There is another silence, and the angel looks at them piteously.
"I wish to my God I had some of them clever fellows here could argue with you. I never was much good in an argument, anyway, never having had the education. But let me tell you there 's angels could prove to you you 're all wrong. I wish they 'd come here and talk to you, but I don't suppose they 'd care much about us and our wee affairs. But--but how about music," he hazarded, "and poetry? Ay, and poetry."
"As to music--" the elephant threw up his trunk in a sneer--"what music can he make comparable to the birds of summer--the sun going down, and each bird with its separate song, blending into a gently-colored symphony, and the chime of the waves with it, and the rustle of the branches in the sundown breeze?"
"Ay, but poetry."
"It will need poetry," thundered the lion, "more poetry than can be ever written, to equalize the making ugly of earth. The great cliffs shamed by mean houses, and the splendid glades ruined that a train may pass. And the mouths of rivers spoiled by the slag of mills. And great noble trees hacked down. How many an epic to pay for a great forest dying, shepherd? How many a lyric for a tree where little trusting birds had their home?"
The angel throws out his hands abruptly.
"You have me," he says. "You have me!"
He braces with decision, rises to his full height, and suddenly there is nobleness.
"Well, which is it to be?" he asked. "Will you follow my plan, or do you insist I go immediately?"
"We insist."
He pauses an instant.
"Very well. I 'll go," he says. "I 'll go."
He looks all around the gathering. In spite of his decision, and his bracing, there is a great emotion brewing in him.
"Now, before I go, let me tell some of you something. Do you, Philip--" he turns to the bear--"be getting back North as fast as you can. You poor fellow, you must be murdered with the heat entirely, and you with the Arctic furs on. You 'll catch your death here. And as for you," he warns the crocodile, "don't be obstinate, there 's a good fellow! Keep to the water, and you 'll be all right. It's only when you get out, they can get after you. And my little friends the beavers--where are they? Childer, can you hear me?"
"But what's all this about?" asks the elephant.
"It's just for fear I 'm not coming back."
"But why aren't you coming back?" the lion growls.
"Och, it's just a notion. Are the beavers there at all, at all?"
"No, just a moment!" The tiger is on his feet. "I want to hear more of this. What do you mean by notion? You aren't thinking of leaving us?"
There is a quick commotion, a little shudder among all the animals in the background.
"Well, now--" the angel is embarrassed--"it's a hard errand I have before me, and what will be at the end of the chapter no one knows. I to be arguing with the Great Man, and demanding your rights, and He to be losing His temper with me--there 's no knowing. So to be on the safe side, I 'll just say good-by to you now. Many 's the pleasant hour we 've known and springtime coming, and many's the little day we 've spent together and winter roaring through the chilly air."
"But He never loses His temper, does he? He 's always mild."
"Oh, childer dear, ye little know! You all know the Black Man, and when you get the cold wind of his coming you scurry away. He was an angel once, the greatest of them all. Lucifer, they called him, so I 've heard old angels say, and the Hebrew or something for Him who does be bearing light, such a gorgeous angel he was. But one day he and some of his lads began to argue with the Great Man, and before the words were half out of their mouths they were tumbling through the blue spaces of the stars, condemned to eternal hell-fire. Sure, you see them yourselves on Hallowe'en, and them roaring up and down the world, and screeching fit to split the sky."
A moan of terror ran through the massed animals. The dog raised his head and howled.
"And the wee half-god we all know, him with the horns of the goat, that does the piping in the valleys of spring--sure, he was an angel once. But something went contrary on him, and now he dare n't show his face on heaven or earth, but hides in the branches as wild as a squirrel."
And a little shudder of pity arose.
"Ay, and there was others. There was a crowd of reckless fellows in the days before the flood--or after it; I don't know which--and they came from heaven to court the daughters of men, such grand women they had in those days. And the Lord God heard of it, and He stood up and looked at them, and he said just one word. They 've never been heard of since. One minute they were there, and the next was emptiness.
"Mind you, I 'm not saying anything like that will happen to me, for Himself has always been kindness to me. It's always 'How are you, Michael John?' and 'Don't you ever take a rest at all?' and 'Sometime I 'll have to take a day and come down and see yourself and the wee ones!' But just, if I don't come back, don't think I 've taken a better job. Sure, I 'd never desert you, my wee darlings. It's just maybe I 'm getting a wee bit of discipline."
"I think--" the elephant seemed husky in the throat--"your own plan might be best--to wait for an opportunity and just suggest."
"Better say nothing at all," growled the lion.
"No, childer dear; I 'd better just go ahead. I will confess it was timid of me not to go in the first place. It was thinking of my old skin I was, and I should be ashamed of myself. Sure, there 's no disgrace in asking for fair play, and you 've been sorely tried. I 'll go."
"No, no, no!" wailed the animals.
"No, your own plan was wise," the elephant insisted. "If anything happened to you, what would become of us?"
"Yes, what would become of us?" the little ones wailed.
"Do you honestly think my own plan's wiser? You 're not saying that to save me from trouble?"
"We're not," the lion said. And "Of course not," added the tiger.
"Just slip in a word when you can," from the elephant.
"Honestly, now, it would be best." The angel was relieved. "I can talk about your loyalty; and, sure, I can remind him of the kine that gave shelter to the Wee Relative in Bethlehem, and the donkey that was proud to carry His weight; and I 'll remind Him, too, that I 've never asked a favor yet, and if He could just see His way--"
"Well," the elephant thought aloud, "I 've got to be getting back to Burma."
"I 'm going your way," said the tiger.
"There 's nothing to keep me up further," said the lion.
"I 'm very much obliged to you all--" the angel was abashed with emotion--"for not insisting. And it's lucky I am," said he, "to have decent beasts to deal with and not man. For man would have insisted I 'd go, and not given a tinker's curse what would have happened me."
"Ay, man!" sneers the great white bear.
"For God's sake Philip, will you be getting home out of this, before I have you sick on my hands! And as for you, Go-by-the-Ground, get back to the river or I 'll sink my foot in your tail. Go on now! Be off with you!"
There is a _shuff-shuff-shuff_ over the sand as the beasts scatter, going east, north, west, and south. The angel stands watching them as they go. Only the horse and the dog remain, the horse nudges him on the shoulder with its mouth, the dog puts a cold nose into his hand.
"Och, my darlings!"
DELILAH, NOW IT WAS DUSK
I
Beneath her balcony, in the delicate spring night, the life of Gaza flowed gently as a calm river. Eastward the green hills of Canaan were, Delilah knew, and in imagination she could see the soft blue down of the budding corn, the clouds of flowers, the piping green of the vines, the darkness of the olive-trees. And in the west a little moon was, while as yet the sun had not gone down, a little blade of silver, like one sweet note on a flute. It made one wish to be young again, to be a child....
The lamps of Gaza were not lighted. None was eager to go within, and below there was still the jingle of camel bells, the padding of donkeys, the nervous clatter of some horse's hoofs as a desert rider sought to guide his mount in the filled streets. Languid, supercilious Egyptians strolled in the provincial ways; desert men, their eyes suspicious as hawk's, moved warily hither and thither; her own countrymen, the squat, cheerful Philistines, half townsman and half mariner, walked briskly; mysterious, aloof Phoenicians; an occasional strange seaman from Gaul, come eastward with his ship for a cargo from Asia Minor; and now came the "Hough-hough! Hough-hough!" of herdsmen, and dappled kine went by, belabored with sticks, and as she looked, Delilah saw the group of Israelites who owned them.
From the street they saw her, and their eyes blazed fury. They pointed her out to one another, with quick, wide gestures, and she could hear the gutturals of their denunciation.... Oh, yes, they remembered Samson, after twenty years! Remembered him almost as well as she!
II
She had been thinking of him only that minute, too. It was strange, but at this time, each year, his memory, his image came to her, so that she could say in winter, "On the second moon of spring there will be flowers, and an air like wine, and the Mediterranean fishers will overhaul their gear, and I shall think of Samson," and she was the only person in Philistia who could remember him clearly.