My mind was certainly a mere field of confused, ungoverned images. No
thinking was possible, for it hurt too vilely. But this one memory
stood out with violence. I distinctly remember that I called to her
to come, and that she had the right to come because my need was so
peremptory. To the one most loved of all this life had brought me, yet
to whom I had never spoken because she was in another’s keeping, I
called for help, and called, I verily believe, aloud:
‘Please come!’ Then, close upon its heels, the automatic warning
again: ‘Keep close watch upon yourself...!’
It was as though one great yearning had loosed the other that was even
greater, and had set it free.
Disappearing consciousness then followed the cry for an incalculable
distance. Down into subterraneans within myself that were positively
frightening it plunged away. But the cry was real; the yearning appeal
held authority in it as of command. Love gave the right, supplied the
power as well. For it seemed to me a tiny answer came, but from so far
away that it was scarcely audible. And names were nowhere in it, either
in answer or appeal.
‘I am always here. I have never, never left you!’
* * * * *
The unconsciousness that followed was not complete, apparently.
There was a memory of effort in it, of struggle, and, as it were, of
searching. Some one was trying to get at me. I tossed in a troubled
sea upon a piece of wreckage that another swimmer also fought to
reach. Huge waves of transparent green now brought this figure nearer,
now concealed it, but it came steadily on, holding out a rope. My
exhaustion was too great for me to respond, yet this swimmer swept up
nearer, brought by enormous rollers that threatened to engulf us both.
The rope was for my safety, too. I saw hands outstretched. In the deep
water I saw the outline of the body, and once I even saw the face. But
for a second, merely. The wave that bore it crashed with a horrible
roar that smothered us both and swept me from my piece of wreckage. In
the violent flood of water the rope whipped against my feeble hands.
I grasped it. A sense of divine security at once came over me--an
intolerable sweetness of utter bliss and comfort, then blackness and
suffocation as of the grave. The white-hot point of iron struck me. It
beat audibly against my heart. I heard the knocking. The pain brought
me up to the surface, and the knocking of my dreams was in reality a
knocking on the door. Some one was gently tapping.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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