The Dream

3

3It rained hard all through the night and until nearly midday, and then the weather cleared. In the afternoon the little party pushed on up the valley towards the mountains they designed to climb, but they went at a leisurely pace, giving a day and a half to what was properly only one day’s easy walking. The rain had refreshed everything in the upper valley and called out a great multitude of flowers.

The next day was golden and serene.

In the early afternoon they came to a plateau and meadows of asphodel, and there they sat down to eat the provisions they had brought with them. They were only two hours’ climb from the mountain-house in which they were to pass the night, and there was no need to press on. Sarnac was lazy; he confessed to a desire for sleep; in the night he had been feverish and disturbed by dreams of men entombed in tunnels and killed by poison-gas. The others were amused that anyone should want to sleep in the daylight, but Sunray said she would watch over him. She found a place for him on the sward, and Sarnac laid down beside her and went to sleep with his cheek against her side as suddenly and trustfully as a child goes to sleep. She sat up—as a child’s nurse might do—enjoining silence on the others by gestures.

“After this he will be well again,” laughed Radiant, and he and Firefly stole off in one direction, while Willow and Starlight went off in another to climb a rocky headland near at hand, from which they thought they might get a very wide and perhaps a very beautiful view of the lakes below.

For some time Sarnac lay quite still in his sleep and then he began to twitch and stir. Sunray bent down attentively with her warm face close to his. He was quiet again for a time and then he moved and muttered, but she could not distinguish any words. Then he rolled away from her and threw his arms about and said, “I can’t stand it. I can’t endure it. Nothing can alter it now. You’re unclean and spoilt.” She took him gently and drew him into a comfortable attitude again, just as a nurse might do. “Dear,” he whispered, and in his sleep reached out for her hand...

When the others came back he had just awakened.

He was sitting up with a sleepy expression and Sunray was kneeling beside him with her hand on his shoulder. “Wake up!” she said.

He looked at her as if he did not know her and then with puzzled eyes at Radiant. “Then there is another life!” he said at last.

“Sarnac!” cried Sunray, shaking him. “Don’t you know me?”

He passed a hand over his face, “Yes,” he said slowly. “Your name is Sunray. I seem to remember. Sunray...Not Hetty—No. Though you are very like Hetty. Queer! And mine—mine is Sarnac.

“Of course! I am Sarnac.” He laughed at Willow. “But I thought I was Harry Mortimer Smith,” he said. “I did indeed. A moment ago I was Henry Mortimer Smith...Henry Mortimer Smith.”

He looked about him. “Mountains,” he said, “sunshine, white narcissus. Of course, we walked up here this very morning. Sunray splashed me at a waterfall...I remember it perfectly...And yet I was in bed—shot. I was in bed...A dream?...Then I have had a dream, a whole lifetime, two thousand years ago!”

“What do you mean?” said Sunray.

“A lifetime—childhood, boyhood, manhood. And death. He killed me. Poor rat!—he killed me!”

“A dream?”

“A dream—but a very vivid dream. The realest of dreams. If it was a dream...I can answer all your questions now, Sunray. I have lived through a whole life in that Old world. I know...

“It is as though that life was still the real one and this only a dream...I was in a bed. Five minutes ago I was in bed. I was dying...The doctor said, ‘He is going.’ And I heard the rustle of my wife coming across the room...”

“Your wife!” cried Sunray.

“Yes—my wife—Milly.”

Sunray looked at Willow with raised eyebrows and a helpless expression.

Sarnac stared at her, dreamily puzzled. “Milly,” he repeated very faintly. “She was by the window.”

For some moments no one spoke.

Radiant stood with his arm on Firefly’s shoulder.

“Tell us about it, Sarnac. Was it hard to die?”

“I seemed to sink down and down into quiet—and then I woke up here.”

“Tell us now, while it is still so real to you.”

“Have we not planned to reach the mountain-house before nightfall?” said Willow, glancing at the sun. “There is a little guest-house here, within five minutes’ walk of us,” said Firefly.

Radiant sat down beside Sarnac. “Tell us your dream now. If it fades out presently or if it is uninteresting, we can go on; but if it is entertaining, we can hear it out and sleep down here to-night. It is a very pleasant place here, and there is a loveliness about those mauve-coloured crags across the gorge, a faint mistiness in their folds, that I could go on looking at for a week without impatience. Tell us your dream, Sarnac.”

He shook his friend. “Wake up, Sarnac!”

Sarnac rubbed his eyes. “It is so queer a story. And there will be so much to explain.”

He took thought for a while.

“It will be a long story.”

“Naturally, if it is a whole life.”

“First let me get some cream and fruit from the guest-house for us all,” said Firefly, “and then let Sarnac tell us his dream. Five minutes, Sarnac, and I will be back here.”

“I will come with you,” said Radiant, hurrying after her.

This that follows is the story Sarnac told.

II. — THE BEGINNING OF THE DREAM