§ 4
In the night just before daybreak suddenly Sargon woke up and understood. He understood quite clearly what the young man had been saying to him. He had said “Rescue!” Of course he had meant to say “Escape”! That city in Central Asia was only a parable; he had said as much. He had been describing a corner of the asylum grounds, that corner where the stream ran out beyond the work-fields and the shrubbery where the patients were supposed not to go. He had been telling of friends who would wait outside. He had been trying to arrange an hour when these friends would come there. And Sargon had failed to understand. He sat up in bed very still.
It was perfectly clear, but through a sort of dulness that came upon him at times he had not grasped the drift of it at the time. The young man had shown irritation, naturally enough. What would he do now? Would he try again? Were the friends still waiting?
Who was this young man? His name was unknown or forgotten. But he believed. He had said, “I call you by no other name.” Sargon! And there were these friends he spoke of, who waited outside for the king. They must know. How could they know, if there was nothing to be known? After all, perhaps it was no dream. Perhaps the world was awakening.... But he had failed them. He had not understood.... They waited without....
How still everything was! A strange unusual stillness. It was rare for this place to be so bereft of noise. It was dark and yet not altogether dark. The ward was dimly lit by a blue-shaded light. The three nearer beds were unoccupied, and beyond the man who tossed and muttered almost incessantly lay for a little while at peace. The man who raved had died three days ago; the man who gave sudden loud shouts had been taken away to another ward. Through the open door one could see across the landing into the little yellow-lit room, where Brand the ward attendant sat with his arms crossed and chin on his chest and slept, his patience cards spread out before him. He seemed to be alone and yet he could sleep like that! Where could the other man be—the new attendant whose name Sargon did not know? And yet he felt—some one had just gone out!
The uncurtained windows showed the night outside, a darkness that became translucent, a streak of very black cloud and five pale stars. Across the lower edge of that oblong picture one could see indistinctly a tracery of tree branches and the lumpish head of a young oak still bearing its leaves, the trees along the first hedge. These outlines grew distincter as he watched. It was like the slow development of a photographic plate in the dark-room. The stars dissolved. Had there been five? There were three; the other two had dissolved into the pale invading light.
Dared one venture on to the landing? If Brand awoke he could make some natural excuse. He stood well with Brand. But the other fellow——?
There was not a trace of him. Where had he gone?...
Do it now!—wisest of maxims.
Very swiftly Sargon slipped out of bed and put on his dressing-gown and slippers. Hush! What was that?... Only some one snoring. Nothing more. He went out and stood on the landing. Brand slept on like a log.
The stone staircase was lit and empty and from the open door to the left downstairs came the harsh breathing of a sleeper. All the world seemed asleep for once, except Sargon and those friendly watchers outside the walls. Far away there were sounds of bawling and raving, but these were stifled by distance and an intervening door. They merely made the nearer silence more perceptible.
Something stirred, a little clicking sound that sent Sargon’s heart racing. Then a resonant blow. A second blow. It was nothing; it was the clock downstairs striking six.
Very quietly but very resolutely he walked downstairs. An intuition, an instinct impelled him. He felt and peered at the door and behold! it was ajar! Unbolted! Unlocked! Brand’s colleague was abroad upon some errand of his own. The cold air of freedom blew upon Sargon’s face.
The door opened and closed softly and Sargon stood upon the doorstep of the left wing of the asylum, facing the dim world of a November dawn.
It was dark but it was clear, a world of ebony outlines and colourless forms. Everything looked as if it had just been wiped over with a wet rag. It was cold, but it was cold without any of the hate and bitterness of wind.
He crossed the gravel drive and came to a stop and stood looking about him. The heavy building of the left wing rose above him, a vast bulk that went up into the paler darkness of the sky. It receded in perspective and the central block beyond looked like the ghost of a house. Here and there were orange-lit windows and others fainter lit by some remote reflected light. In the lodge to the left of the gates there was also a light. For where there is madness there is never perfect sleep.
But the asylum was as near complete silence that morning as an asylum can ever be.
He looked and listened. Not a footfall. It would not do to be found here by that other attendant....
But the man was snugly away somewhere. No one would loiter here in this chill air.
What was it Sargon had to remember?
The friends and believers were waiting for him. They were waiting now. Where the river ran out of the city wall; that was to say where the little streamlet ran out of the grounds. That would be this way—to the left, where the fields dropped down-hill. He stepped on to the grass, for his feet made loud sounds on the gravel. The grass hissed crisply. It was heavy with white frost and his footmarks made black blots in the wet silvery grey.
He walked past and away from the ponderous dark mass of the asylum into the open, colder air of freedom. He unlatched and went through the small iron gate in the iron fencing that separated the trim grass plots of the front from the cabbage field. It complained a little on its hinge and he opened and closed it very carefully. He struck across the field. The path ran before him into a mist. It came out of the mist to his feet and vanished behind him. It was as if it went past him while he marked time. He could not remember whither the path ran, nor how it lay with regard to the corner he sought. But every moment things grew clearer.
Every moment things grew clearer. There had been something dark and brooding in the sky that hung over him and seemed to watch him. He had done his best to ignore the vague presence, because he was afraid of his own imagination. But suddenly he saw plainly that it was just the tops of trees showing above the mist. That must be the line of trees along the hedge parallel to the asylum front. He must go through these if he wanted to go down-hill. He left the path and made his way slowly along a frozen ridge of dug earth. He skirted long rows of stalky cabbages, black and shrivelled and unkempt they looked like Cossack sentinels afoot. They all leant towards him as though they listened to the sound of him.
As he drew near the hedge and the trees he heard a sound like the feet of an army of midgets. It was the drip, drip of moisture from the trees.
Far away behind him and quite invisible to him a motor car scurried along the high-road.
He had some difficulty in finding a way through the hedge and a bramble scratched his ankle. He told himself there was no hurry; the friends waited. Beyond the hedge the ground went down-hill and the mist grew whiter and thicker. The daylight was strong enough now to show the mist dead-white. It veiled the stream altogether.
He walked slowly. He had no sense of being pursued. Brand would not go into the ward for an hour yet; he might not miss him for a long time....
What a wonderful thing, thought Sargon, is daybreak, and how little one sees of it! Every day begins with this miraculous drama and we sleep through it as though it did not concern us and rouse ourselves only for the trite day. A little while ago the world had been an inky monochrome and now it was touched with colour. The sky was blue. All the stars had gone—but no! not all. One still shone, a large pale star, the star of Sargon. And the sky about it was flushed with a faint increasing pinkiness. That must be the east and that star must be the morning star, hanging above the outhouse chimneys. Those chimneys were very distinct. The butt end of the asylum which had been a black and shapeless monster a little while ago, had now become a dark purple shape outlined with an exquisite clearness, eaves and ridges and chimneys and creasings and window-frames. Four windows shone a fading orange and two of them suddenly blinked and vanished.
Would anyone look out of a window there and see him?
It did not matter. He would go on down towards the stream. This friendly mist would hide him.
It was wonderful to be in this white mist and yet not in it. It was always a little way from him. And nevertheless it wetted him. How crisp the frosted ground was, but if one kicked through the surface, it was soft.
Overhead the blueness increased and there was now a rippled patch of pink cloud.
He went deeper and deeper into the soft mist. Presently he was walking on long wet shrivelled grass. When he turned presently to look back at the asylum it had altogether disappeared.
What was that? Was it something talking or was it the beating heart of some busy elfin machine? Listen! Peer! Think!
It was the stream.
Now everything was plain and easy.
He walked beside the stream. Near at hand trees became visible, attendant trees with mist about their waists, white-clad sentinel trees. The dry grass was ranker here. And what was this, like a denser lower mist within the mist? This was the wall. Beyond that wall, almost within shouting distance now, the friends and believers would be waiting. How discreet they were! Not a murmur, not a footfall.
For a long time Sargon stood motionless beside the culvert beneath the wall. At last he roused himself and by a great effort and with the help of the ivy he scrambled to the top of the wall.
No one waited. Some dim four-footed thing bolted from the frost-bitten weeds below, and then there was silence. There was no sign of watchers nor helpers.
No matter. If it was God’s will they would come.
He sat very still. He did not feel deserted nor alone. He was not in the least dismayed. He felt that the Power who had called him into being was all about him.
Slowly, steadily the light grew brighter. A little cloud like a floating feather caught fire very suddenly and then another. A great beam of light, like the beam of a searchlight, only very much broader, appeared slanting to the north. Then above a whaleback of distant downland came a knife-edge of dazzling light, an effulgence, like a curved knife, like a cap, like a dome, a quivering blazing fire-birth. And then torn clear of the hill and round and red the November sun had risen.