The Octopus : A Story of California

uth, the other the east. Its appointments were of the simplest. In one angle was the small white painted iron bed, covered with a white counterp

r covering, such as might have been used in a kitchen. It was Presley's work table, and was invariably littered with papers, half-finished manuscripts, drafts of poems, notebooks, pens, half-smoked cigarettes, and the like. Near at hand, upon a shelf, were his books. There were but two chairs in the room-the straight backed wooden chair, that stood in front of the table, angular, upright, and in which it was impossible to take one's ease, and the long com

ll the abortive attempts at its beginning. Also he had torn up a great quantity of "fugitive" verses, preserving only a certain half-finished poem, that he called "The Toilers.

white and trembling, roused to a pitch of exaltation, the like of which he had never known in all his life. His wrath was little short of even Caraher's. He too "saw red"; a mighty spirit of revolt heaved tumultuou

or a time, his pen seemed to travel of itself; words came to him without searching, shaping themselves into phrases,-the phrases building themselves up to great, forcible sentences, full of eloquence, of fire, of passion. As hi

so long had sought in vain-abruptly springing to his brain, wrote it off without so much as replenishing his pen with ink. He added still another verse, brin

ainty that for one moment he had touched untrod heights. His hands we

it, his convictions had not been aroused; he had not then cared for the People. His sympathies had not been touched. Small wonder that he had missed it. Now he

it. He went over it again, retouching it carefully, changing a word here and there, and improving its rhythm. For the moment,

ass a little the bounds of the ridiculous? Had he seen true? Had he failed a

profoundly his own judgment. He must have the opinion of some one else, some one competent to judge. H

and laced boots, went down stairs and out upon the lawn, crossing ov

to-day?" he asked the latter.

ht be a hundred miles away from either place. I know where he ought to be, Mr. Presley, but that ain't saying

ed Presley. "If you see Harran when he comes in

d the saddle upon him, and went off over the

Minna, and if in the end she would marry the Portuguese foreman in charge of the ditching-gang. He told himself that he hoped she would, and that speedily. There was no lack of comment as to Minna Hooven about the ranches. Certainly she was a good girl, but she w

steadily lifted and increased in size as he proceeded. This higher ground was the advance guard of the Sierra foothills, and served as the stock range for Los Muertos. The hills were huge rolling hummocks of bare ground, covered only by wild oats. At long intervals, were isolated live oaks. In the canyons and arroyos, the chaparral and manzanita grew in dark olive-green thic

s nuzzling at their mothers' bellies, whisking their tails, stamping their unshod feet. But once in a remoter field, solitary, magnificent, enormous, the short hair curling tight upon his f

d near at hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of dead manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon. Never had Presley conceived so keen an impression of loneliness as his crouching figu

sted them on a sharpened stick. After eating, they drank great refreshing draughts from the wate

have been wr

etic face toward him, his b

e said, "yo

mber, I told you about it onc

you have gone back to it.

em?" asked Presley.

omise in it than anything you ever wrote

The stillness of the vast, bare hills was profound. The sun was setting in a cloudless brazier of red light; a go

he demanded. Presley, wondering, to

urs, you have not been trying to make a sounding piece of literature. You wrote it under tremendous stress. Its very imperfections show that. It is better than

resley fervidly. "I had

h it into print. To have formulated a great thou

rs. You said yourself it was a Message. If it has any value, I do not think it w

would only be indirectly interested. If you must publish it, let it be in the daily press. Don't interrupt. I know what you will say. It will be that the daily press is common, is vulgar, is undignified; and I tell you

rid of the idea that it would be throwing my poem away. The gr

AGE, that must prevail,-not YOU, who wrote it. You preach a doctrine of abnegation, of self-obliteration, and you sign your name to your words as high on the tablets as you can reach, so that all the world may see, not the poem, but the poet. Presley, t

would hear

it to you, I will publish my poem, as you say, in t

upied. More than ever of late, his silence, his brooding had increased. By and by he rose abruptly, turning his head t

to at this t

ight. Presley was left alone wondering. He found his horse, and, tightening the girths, mounted and rode home under the sheen of the stars,

e silent town of Guadalajara. His lean, swarthy face, with its hollow cheeks, fine, black, pointed beard, and sad eyes, was set to the northward. As was his custom

n his shoulders. It was scourging him back to that scene of a vanished happiness, a dea

rer, the terror had at long intervals given place to a feeling of an almost ineffable sweetness. But distrusting his own senses, unwilling to submit himself to such torturing, uncertain happiness, averse to the terrible confusion of spirit that followed upon a night spent in the garden, Vanamee had tried to keep away from the place. However, when the

s and open country, and a distant scent of flowers that he knew well, came to his nostrils, as he emerged from the town by way of the road that led on towards the Mission through Quien Sabe.

udibly, as it turned in a languid breeze from the northeast. A cat, hunting field-mice, crept from the shadow of the gigantic barn and paused uncertainly in the open, the tip

The minutes passed. He went steadily forward. Then abruptly he paused, his head in the air, eye and ear alert. To that strange sixth sense of his, responsive as the leaves of the sensitive plant, had suddenly com

t-ridden land. It was at some distance from the roadside. Vanamee approached it cautiously, leaving

He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. H

n Vanamee came upon him, the turmoil within him had only begun. The heart of the man had not yet wakened. The night was young, the daw

lence of the night under the stars. Then silently Vanamee withdrew, going on his way, wondering at the trouble that, li

onrise. Earthly things dissolved and disappeared, as a strange, unnamed essence flowed in upon him. A new atmosphere for him pervaded his surroundi

here swung the Spanish queen's bells, he saw the slow-burning stars. The silent bats, with

the warm, worn pavement of the colonnade disturbed the infinite repose, the profound stillness. Only within the garden, the intermittent trickling of the fountain made itself heard, flowing steadily, marking off the lapse of seconds, the progress of hours, the cycle of years, the inevitable march of centuries. At one time,

on was a whorl of shimmering star dust. Venus flamed a lambent disk of pale saffron, low over the horizon. From edge to edge of the world marched the constellations, like the prog

reflected light as the trees just stirred in the uncertain breeze. A blurred shield of silver marked the ripples of the fountain. Under the flood of dull blue lustre, the gravelled walks

r trees, and laid himself down in their shadow, his chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering over the

n Answer of the night. Once again, mystic that he was, he sent his mind out from him across the enchanted sea of the Supernatural. Hope, of what he di

, he called upon Angele to come to him, his voiceless cry penetrating far out into that sea of faint, ephemeral

ht he was there, surrendering himself to the influences of the place, gradually convinced that something did actually answer when he called. His faith increased as the winter grew into spring. As the spring advanced and the nights became shorter, it crystallised into certainty. Would he have her again, his love, long dead? Would she come to him once more out of the grave, out of the night? He could not tell; he could

this time drew it a single step closer to him. His heart beating, the blood surging in his temples, he watched with the eyes of his imagination, this gradual approach. What was coming to him? Who was co

e had not waited in vain. Then, as now, he had seemed to feel her approach, seemed to feel her drawing nearer and nearer to their rendezvous. Now, what would

th of vines and bushes spread like the waves of a green sea. Then, timidly, colours of the faintest tints began to appear. Under the moonlight, Vanamee saw them ex

then as the buds opened, emphasising itself, breathing deeper, stronger. An exquisite mingling of many odours passed continually

came warmer, the illusion defined itself. By imperceptible degrees, as Vanamee waited under the shadows of the pear trees, the Answer grew nearer and nearer. He saw nothing but the distan

eds of white iris that pushed more boldly forth from the earth, their waxen petals claiming the attention. It advanced then a long step into the proud, challenging beauty of the carnations and roses; and at last, after many nights, Vanamee felt that it paused, as if trembling at its hardihood, full in the superb glory of the royal lilies themselves, that grew on the extreme border of

ll the earth. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew rapidly. Bud after bud burst forth, whi

ded, leaving in its wake an absolute silence. Then, at length, the silence of the night, that silence to which Vanamee had so long appealed, was broken by a tiny sound. Alert, half-risen from the ground, he listened; for now, at length, he heard something. The sound repeated itself. It came from near at hand, from the thick shadow at the foot of the hill. What it was, he

warmth increased. The flowers of the Seed ranch grew still mo

of resplendent colour. Then, at length, the moon abruptly soared zenithward from out the veiling mist, passing from one filmy haze to another. For a moment there was a gleam of a golden light, and Vanamee, his eyes searching the shade at the foot of the hill, felt his heart suddenly leap, and then hang poised, refusing to beat. In that instant of passing light, something had caught his eye. Something that moved, down there, half in and half out of the shadow, at the hill's foot. It had come and gone in an instant. The haze once more screened the moonlight. The shade again engulfed the vision. What was it he had seen? He did not kno

to that strange sixth sense of his, appealed only to the most refined, the most delicate perception of eye and ear. It was all ephemeral, filmy, dreamy, the mystic forming of the Vision-the in

only by a rippling fountain, the darkness illuminated by a world of radiant blossoms, Vanamee could not forget the tragedy of the Other; that terror of many years ago,-that prowler of th

Presley on the stock range of Los Muertos, he had come ac

Annixter out-watched the star

noring each other, waited for the Manifestation

across the multi-coloured levels of the little valley, calling upon the miracle, summoning the darkness to give Angele back to him, resigning himself to the hallucination. He bowed his head upon

. Far off there, the ripple formed again upon the still, black pool of the night. No sound, no sight; vibration merely, appreci

ilies. It was advancing slowly, but there was no pause. He held his breath, not daring to raise his head. It passed beyond the limits of the Seed ranch, and entered the shade at the foot of the hill below him. Would it come farther than this? Here it had always stopped hitherto, stopped for a moment, and then, in spite of his efforts, had s

caress. The infinite repose of the little garden, sleeping under the night, was delicious beyond expression.

s thick with the perfume, heavy with it, clogged with it. The sweetness filled the very mouth. The throat choked with it. Overhead wheeled the illimitable procession of the constellations. Underfoot, the e

ural, felt, as it were, his mind begin to rise upward from out his body. He passed into a state of being the like of which he had not known before. He felt that his imagination was reshaping i

me," he

the hill itself. Slowly, steadily, it ascended the slope; just below him there, he heard a faint stirring. The grasses rustled under the touch of a foot. The leaves of the bushes murmured

the disk of the moon, stood the figure of a young girl. She was dressed in a gown of scarlet silk, with flowing sleeves, such as Japanese wear, embroidered with flowers and figures of birds worked in gold threads. On either side of her face, making three-cornered her round, white forehead, h

rnations in her lips, the whiteness of the lilies, the perfume of the lilies, and the lilies' slender, balancing grace in her neck. Her hands disengaged the scent of the heliotrope. The folds of her scarlet gown gave off the enervating smell of poppies. Her feet were redolent of hyacinth. She stood bef

rrestrial dishonour. He saw in her the same beauty of untainted innocence he had known in his youth. Years had made no difference with her. She was still young. It was the old purity that returned, the deathless beauty, the ever-renascent life, the eternal con

it were, to himself, looking wi

Angele, the little girl, your Angele

ngele's daughter, it was all one with him. It was She. Death was overcome. The grave vanquished. Life, ever-renewed,

re. The dawn grew brighter. At length, he paused upon the crest of a hill overlooking the ranchos, and

the earth; rising again in life unconquerable, and in immaculate purity,-Angele dying as she gave birth to her little daughter, life springing from her death,-the pure, unconquerable, coming forth from the defiled. Why had he not had the knowledge of God? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. So the seed had died. So died Angele. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grai

lory of sun banished the lesser glory of moon and stars, Vanamee, from his mountain top, beholding the eternal green life of the g

thy sting? Oh, Grave,