared; and it takes a lot to make mammy afeared, 'cause she's a witchand can conjure. He said, 'I'll come when you die--I'll come when youdie, and take the conjure off you,' and then he went away on a bigfire."

  "Shucks!" the boy would say, trying to express scornful disbelief when,in truth, he was awed and doubtful. Always he would glance involuntarilyback along the path behind him. Then her low birdlike laughter wouldrise and ring through the trees.

  So passed a year, and there came the time when her wayward teasing andthe almost painful thrill of her tale-telling nettled him and drove himaway. For long months he did not meet her, until one day he saw her deepeyes fixed longingly upon him from a thicket in the swamp. He went andgreeted her. But she said no word, sitting nested among the greenwoodwith passionate, proud silence, until he had sued long for peace; thenin sudden new friendship she had taken his hand and led him through theswamp, showing him all the beauty of her swamp-world--great shadowy oaksand limpid pools, lone, naked trees and sweet flowers; the whisperingand flitting of wild things, and the winging of furtive birds. She haddropped the impish mischief of her way, and up from beneath it rose awistful, visionary tenderness; a mighty half-confessed, half-concealed,striving for unknown things. He seemed to have found a new friend.

  And today, after he had taken Miss Taylor home and supped, he came outin the twilight under the new moon and whistled the tremulous note thatalways brought her.

  "Why did you speak so to Miss Taylor?" he asked, reproachfully. Sheconsidered the matter a moment.

  "You don't understand," she said. "You can't never understand. I can seeright through people. You can't. You never had a witch for a mammy--didyou?"

  "No."

  "Well, then, you see I have to take care of you and see things for you."

  "Zora," he said thoughtfully, "you must learn to read."

  "What for?"

  "So that you can read books and know lots of things."

  "Don't white folks make books?"

  "Yes--most of the books."

  "Pooh! I knows more than they do now--a heap more."

  "In some ways you do; but they know things that give them power andwealth and make them rule."

  "No, no. They don't really rule; they just thinks they rule. They justgot things--heavy, dead things. We black folks is got the _spirit_.We'se lighter and cunninger; we fly right through them; we go and comeagain just as we wants to. Black folks is wonderful."

  He did not understand what she meant; but he knew what he wanted and hetried again.

  "Even if white folks don't know everything they know different thingsfrom us, and we ought to know what they know."

  This appealed to her somewhat.

  "I don't believe they know much," she concluded; "but I'll learn to readand just see."

  "It will be hard work," he warned. But he had come prepared foracquiescence. He took a primer from his pocket and, lighting a match,showed her the alphabet.

  "Learn those," he said.

  "What for?" she asked, looking at the letters disdainfully.

  "Because that's the way," he said, as the light flared and went out.

  "I don't believe it," she disputed, disappearing in the wood andreturning with a pine-knot. They lighted it and its smoky flame threwwavering shadows about. She turned the leaves till she came to a picturewhich she studied intently.

  "Is this about this?" she asked, pointing alternately to reading andpicture.

  "Yes. And if you learn--"

  "Read it," she commanded. He read the page.

  "Again," she said, making him point out each word. Then she read itafter him, accurately, with more perfect expression. He stared at her.She took the book, and with a nod was gone.

  It was Saturday and dark. She never asked Bles to her home--to thatmysterious black cabin in mid-swamp. He thought her ashamed of it, anddelicately refrained from going. So tonight she slipped away, stoppedand listened till she heard his footsteps on the pike, and then flewhomeward. Presently the old black cabin loomed before her with its wideflapping door. The old woman was bending over the fire, stirring somesavory mess, and a yellow girl with a white baby on one arm was placingdishes on a rickety wooden table when Zora suddenly and noiselesslyentered the door.

  "Come, is you? I 'lowed victuals would fetch you," grumbled the hag.

  But Zora deigned no answer. She walked placidly to the table, where shetook up a handful of cold corn-bread and meat, and then went over andcurled up by the fire.

  Elspeth and the girl talked and laughed coarsely, and the night woreon.

  By and by loud laughter and tramping came from the road--a sound ofnumerous footsteps. Zora listened, leapt to her feet and started to thedoor. The old crone threw an epithet after her; but she flashed throughthe lighted doorway and was gone, followed by the oath and shouts fromthe approaching men. In the hut night fled with wild song and revel, andday dawned again. Out from some fastness of the wood crept Zora. Shestopped and bathed in a pool, and combed her close-clung hair, thenentered silently to breakfast.

  Thus began in the dark swamp that primal battle with the Word. She hatedit and despised it, but her pride was in arms and her one great lifefriendship in the balance. She fought her way with a dogged persistencethat brought word after word of praise and interest from Bles. Then,once well begun, her busy, eager mind flew with a rapidity thatstartled; the stories especially she devoured--tales of strange thingsand countries and men gripped her imagination and clung to her memory.

  "Didn't I tell you there was lots to learn?" he asked once.

  "I knew it all," she retorted; "every bit. I'se thought it all before;only the little things is different--and I like the little, strangethings."

  Spring ripened to summer. She was reading well and writing some.

  "Zora," he announced one morning under their forest oak, "you must go toschool."

  She eyed him, surprised.

  "Why?"

  "You've found some things worth knowing in this world, haven't you,Zora?"

  "Yes," she admitted.

  "But there are more--many, many more--worlds on worlds of things--youhave not dreamed of."

  She stared at him, open-eyed, and a wonder crept upon her face battlingwith the old assurance. Then she looked down at her bare brown feet andtorn gown.

  "I've got a little money, Zora," he said quickly.


  But she lifted her head.

  "I'll earn mine," she said.

  "How?" he asked doubtfully.

  "I'll pick cotton."

  "Can you?"

  "Course I can."

  "It's hard work."

  She hesitated.

  "I don't like to work," she mused. "You see, mammy's pappy was a king'sson, and kings don't work. I don't work; mostly I dreams. But I canwork, and I will--for the wonder things--and for you."

  So the summer yellowed and silvered into fall. All the vacation daysBles worked on the farm, and Zora read and dreamed and studied in thewood, until the land lay white with harvest. Then, without warning, sheappeared in the cotton-field beside Bles, and picked.

  It was hot, sore work. The sun blazed; her bent and untrained backpained, and the soft little hands bled. But no complaint passed herlips; her hands never wavered, and her eyes met his steadily andgravely. She bade him good-night, cheerily, and then stole away to thewood, crouching beneath the great oak, and biting back the groans thattrembled on her lips. Often, she fell supperless to sleep, with twogreat tears creeping down her tired cheeks.

  When school-time came there was not yet money enough, for cotton-pickingwas not far advanced. Yet Zora would take no money from Bles, and workedearnestly away.

  Meantime there occurred to the boy the momentous question of clothes.Had Zora thought of them? He feared not. She knew little of clothes andcared less. So one day in town he dropped into Caldwell's "Emporium"and glanced hesitantly at certain ready-made dresses. One caught hiseye. It came from the great Easterly mills in New England and was red--avivid red. The glowing warmth of this cloth of cotton caught the eye ofBles, and he bought the gown for a dollar and a half.

  He carried it to Zora in the wood, and unrolled it before her eyes thatdanced with glad tears. Of course, it was long and wide; but he fetchedneedle and thread and scissors, too. It was a full month after schoolhad begun when they, together back in the swamp, shadowed by thefoliage, began to fashion the wonderful garment. At the same time shelaid ten dollars of her first hard-earned money in his hands.

  "You can finish the first year with this money," Bles assured her,delighted, "and then next year you must come in to board; because, yousee, when you're educated you won't want to live in the swamp."

  "I wants to live here always."

  "But not at Elspeth's."

  "No-o--not there, not there." And a troubled questioning trembled in hereyes, but brought no answering thought in his, for he was busy with hisplans.

  "Then, you see, Zora, if you stay here you'll need a new house, andyou'll want to learn how to make it beautiful."

  "Yes, a beautiful, great castle here in the swamp," she dreamed; "but,"and her face fell, "I can't get money enough to board in; and I don'twant to board in--I wants to be free."

  He looked at her, curled down so earnestly at her puzzling task, and apity for the more than motherless child swept over him. He bent overher, nervously, eagerly, and she laid down her sewing and sat silent andpassive with dark, burning eyes.

  "Zora," he said, "I want you to do all this--for me."

  "I will, if you wants me to," she said quietly, but with something inher voice that made him look half startled into her beautiful eyes andfeel a queer flushing in his face. He stretched his hand out and takinghers held it lightly till she quivered and drew away, bending againover her sewing.

  Then a nameless exaltation rose within his heart.

  "Zora," he whispered, "I've got a plan."

  "What is it?" she asked, still with bowed head.

  "Listen, till I tell you of the Golden Fleece."

  Then she too heard the story of Jason. Breathless she listened, droppingher sewing and leaning forward, eager-eyed. Then her face clouded.

  "Do you s'pose mammy's the witch?" she asked dubiously.

  "No; she wouldn't give her own flesh and blood to help the thievingJason."

  She looked at him searchingly.

  "Yes, she would, too," affirmed the girl, and then she paused, stillintently watching him. She was troubled, and again a question eagerlyhovered on her lips. But he continued:

  "Then we must escape her," he said gayly. "See! yonder lies the SilverFleece spread across the brown back of the world; let's get a bit of it,and hide it here in the swamp, and comb it, and tend it, and make it thebeautifullest bit of all. Then we can sell it, and send you to school."

  She sat silently bent forward, turning the picture in her mind. Suddenlyforgetting her trouble, she bubbled with laughter, and leaping upclapped her hands.

  "And I knows just the place!" she cried eagerly, looking at him with aflash of the old teasing mischief--"down in the heart of theswamp--where dreams and devils lives."

  * * * * *

  Up at the school-house Miss Taylor was musing. She had been invited tospend the summer with Mrs. Grey at Lake George, and such asummer!--silken clothes and dainty food, motoring and golf, well-groomedmen and elegant women. She would not have put it in just that way, butthe vision came very close to spelling heaven to her mind. Not that shewould come to it vacant-minded, but rather as a trained woman, starvedfor companionship and wanting something of the beauty and ease of life.She sat dreaming of it here with rows of dark faces before her, and thesingsong wail of a little black reader with his head aslant and hispatched kneepants.

  The day was warm and languorous, and the last pale mist of the SilverFleece peeped in at the windows. She tried to follow the third-readerlesson with her finger, but persistently off she went, dreaming, to someexquisite little parlor with its green and gold, the clink of daintychina and hum of low voices, and the blue lake in the window; she wouldglance up, the door would open softly and--

  Just here she did glance up, and all the school glanced with her. Thedrone of the reader hushed. The door opened softly, and upon thethreshold stood Zora. Her small feet and slender ankles were black andbare; her dark, round, and broad-browed head and strangely beautifulface were poised almost defiantly, crowned with a misty mass of wavelesshair, and lit by the velvet radiance of two wonderful eyes. And hangingfrom shoulder to ankle, in formless, clinging folds, blazed the scarletgown.