The Little Satyr

WHEN the loud uproar had died into silence, Onites wakened from the stupor into which he had fallen, and raised himself on his elbow. At first he was aware of nothing save the empty amphitheatre ringed by blue sky, against which the long grass of the encircling hill lay softly green, and he marveled. Had he fought the beasts and won to death, and was this the quiet of paradise ? Something dripped from the hair overhanging his eyes; he lifted a trembling hand and found it blood. Then the pungent sweetness of broken lilies smote him; he saw the wreaths of flowers with which he had been decked, and remembered. But where were the shouting people, tier upon tier, who had cried out in glee to see him fight the beasts, leopard and tiger, led hither chained, as he had been ? Dimly, through the pain of his wounds, came back the memory of the leopard’s attack, but of the tiger’s fierce onset and the leopard’s retreat he knew nothing. Leaping from seat to seat of the irregular amphitheatre in swift chase, they had terrified the spectators into panic-stricken flight; and now, from far, could be heard the cries of men in pursuit, whom the escaping beasts were leading far away among the hills. He staggered slowly to his feet, the sunshine of the spring afternoon warm upon his face. No eye was watching, and he could go free.

He went free, with unsteady steps, following the breeze which met him at the entrance to the amphitheatre and invited him away. Below, to westward, lay the roofs of the river-bordered city to which the Roman soldiers had brought him yesterday, — Misetum, he had heard them say, two days’ march from home. The blood within him quickened as he felt the cool grass beneath his feet, and turned eastward away from the city and from men. There lay soft-wooded hills; in their gracious hollows he could perhaps find healing for his wounds.

As he threaded his way among the trees, not content with the first shelter but craving deeper shade, he thought he heard now and then the music of a rude flute, calling, calling, but it brought a sense of safety rather than alarm. The mercy of bodily hint hid from him the profounder misery of thought, and it was not until he had found a deep retreat of shadowed ilex trees, through whose roots a stream trickled among the pale green ferns, that memory came back to him. Tertius and Astia, his beloved friends, and Paulus their little child, slain before his eyes in the underground church where they had been safe so long! And he, because he had fought so fiercely with a sword wrested from one of the soldiers, had been saved for cruel combat in the arena. “ If he likes so to fight, let him fight the beasts,” they had said as they bound his hands and carried him away. Tertius and Astia and little Paulus, — would any come to give them burial ? Making over their remembered faces the sign of the cross, he lost consciousness again, his head resting on wet fern, that wild-wood music the last sound in his ears.

Of the coming of starlight over the vast wood he knew nothing, for he passed into a deep sleep, but in the darkness he was wakened by a rough tongue touching his face, and, putting out a groping hand, he found a shaggy, friendly little head, and slept again. Later, he felt the grateful warmth of some small breathing creature against his side, and lay very still for the comfort of it. In the twilight of morning a motion startled the wild thing nestling beneath his arm, and its sudden flight left him with a sense as of the impact of tiny hoofs upon his shoulder. He heard quick breathing, though he could not see; then, in answer to his coaxing, “ Come, come, come,” with which he had been used to call old dog Regulus, — a martyr, too, slain by the soldiers, — he heard the wary, slow approach of cautious feet, and, as they came nearer, he found himself changing to the endearing words wherewith he had won little Paulus. Nearer and nearer, — he could see now, and the two studied each other in the growing light wherein the ferns were green again. It was with a thrill of surprise that Onites saw the thin child’s body set upon the hairy shanks of a little goat, and yet the elfish, pointed chin, and merry, sidelong eyes came to him as something known and loved long ago.

“ Come hither,” begged the man, from his bed of moss and fern ; but at the motion of his hand the baby satyr started back with frightened eyes. " Pretty, pretty, pretty,” coaxed Onites, in a voice that had won back some of the eloquence of those breathing creatures that knew no words. A little laugh was the response, a laugh that was half a bleat, as the small thing came nearer, its muscles more and more tense as if for swift flight. Endearing words drew it closer, until, with brightening, fearful eyes, it touched his outstretched palm with a horny little hand which seemed not yet wholly used to the ways of its own fingers. Caressingly the man stroked the soft throat and neck, with a suspicion of soft, hairy coat upon them, and the satyr-child smiled, an arch and pointed smile, then cuddled close again, its arms across his chest, its bare bosom upon his beating heart.

As the day waxed and waned, the small thing came and went, passing between the wounded man and a world of which he had not dreamed. Faint sounds of merriment stole to him through the forest silences. He heard far, joyous cries, and more than once caught the echo of rough, dancing feet, stepping to the music of the flute. The little creature brought him milk in a bit of wood, hollowed by sun and rain, and once it thrust into his hand a rude cake from which it had been nibbling. Seeing him eat this, it ran away and brought a branch of young and tender leaves, laughing with him as he laughed out on his bed of pain at the thought of browsing goat-wise. Relief came to him in watching the tiny, whimsical, humorous face, and in listening to the playful dashes, sideways, over the earth, and the swift gamboling back to his side. Why it returned, he was too weak to ask himself; perhaps a tenderer touch than it had ever, known won it back, making it hunger along unknown ways.

Onites found himself dreading the night, with the thought that his wild friend might not be at his side; but night brought the comfort of its breathing, close against his breast, and its outstretched throat lay for fuller comfort upon his arm. In the day that followed, and the next day, and the next, it gave him elfish service, bringing food enough of fruit and last year’s nuts to keep life within him. Walnut and chestnut it cracked with its own hard teeth, seeing his helplessness, and the sick man ate, dipping water from the stream in the hollow of his hand and drinking. The young thing laughed gleefully at this clumsy fashion, and with bent head and dainty, lapping tongue showed him the real way to drink. Sometimes he was alone for hours; then the leaves would suddenly break into motion and the little satyr would dart out, gamboling now on two legs, now on four, as if trying to win this new companion to its pranks. It was gayer than any child, yet terror lurked nearer its heart, — fear, not of the dark, but of light rustling sounds, which always brought its alert, listening head high in the air, every muscle tense for flight. Once, when by a swift leap it struck its head sharply against a tree-trunk and stood motionless, giving no cry, the dumb endurance of pain stirred the man’s heart to pity, and he strove, but unsuccessfully, to reach it with the comfort of his touch. In every aspect, whether swinging by its hands from some low tree-branch, and vainly trying with hard hind-hoofs to climb; or lying down, its throat stretched full along the ground in that complete rest of the happy animal, it charmed away his pain. The endless joy of its gamboling he shared through all his feverish unrest, and he marveled with increasing tenderness at this creature, neither child nor beast, but having the winsome ways of both. Was it more venturesome than its kinsfolk, that it had trudged away through the forest to find him, and was it guarding from the others the secret of his presence here ? It came to him with little appealing motions, rubbing its head against his arm, as if hungering for his touch; and as he caressed the small shaggy head, the mischievous eyes softened, but wondered still upon his face, as if finding there a prophecy for its own.

As Onites grew weaker, the fever lessened, perhaps because of the cool water trickling against his wounds, — and his mind grew clear. Watching, he was filled with envy of this small creature and his kin whose dancing in the forest spaces was so gay. To feel the soft air thus, untroubled by any hope, would be a life whose richness he had no power to fathom, and he longed, lying wounded in this cool shade, that it might be his, if but for a moment, before his farewell to shadow and sunlight. Had they gained, he and his fellows who chose the way of suffering, he asked himself, anything commensurate with what they had lost ?

Across the sickness in throat and hands, he seemed to share that thrill of dancing feet. Hunger and pain and shadowed days in their hidden places of prayer — had they won aught else in exchange for simple gladness foregone, — the whole of life it might be ? Through the joyous satyr-music, now drawing nearer and nearer, memory groped in vain for the reason why they had made this hard choice, he and his forefathers, from that day, long past, of which he had been often told, when one, beautiful of face, had stood upon a high green hill to tell of the great gain of loss. Through mystic symbol and the voice of prayer, and the music of hymns, the secret had come down to him, but his weakened consciousness groped for it in vain. What could it be that lay beyond the flickering shadows of the trees, the beckoning of the sunshine ? It was in dreaming on beloved faces, with their evidence of holy things, that the endless hope came back to him, Tertius and Astia and the others, whose very look was a call to immortal life; and remembered notes of their voices at evensong brought him assurance, high notes, admitting no retreat.

The satyr-child seemed half to divine the deeper suffering of this third day, and, before it danced away on wayward hoofs, bent above him with a rough kiss, which was but the drawing of a quick red tongue along his cheek.

Perhaps stung to restlessness by the look of the sick man’s face, full now of the certainty of the great change, it wandered farther than was its wont along a faint path that led out of the shadows of ilex and of beech into open spaces it had never seen. Its dainty whim beguiled it along the trickling of a brook, running between soft grassy banks, to a wide pasture land, where it ran up and down with a homesick cry, suddenly conscious of its distance from the others of its kind. For wonder of the unknown ways it went on, as was its wont, and, beyond a gentle rise of ground, came upon a herd of goats, nibbling the juicy grass in the morning sunshine. With a joyous bleat, as if recognizing its near kin, it slipped in among them, not disdaining the tender herbs which they were cropping, and giving itself up to jolly play with the kids. The sound of the flute took away its grieved sense of loneliness, and the shepherd, with sun-bleached hair and goatskin garments, brought the wild thing only a sense as of being with its own.

In mid-afternoon, answering the call of the flute, the flock started homeward, the alien slipping among them unnoticed. In a sheltered spot at some distance from the city visible to southward, the shepherd stopped and looked cautiously about, While the flock fell to nibbling the tender grass. Lifting the branches of a lowgrowing acacia tree, the lad disappeared from sight, the satyr-child following, down a passageway which was dark but which challenged him to enter. The small hoofs stepped timidly, yet with fresh sense of adventure, along the moist descending path, and the slanting eyes widened, half in fear, half in wonder, at the dimly lighted space below. Before the altar burned low lamps, each with a single flame; the bare walls were covered with symbols which the little satyr failed to notice. Pax Christi, the palm branch, the phœnix rising with fresh wings from the ashes, — of the deep significance these rude signs bore, the shaggy little head held no dream.

One by one, rough shepherd-folk crept to this strange service, a pet kid following the latest comer, to lie happily by his feet as he knelt, not dreaming its sad eminence as a symbol of the lost. The odd visitor from the forest escaped notice in the dusky corner where it had hidden, frightened by the stealthy footsteps. With eyes alive with curiosity it watched and listened, fascinated through the terror; then would have scampered away, when all were kneeling, save for the music, strange but sweet, and very soft lest it should betray this hiding-place to the spoiler. Yes, surely this was music, and yet it hurt! There was a wholly new feeling in the hairy throat, and the shining eyes were nearer than they had ever been before to human tears. It put one rough hand up to still the pain, — when the singing ceased, the last notes floating richly out upon the air.

One by one, the kneeling worshipers arose, and stole away; and in the silence, at last, the forest-thing knew it was alone. Dancing out, on expectant feet, snuffing the underground air with a sense that it was less desirable than that of the upper world, it caught sight upon the altar of a rough crucifix made of slender reeds, and joyously snatched it. Was not this the flute of its kin, though oddly fashioned ? Attempting to blow sweet music from this instrument, it emerged into the sunshine, trying first one and then another end of the broken reeds, puzzled that no one gave forth notes that would set feet a-dancing.

Something in the new toy fascinated the little creature, —the look of the cross, the firmness that resisted the efforts of horny hands to draw it apart. He clung to it, in the devious wandering toward the forest that was home; nibbled one end, and left marks of teeth there; and once threw the curious thing away, but went back and picked it up again.

Now it had crossed the pasture land and found the brook; now it was once more among familiar trees, gamboling along known paths. The forest was its own. It did not find its kinsfolk in their wonted haunts, but came upon them gathered round the sick man, one or two with a look of fear upon their faces, the others, laughing, dancing, leaping over one another’s backs. As the little satyr entered, they turned with soft bleats of welcome, but one, in jest, snatched at the toy in its hand. Angered, and perhaps more vexed that they had found out the secret, it struck out with one tiny hoof; none should bar the way when it was hastening to show this plaything to its new-found friend. With a bleating laugh it danced to its comrade’s side.

The gentle touch of the rough little body against his own recalled the dying man a moment from that far journey whereon his feet were already set, and the longing, which had almost faded into unconsciousness, for some assurance that his faith had not been vain, grew keen again. A gleam of light came into the gray face; in a moment’s swift return of life he raised himself upon the bed of moss, and his hand fell caressingly upon the head of the little satyr who was holding the crucifix high before the fading eyes. They brightened, before their light went out, as they rested upon the cross of reeds, against the background of hairy, laughing faces.

The rough creatures gathered there wondered at the shining face of the dying man, then danced away, in sudden terror, toward forest-spaces untroubled by the dead. The satyr-child did not follow. Half fearfully it looked at the man who had been its friend, lying now with the crucifix where it had fallen on his breast; then the little creature crept slowly away, not daring to stay near. Crouching down at the end of the path that led away to the hidden chapel, it looked piteously, now this way and then that, wondering, with all the laughter gone out of its merry eyes, what this new pain might mean.