Chapter V: Book II (2)

“Yes,” said Aladdin, “and I’m badly hurt.”

The voice laughed.

“Hurt, are you?” it said.

“I think I’ve broken my leg,” said Aladdin. “Can you get some one to help me out of this?”

“Reckon you’re all right down there,” said the voice.

Aladdin revolved the brutality of it in his mind.

“Do you mean to say that you’re not going to help me?” he said.

“Help you? Why should I?”

Aladdin groaned, and could have killed himself for groaning.

“If you don’t help me,” he said, and his voice broke, for he was suffering tortures, “I’ll die before long.”

A perfectly cool and cruel “Well?” came back to him.

“You won’t help me?”

“No.”

Anger surged in his heart, but he spoke with measured sarcasm.

“Then,” he said, “will you at least do me the favor of getting from between me and God’s light? If I die, I may go to hell, but I prefer not to see devils this side of it, thank you.”

The girl went away, but presently came back. She lowered something to him on a string. “I got it out of one of your holsters,” she said.

Aladdin’s fingers closed on the butt of a revolver.

“It may save you a certain amount of hunger and pain,” she said. “When you are dead, we will give it to one of our men, and your horse too. He’s a beauty.”

“I hope to God he may--” began Aladdin.

“Pretty!” said the girl.

She went away, and he heard her clucking to the chickens. After a time she came back. Aladdin was waiting with a plan.

“Don’t move,” he said, “or you’ll be shot.”

“Rubbish!” said the girl. She leaned casually back from the hole, and he could hear her moving away and clucking to the chickens. Again she returned.

“Thank you for not shooting,” she said.

There was no answer.

“Are you dead?” she said.

When he came to, there was a bright light in Aladdin’s eyes, for a lantern swung just to the left of his head.

“I thought you were dead,” said the girl, still from her point of advantage. The lantern’s light was in her face, too, and Aladdin saw that it was beautiful.

“Won’t you help me?” he said plaintively.

“Were you ever told that you had nice eyes?” said the girl.

Aladdin groaned.

“It bores you to be told that?”

“My dear young lady,” said Aladdin, “if you were as kind as you are beautiful--”

“How about your horse kicking me to a certain place? That was what you started to say, you know.”

“Lady--lady,” said Aladdin, “if you only knew how I’m suffering, and I’m just an ordinary young man with a sweetheart at home, and I don’t want to die in this hole. And now that I look at you,” he said, “I see that you’re not so much a girl as an armful of roses.”

“Are you by any chance--Irish?” said the girl, with a laugh.

“Faith and of ahm that,” said Aladdin, lapsing into full brogue; “oi’m a hireling sojer, mahm, and no inimy av yours, mahm.”

“What will you do for me if I help you?” said the girl.

“Anything,” said Aladdin.

“Will you say ‘God save Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America,’ and sing ‘Dixie’--that is, if you can keep a tune. ‘Dixie’ ‘s rather hard.”

“I’ll ‘God bless Jefferson Davis and every future President of the Confederate States, if there are any,’ ten million times, if you’ll help me out, and--”

“Will you promise not to fight any more?”

A long silence.

“No.”

“You needn’t do the other things either,” said the girl, presently. Her voice, oddly enough, was husky.

“I thought it would be good to see a Yankee suffer,” she said after a while, “but it isn’t.”

“If you could let a ladder down,” said Aladdin, “I might be able to get up it.”

“I’ll get one,” said the girl. Then she appeared to reflect. “No,” she said; “we must wait till dark. There are people about, and they’d kill you. Can you live in that hole till dark?”

“If you could throw down a lot of hay,” said Aladdin. “It’s very wet down here and hard.”

The girl went, and came with a bundle of hay.

“Look out for the lantern,” she called, and threw the hay down to him. She brought, in all, seven large bundles and was starting for the eighth, when, by a special act of Providence, the flooring gave again, and she made an excellent imitation of Aladdin’s shute on the previous evening. By good fortune, however, she landed on the soft hay and was not hurt beyond a few scratches.

“Did you notice,” she said, with a little gasp, “that I didn’t scream?”

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” said Aladdin.

“No,” she said; “but--do you realize that we can’t get out, now?”

She made a bed of the hay.

“You crawl over on that,” she said.

Aladdin bit his lips and groaned as he moved.

“It’s really broken, isn’t it?” said the girl. Aladdin lay back gasping.

“You poor boy,” she said.

XXVI

The girl borrowed Aladdin’s pocket-knife and began whittling at a fragment of board. Then she tore several yards of ruffle from her white petticoat, cut his trouser leg off below the knee, cut the lacings of his boot, and bandaged his broken leg to the splint she had made. All that was against a series of most courteous protests, made in a tearful voice.

When she had done, Aladdin took her hand in his and kissed the fingers.

“They’re the smallest sisters of mercy I ever saw,” said he. She made no attempt to withdraw her hand.

“It was stupid of me to fall through,” she said.

“Isn’t there any possible way of getting out?”

“No; the walls are stone.”

“O Lord!” said Aladdin.

“I’m glad I repented before I fell through,” said the girl.

“So am I,” said Aladdin.

“What were you doing in our stable?” said the girl.

“I got lost, and came in for shelter.”

“You came to the house first. I heard you knocking, and saw you from the window. But I wouldn’t let you in, because my father and brother were away, and besides, I knew you were a Yankee.”

“It was too dark to see my uniform.”

“I could tell by the way you rode.”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“No--but it’s different.”

The girl laid her hand on Aladdin’s forehead.

“You’ve got fever,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin, politely.

“Does your leg hurt awfully?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Did any one ever tell you that you were very civil for a Yankee?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Aladdin.

She looked at him shrewdly, and saw that the light of reason had gone out of his eyes. She wetted her handkerchief with the cold, filthy water spread over the cellar floor and laid it on his forehead. Aladdin spoke ramblingly or kept silence. Every now and then the girl freshened the handkerchief, and presently Aladdin fell into a troubled sleep.

When he awoke his mind was quite clear. The lantern still burned, but faintly, for the air in the cellar was becoming heavy. Beside him on the straw the girl lay sleeping. And overhead footsteps sounded on the stable floor. He remembered what the girl had said about the people who would kill him if they found him, and blew out the lantern. Then, his hand over her mouth, he waked the girl.

“Don’t make a noise,” he said. “Listen.”

The girl sat up on the straw.

“I’ll call,” she whispered presently, “and pretend you’re not here.”

“But the horse?”

“I’ll lie about him.”

She raised her voice.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“It’s I--Calvert. Where are you?”

“Listen,” she answered; “I’ve fallen through the floor into the cellar. Don’t you see where it’s broken?”

The footsteps approached.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No; but don’t come too close, don’t try to look down; the floor’s frightfully rickety. Isn’t there a ladder there somewhere?”

A man laughed.

“Wait,” he said. They heard his footsteps and laughter receding. Presently the bottom of a ladder appeared through the hole in the floor.

“Look out for your head,” said the man.

The girl rose and guided the ladder clear of Aladdin’s head.

“What have you done with the Yankee’s horse?” she called.

“He’s here.”

“Where’s the Yankee, do you suppose?”

“We think he must have run off into the woods.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The girl began to mount the ladder.

“I’m coming up,” she said.

She disappeared, and the ladder was withdrawn.

She came back after a long time, and there were men with her.

“It’s all right, Yankee,” she called down the hole. “They’re your own men, and I’m the prisoner now.”

The ladder reappeared, and two friendly men in blue came down into the cellar.

“Good God!” they said. “It’s Aladdin O’Brien!”

Hannibal St. John and Beau Larch lifted Aladdin tenderly and took him out of his prison.

Outside, tents were being pitched in the dark, and there was a sound of axes. Fires glowed here and there through the woods and over the fields, and troops kept pouring into the plantation. They laid Aladdin on a heap of hay and went to bring a stretcher. The girl sat down beside him.

“You’ll be all right now,” she said.

“Yes,” said Aladdin.

“And go home to your sweetheart.”

“Yes,” said Aladdin, and he thought of the tall violets on the banks of the Maine brooks, and the freshness of the sea.

“What is her name?” said the girl.

“Margaret,” said Aladdin.

“Mine’s Ellen,” said the girl, and it seemed as if she sighed.

Aladdin took her hand.

“You ‘ve been very good to me,” he said, and his voice grew tender, for she was very beautiful, “and I’ll never forget you,” he said.

“Oh, me!” said the girl, and there was a silence between them.

“I tried to help you,” said the girl, faintly, “but I wasn’t very good at it.”

“You were an angel,” said Aladdin.

“I don’t suppose we’ll ever see each other again, will we?” said the girl.

“I don’t know,” said Aladdin. “Perhaps I’ll come back some day.”

“It’s very silly of me--” said the girl.

“What?” said Aladdin.

“Nothing.”

He closed his eyes, for he was very weak. It seemed as if a great sweetness came close to his face, and he could have sworn that something wet and hot fell lightly on his forehead; but when he opened his eyes, the girl was sitting aloof, her face in the shadow.

“I dreamed just then,” said Aladdin, “that something wonderful happened to me. Did it?”

“What would you consider wonderful?”

Aladdin laid a finger on his forehead; he drew it away and saw that the tip was wet.

“I couldn’t very well say,” he said.

The girl bent over him.

“It nearly happened,” she said.

“You are very wonderful and beautiful,” said Aladdin.

Her eyes were like stars, and she leaned closer.

“Are you going to go on fighting against my people?” she said.

Roses lay for a moment on his lips.

“Are you?”

He made no sign. If she had kissed him again he would have renounced his birthright and his love.

“God bless and keep you, Yankee,” she said.

Tears rushed out of Aladdin’s eyes.

“They’re coming to take you away,” she said. “Good-by.”

“Kiss me again,” said Aladdin, hoarsely.

She looked at him quietly for some moments.

“And your sweetheart?” she said.

Aladdin covered his face with his arm.

“Poor little traitor,” said the girl, sadly. She rose and, without looking back, moved slowly up the road toward the house.

Nor did Aladdin ever see her again, but in after years the smell of box or roses would bring into his mind the wonderful face of her, and the music of her voice.

In the delirium which was upon him all that night, he harped to the surgeon of Ellen, and in the morning fell asleep.

“Haec olim meminisse juvabit,” said the surgeon, as rain-clouded dawn rose whitely in the east.

XXVII

Aladdin was jolted miserably down the Peninsula in a white ambulance, which mules dragged through knee-deep mud and over flowing, corduroy roads. He had fever in his whole body, anguish in one leg, and hardly a wish to live. But at Fort Monroe the breezes came hurrying from the sea, like so many unfailing doctors, and blew his fever back inland where it belonged. He lay under a live-oak on the parade ground and once more received the joy of life into his heart. When he was well enough to limp about, they gave him leave to go home; and he went down into a ship, and sailed away up the laughing Chesapeake, and up the broad Potomac to Washington. There he rested during one night, and in the morning took train for New York. The train was full of sick and wounded going home, and there was a great cheerfulness upon them all. Men joined by the brotherhood of common experience talked loudly, smoked hard, and drank deep. There was tremendous boasting and the accounting of unrivaled adventures. In Aladdin’s car, however, there was one man who did not join in the fellowship, for he was too sick. He had been a big man and strong, but he looked like a ghost made of white gossamer and violet shadows. His own mother would not have recognized him. He lay back into the corner of a seat with averted face and closed eyes. The more decent-minded endeavored, on his account, to impose upon the noisy a degree of quiet, but their efforts were unavailing. Aladdin, drumming with his nails upon the windowpane, fell presently into soft song:

Give me three breaths of pleasure
After three deaths of pain,
And make me not remeasure
The ways that were in vain.

Men grew silent and gathered to hear, for Aladdin’s fame as a maker of songs had spread over the whole army, and he was called the Minstrel Major. He felt his audience and sang louder. The very sick man turned a little so that he, too, could hear. Only the occasional striking of a match or the surreptitious drawing of a cork interrupted. The stately tune moved on:

The first breath shall be laughter,
The second shall be wine;
And there shall follow after
A kiss that shall be mine.

Somehow all the homing hearts were set to beating.

Roses with dewfall laden
One garden grows for me;
I call them kisses, maiden,
And gather them from thee.

The very sick man turned fully, and there was a glad light of recognition in his eyes.

Give me three kisses only--
Then let the storm break o’er
The vessel beached and lonely
Upon the lonely shore.

If Aladdin’s singing ever moved anybody particularly, it was Aladdin, and that was why it moved other people. He sang on with tears in his voice

Give me three breaths of pleasure
After three deaths of pain,
And I will no more treasure
The hopes that are in vain.

There was silence for a moment, more engaging than applause, and then applause. Aladdin was in his element, and he wondered what he would best sing next if they should ask him to sing again, and this they immediately did. The train was jolting along between Baltimore and Philadelphia. There was much beer in the bellies of the sick and wounded, and much sentiment in their hearts. Aladdin’s finger was always on the pulse of his audience, and he began with relish:

Oh, shut and dark her window is
In the dark house on the hill,
But I have come up through the lilac walk
To the lilt of the whippoorwill,
With the old years tugging at my hands
And my heart which is her heart still.

There was another man in the car whose whole life centered about a house on a hill with a lilac walk leading up to it. He was the very sick man, and a shadow of red color came into his cheeks.

They said, “You must come to the house once more,
Ere the tale of your years be done,
You must stand and look up at her window again,
Ere the sands of your life are run,
As the night-time follows the lost daytime,
And the heart goes down with the sun.”

There were tears in the very sick man’s eyes, for the future was hidden from him. Aladdin sang on:

Though her window be darkest of every one,
In the dark house on the hill,
Yet I turn to it here from this ruin of grass,
She has leaned on that window’s sill,
And dark it is, but there is, there is
An echo of light there still!

There was great applause from the drunk and sentimental. And Aladdin lowered his eyes until it was over. When he raised them it was to encounter those of the very sick man. Aladdin sprang to his feet with a cry and went limping down the aisle.

“Peter,” he cried, “by all that’s holy!”

All the tenderness of the Celt gushed into Aladdin’s heart as he realized the pitiful condition and shocking emaciation of his friend. He put his arm gently about him, and thus they sat until the journey’s end. In New York they separated.

Aladdin rested that night and boarded an early morning train for Boston. He settled himself contentedly behind a newspaper, and fell to gathering news of the army. But it was difficult to read. A sentence beginning like this: “Rumors of a savage engagement between the light horse under” would shape itself like this: “I am going to see Margaret to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow--I am going to see Margaret to-morrow-tomorrow--and God is good--is good--is good.”

Oddly enough, there was another man in the car who was having precisely the same difficulty in deciphering his newspaper. At about the same time they both gave up the attempt; and their eyes met. And they laughed aloud. And presently, seated together, they fell into good talk, but each refrained pointedly from asking the other where he was going.

With a splendid assumption of innocence, they drove together across Boston, and remarking nothing on the coincidence, each distinctly heard the other checking his luggage for Portland, Maine.

Side by side they rolled out of Portland and saw familiar trees and hills go by. Presently Aladdin chuckled:

“Where are you going, Peter, anyway?” he said.

“Just where you are,” said Peter.

XXVIII

“Peter,” said Aladdin, presently, “it seems to me that for two such old friends we are lacking in confidence. I know precisely what you are thinking about, and you know precisely what I am. We mustn’t play the jealous rivals to the last; and to put it plainly, Peter, if God is going to be good to you instead of me, why, I’m going to try and thank God just the same. A personal disappointment is a purely private matter and has no license to upset old ties and affections. Does it occur to you that we are after the same thing and that one of us isn’t going to get it?”

“We won’t let it make any difference,” said Peter, stoutly.

“That’s just it,” said Aladdin. “We mustn’t.”

“The situation--” Peter began.

“Is none the less difficult, I know. Here we are with a certain amount of leave to occupy as we each see fit. And, unfortunately, there’s only one thing which seems fit to either of us. And, equally unfortunately, it’s something we can’t hold hands and do at the same time. Shall I go straight from the station to Mrs. Brackett’s and wait until you’ve had your say, Peter?--not that I want to wait very long,” he added.

“That wouldn’t be at all fair,” said Peter.

“Do you mind,” said Aladdin after a pause, “telling me about what your chances are?”

Peter reddened uncomfortably.

“I’m afraid they’re not very good, ‘Laddin,” he said. “She--she said she wasn’t sure. And that’s a good deal more apt to mean nothing than everything, but I can’t straighten my life out till I’m sure.”

“My chances,” said Aladdin, critically, “shouldn’t by rights be anywhere near as good as yours, but as long as they remain chances I feel just the same as you do about yours, and want to get things straightened out. But if I were any kind of a man, I’d drop it, because I’m not in her class.”

“Nonsense,” said Peter.

“No, I’m not,” said Aladdin, gloomily. “I know that. But, Peter, what is a man going to do, a single, solitary, pretty much good-for-nothing man, with three great bouncing Fates lined up against him?”

Peter laughed his big, frank laugh.

“Shall we chuck the whole thing,” said Aladdin, “until it’s time to go back to the army?”

“No,” said Peter, “that would be shirking; it’s got to be settled one way or another very quickly.” He became grave again.

“I think so, too, Peter,” said Aladdin. “And I think that if she takes one of us it will be a great sorrow for the other.”

“And for her,” said Peter, quietly.

“Perhaps,” said Aladdin, whimsically, “she won’t take either of us.”

“That,” said Peter, “should be a great sorrow for us both.”

“I know,” said Aladdin. “Anyway, there’s got to be sorrow.”

“I think I shall bear it better,” said Peter, “if she takes you, ‘Laddin.”

A flash of comparison between his somewhat morbid and warped self and the bigness and nobility of his friend passed through Aladdin’s mind. He glanced covertly at the strong, emaciated face beside him, and noted the steadiness and purity of the eyes. A little quixotic flame, springing like an orchid from nothing, blazed suddenly in his heart, and for the instant he was the better man of the two.

“I hope she takes you, Peter,” he said.

They rolled on through the midsummer woods, heavy with bright leaves and waist-deep with bracken; little brooks, clean as whistles, piped away among immaculate stones, and limpid light broken by delicious shadows fell over all.

“Who shall ask her first?” said Aladdin. Peter smiled. “Shall we toss for it?” said Aladdin. Peter laughed gaily. “Do you really want it to be like that?” he said.

“What’s the use of our being friends,” said Aladdin, “if we are not going to back each other up in this of all things?”

“Right!” said Peter. “But you ought to have the first show because you mentioned it first.”

“Rubbish!” said Aladdin. “We’ll toss, but not now; we’ll wait till we get there.”

Peter looked at his watch.

“Nearly in,” he said.

“Yes,” said Aladdin. “I know by the woods.”

“Did you telegraph, by any chance?” said Peter. “Because I didn’t.”

“Nor I,” said Aladdin; “I didn’t want to be met.”

“Nor I,” said Peter.

“The sick man and the lame man will take hands and hobble up the hill,” said Aladdin. “And whatever happens, they mustn’t let anything make any difference.”

“No,” said Peter, “they mustn’t.”

XXIX

Our veterans walked painfully through the town and up the hill; nor were they suffered to go in peace, for right and left they were recognized, and people rushed up to shake them by the hands and ask news of such an one, and if Peter’s bullet was still in him, and if it was true, which of course they saw it wasn’t, that Aladdin had a wooden leg. Aladdin, it must be owned, enjoyed these demonstrations, and in spite of his lameness strutted a little. But Peter, white from the after effects of his wound and weary with the long travel, did not enjoy them at all. Then the steep pitch of the hill was almost too much for him, and now and again he was obliged to stop and rest.

The St. Johns’ house stood among lilacs and back from the street by the breadth of a small garden. In the rear were large grounds, fields, and even woods. The place had two entrances, one immediately in front of the house for people on foot, and the other, a quarter of a mile distant, for people driving. This latter, opening from a joyous country lane of blackberry-vines and goldenrod, passed between two prodigious round stones, and S-ed into a dark and stately wood. Trees, standing gladly where God had set them, made a screen, impenetrable to the eye, between the gateway and the house.

Here Peter and Aladdin halted, while Aladdin sent a coin spinning into the air.

“Heads!” called Peter.

Aladdin let the piece fall to the ground, and they bent over it eagerly.

“After you,” said Peter, for the coin read, “Tails.”

Aladdin picked up the coin, and hurled it far away among the trees.

“That’s our joint sacrifice to the gods, Peter,” he said.

Peter gave him five cents.

“My share,” he said.

“Peter,” said Aladdin, “I will ask her the first chance I get, and if there’s nothing in it for me, I will go away and leave the road clear for you. Come.”

“No,” said Peter; “you’ve got your chance now. And here I wait until you send me news.”

“Lord!” said Aladdin, “has it got to be as sudden as this?”

“Let’s get it over,” said Peter.

“Very good,” said Aladdin. “I’ll go. But, Peter, whatever happens, I won’t keep you long in suspense.”

“Good man,” said Peter.

Aladdin turned his face to the house like a man measuring a distance. He drew a deep breath.

“Well--here goes,” he said, and took two steps.

“Wait, ‘Laddin,” said Peter.

Aladdin turned.

“Can I have your pipe?”

“Of course.”

Aladdin turned over his pipe and pouch. “I’m afraid it’s a little bitter,” he said.

Again he started up the drive; but Peter ran after him.

“‘Laddin,” he cried, “wait--I forgot something.”

Aladdin came back to meet him.

“Aladdin,” said Peter, “I forgot something.” He held out his hand, and Aladdin squeezed it.

“Aladdin,” said Peter, “from the bottom of my heart I wish you luck.”

When they separated again there were tears in the eyes of both.

Just before the curtain of trees quite closed the view of the gate, Aladdin turned to look at Peter. Peter sat upon one of the big stones that marked the entrance, smoking and smoking. He had thrown aside his hat, and his hair shone in the sun. There was a kind of wistfulness in his poise, and his calm, pure eyes were lifted toward the open sky. A great hero-worship surged in Aladdin’s heart, and he thought that there was nothing that he would not do for such a friend. “He gave you your life once,” said a little voice in Aladdin’s heart; “give him his. He is worth a million of you; don’t stand in his way.”

Aladdin turned and went on, and the well-known house came into view, but he saw only the splendid, wistful man at the gate, waiting calmly, as a gentleman should, for life or death, and smoking smoking.

Even as he made his resolve, a lump of self-pity rose in Aladdin’s throat. That was the old Adam in him, the base clay out of which springs the fair flower of self-sacrifice.

He tried a variety of smiles, for he wished to be easy in the difficult part which he had so suddenly, and in the face of all the old years, elected to play. “He must know by the look of me,” said Aladdin, “that I do not love her any more, for, God help me, I can’t say it.”

He found her on the broad rear veranda of the house. And instead of going up to her and taking her in his arms,--for he had planned this meeting often, as the stars could tell, he stood rooted, and said:

“Hallo, Margaret!”

He acted better than he knew, for the great light which had blazed for one instant in her eyes on first seeing him went out like a snuffed candle, and he did not see it or know that it had blazed. Therefore his own cruelty was hidden from him, and his part became easier to play. They shook hands, and even then, if he had not been blinded with the egotism of self-sacrifice, he might have seen. That was his last chance. For Margaret’s heart cried to her, “It is over,” and in believing it, suddenly, and as she thought forever, an older sweetness came in her face.

“You’ve changed, Aladdin,” she said.

“Yes, I’m thinner, if possible,” said Aladdin, “almost willowy. Do you think it’s becoming?”

“I am not sure,” said Margaret. “The fact remains that I’m more than glad to see you.”

Aladdin fumbled for speech.

“I’m still a little lame, you see,” he said apologetically, and took several steps to show.

“Very!” said Margaret, in such a voice that Aladdin wondered what she meant.

“But it doesn’t hurt any more.”

“Then that’s all right.”

“Where’s Jack?” he asked at length.

Margaret became very grave.

“I’m afraid we’ve betrayed our trust, Aladdin,” she said. “Because only yesterday he slipped away and left a little note to say that he was going to enlist. We’re very much distressed about it.”

“Perhaps it’s better so,” said Aladdin, “if he really wanted to go. Did he leave any address?”

“None whatever; he simply vanished.”

“Ungrateful little brute!” said Aladdin. Then he bethought him of Peter. “I’ll come back later, Margaret,” he said, “but it behooves me to go and look up the good Mrs. Brackett.”

He hardly knew how he got out of the house. He felt like a criminal who has been let off by the judge.

The sun was now low, and the shadows long and black. Aladdin found Peter where he had left him, balancing on the great stone at the entrance, and sending up clouds of smoke. He rose when he saw Aladdin, and he looked paler and more worn. “Peter,” said Aladdin, “from the bottom of my heart I wish you luck.”

Aladdin had never seen just such a look as came into Peter’s eyes; at once they were full of infinite pity, and at peace with the whole world.

“Peter,” said Aladdin, “give me back my pipe.” His voice broke in spite of himself, for he had given up golden things. “I--” he said, “I’ll wait here a little while, but if--if all goes well, Peter, don’t you bother to come back.”

They clasped hands long and in silence. Then Peter turned with a gulp, and, his weakness a thing of the past, went striding up the driveway. But Aladdin sat down to wait. And now a great piping of tree-frogs arose in all that country. Aladdin waited for a long time. He waited until the day gave way to twilight and the sun went down. He waited until the twilight turned to dark and the stars came out. He waited until, after all the years of waiting and longing, his heart was finally at peace. And then he rose to go.

For Peter had not yet come.