Chapter 50 - Page 2

But it
was not.

At last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined
for companionship. When the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves
of the mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as
tears in the eye, Yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in
her soul to awaken. She sang low airs, she thought she had heard in
Oroolia; but started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back
to her strains more wild than hers. And ever, when sad, Aleema would
seek to cheer her soil, by calling to mind the bright scenes of
Oroolia the Blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to
return, never more to depart.

Now, at the head of the vale of Ardair, rose a tall, dark peak,
presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose
shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain:
a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen.

At times, when the phantom drew near, Aleema would take Yillah forth,
and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her
arms in a caress; saying, "Oh, Apo! dost accept thy bride?" And at
last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the
whole valley in gloom; Aleema would say, "Arise Yillah; Apo hath
stretched himself to sleep in Ardair. Go, slumber where thou wilt;
for thou wilt slumber in his arms."

And so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim Apo.

One day when Yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something
that every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully
still; she went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from
the peak. Of a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that
made it to look as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and
thought it was Apo calling "Yillah! Yillah!" But now it seemed like
the voice she had heard while bathing in the pool. Glancing upward,
she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an
inaccessible crag. But presently, there was a rustling in the groves
behind, and swift as thought, something darted through the air. The
youth bounded forward. Yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he
fell upon the cliff, and was seen no more. As alarmed, and in tears,
she fled from the scene, some one out of sight ran before her through
the wood.

Upon recounting this adventure to Aleema, he said, that the being she
had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that
Apo had slain him.

The sight of this youth, filled Yillah with wild yearnings to escape
from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest
and the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings,