||ife-'j^',;|f^^'hWt:y^lf 
 
 
 
35Z5 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 tIBRARIES 
 
 nHACA. N. y. 14J83 
 
 John M. Echols 
 
 Collection on Southeast As« 
 
 JOHN U. OLIN LIBRARY 
 
Cornel) University Library 
 PS 3525.A795G7 
 
 The green god's pavilion, a novel of the 
 
 3 1924 008 595 013 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008595013 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S 
 PAVILION 
 
 A NOVEL OF 
 THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 BY 
 
 MABEL WOOD MARTIN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY ' ''''\J'' 
 
 PUBLISHERS ■ ' , v<?5'' V 
 
Copyright, 1920, by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation 
 into foreign languages. 
 
 
 
TO 
 MY HUSBAND 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 TREMBLING in a fervor of joy the girl con- 
 fronted it. Everybody in the excitement of 
 arrival was trying ito crowd her away from 
 the packed railing of the vessel, but she managed to 
 get her glimpse of that magic reality — one of those 
 golden far Eastern cities that she had dreamed of all 
 her life on the other side of the world. Its glittering 
 towers and domes, bursting out of the garden of the 
 equator, pointed to a sky clear enough to be heaven, 
 itself. Here long ago East and West had first glori- 
 ously mingled; once this city of golden galleons had 
 commanded all the cities of the Pacific. To so many 
 a conquistador it had been the end of the rainbow E 
 To the girl gazing out on its fiercely sunlit walls it 
 held the secret of the future. 
 
 In the launches skurrying up alongside the vessel, 
 Julie saw the eager, expectant faces straining for a 
 glimpse of friends or kin. As she looked down, this 
 new universe seemed suddenly to sit on her head like a 
 red-hot ball. She felt a moment's stifling sense of 
 its weight. This was the world to which she had come, 
 seeking a place. Those towers and domes, piercing 
 glittering space like swords and scimitars, appeared 
 suddenly to intimate that some special passport was- 
 needed to enter this world. And she had not lived 
 long enough in the universe to feel at home anywhere. 
 
 I 
 
2 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 she might be. Her detached existence under her 
 uncle's roof, always out of touching distance with the 
 family, had engendered that feeling of isolation. She 
 had been a superfluous personality, outside the magic 
 circle, and had kept to the farthest retreat of that 
 tinfriendly house of life — a vivid little hermit grop- 
 ;ing around the walls of her own chamber for the fourth 
 diniension. Hopelessly rigid that old universe had 
 been — and immutable — till one day it had astonish- 
 ingly crumbled, as if by some special decree. 
 
 Julie was here on this vessel, looking out in trepi- 
 dation on a remote and inconjecturable land, because 
 her uncle's affairs, always quite prosperous, had broken 
 on the rocks of investments. Out of the wreck she 
 had emerged into a dizzy independence. It had de- 
 volved upon her to take charge of herself somehow — 
 the verdict of her life ! The walls had burst forever. 
 To own one's self! To claim unhindered a whole 
 patch of the universe! Beyond there, in that city of 
 pearl-circled walls, a trans-section, of existence was 
 hers. 
 
 Crowds were now streaming all over the decks. 
 The greetings of long separations everywhere. Julie 
 saw joyous laughter and frank tears. Some of the 
 men had come in from the wilderness where peril and 
 disease were daily fortune, and their white faces and 
 emaciated forms startled their womenfolk; others 
 were strong and brown, and conquest and construction 
 hung upon their brows like a kind of fever. Julie 
 looked carefully at them all as at an index page of 
 what lay before her. After having begun to feel that 
 she had come to the end of the earth, she took courage. 
 It was brought forcibly to her that America had come 
 into the East to do something actual — that she had 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 3 
 
 raised her standards of democracy among ancient 
 kingdoms, and would stir them to their foundations. 
 
 As far back as she could remember Julie had felt 
 the lure of Great Adventures. In ardent lyric imagin- 
 ings she had, from childhood up, seen herself following 
 always the rapture of unbeaten tracks. The Golden 
 Gate, with its shimmering allure opening upon the 
 promise of strange lands, had always been the biggest 
 emotion in her life. The wind that blew up from it 
 had been a messenger summoning her across that 
 sparkling water to the freedom that lay beyond those 
 ports of dreams. 
 
 Staring at the simplicity and the strength of these 
 people of the New World, she wondered if her slim 
 credentials would hold among them. She was not 
 really what they wanted here — a trained artisan. 
 Somehow she had managed to slip by in the stress 
 of the moment. It was her own desperate determina- 
 tion to balk all efiforts to keep her under dominance at 
 home that had brought her to this goal. It had de- 
 veloped that she was fitted for nothing in an organ- 
 ized society. Her music, her languages, her sense of 
 existence were all too fragmentary to negotiate. 
 
 But it had transpired that there was another world 
 where matters of existence were not so stringent — 
 and since few had seemed inclined to hazard them, 
 Jepton's Teachers' Agency had let her pass on the 
 certificate of Miss Blossom's School, which had been 
 good for nothing else. In a breathless transport, she 
 had signed herself to service in our colonial posses- 
 sions across the seas. There was a salary, of course 
 — ten per cent, of which for the first year went to 
 Jepton's; a rather inadequate stipend, it had been 
 prophesied, for colonial existence. But to the reality 
 
4 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 of this Julie had given no thought. She was a woman 
 at last — with an original face and a surprising faculty 
 for seeing splendor in everything. Just the kind of 
 person whose naive encounter with the world makes 
 history. 
 
 Two people who looked very nice indeed were stand- 
 ing off regarding JuUe with fixed earnestness ; a stout 
 and agreeable man with a thin, transparently amber 
 little lady. Could it be possible that there were friends 
 for her also on these strange shores ? The lady pre- 
 sented herself as Mrs. Calixter, and her husband as 
 an old friend of Mr. Dreschell's. 
 
 Julie recollected that when her uncle had been forced 
 to recognize the power of fate lie had written to a 
 friend in Manila who was Collector of the Port, and 
 asked the good offices of himself and his wife for 
 Julie. Mr. Calixter told her that he and her uncle 
 had been college friends — a long time ago ; but that, 
 in these pioneer days, she was given to understand, was 
 a tremendous bond. They informed Julie hospitably 
 that she should remain with them till she discovered 
 what was to become of her. 
 
 No one over here, Mrs. Calixter explained, had a 
 definite idea of the next moment. One's fortune lay 
 in flux. Nothing had yet completely taken shape. 
 The great project unraveled daily out of destiny and 
 a few men's minds. Fighting was still going on in 
 some of the islands. The khaki-clad men coming 
 aboard were from those distant, disordered places, and 
 one could see on their gaunt faces the shadow of 
 menace and loneliness. The men in plain white 
 clothes had their struggle too in the making of a civili- 
 zation overnight. 
 
 An impression of precariousness and uncertainty 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 5 
 
 was conveyed to Julie, as if she were about to set 
 foot upon a forming planet amid widespread restless- 
 ness of soul. If she had dreamed of the improbable, 
 it seemed reasonable that it would transpire here. In 
 such a place, amid such conditions, ordinary ordered 
 emotions dropped out of sight. The living of men 
 here was creative, and at high pressure. 
 
 The invitation of the Calixters was a godsend to 
 Julie. She had been completely vague as to what to 
 do with herself. For the moment, anyway, she was 
 fixed among these mutabilities. 
 
 Launches carried them up the river, past the fort 
 that once held single-handed the white man's empire 
 of the Pacific. The stream, meandering to the sea 
 with provoking deliberateness, carried on its back a 
 strange host, a fantastic floating humanity ceaselessly 
 and inconjecturably drifting in craft that looked like 
 dolphins borne from the sea of legends; upstanding 
 boatmen in peaked hats prodding tiny canopied boats 
 like ivory toys against the stream, amid the gayeties 
 of the city; trading vessels south-bound for pearls or 
 spices perhaps, with swart crews, and Eurasian cap- 
 tains on the bridges. 
 
 They landed amid another motley of strange vehicles 
 and stranger races. The buildings along the wharf 
 were blackened by smoke-stacks from the Seven Seas. 
 A sun-blistered race of beings, leaning nonchalantly 
 against pillars and posts, watched, with the deep toler- 
 ance of the East, the influx from the West. This 
 calm, which was almost awful, gave Julie an uncanny 
 sensation of human futility. 
 
 " One of. our fine little mornings on the equator," 
 Mr. Calixter declared, remarking her wilted expres- 
 sion. " You'll get used to them." 
 
6 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 As she followed the Calixters to their carriage, a 
 dark-skinned female in scant attire, smoking a cigar 
 as long as a man's arm, crossed her path. Julie 
 gasped. So many unclothed creatures going un- 
 abashed about their business staggered her. Eons 
 of consecratedly covered ancestors suffered violence be- 
 fore this exposure. Mr. Calixter, however, was of the 
 opinion, as he lifted his plump, perspiring person after 
 her into the carriage, that for apparel in this climate 
 the human hide was incomparable. But they should 
 all be colored like Easter eggs, to tell them apart; he 
 could seldom distinguish one nude brown person from 
 another. It was just possible that we were dependent 
 to a certain extent on our clothes for individuality. 
 
 They drove up into the city through ancient streets 
 blazoned with sun-lit, vivid houses, quickened with 
 picturesque and unfamiliar activities, and flowing with 
 a humanity that lived its whole life open to the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Ceaselessly, strangely, contrastingly, this amazing 
 humanity throbbed along the thoroughfares like crea- 
 tures out of Arabian Nights' Tales : carters with their 
 carabaos — monstrous beasts of fearful calm, drawing 
 primitive stone wheels through the dust of ages; tur- 
 baned East Indians with bushy beards, offering ivories 
 and tapestries to the fantastic houses ; brown women 
 in pineapple fabrics, balancing on their heads baskets 
 of Ylang-Ylang for the manufacture of perfume; a 
 dwarf negrito, enslaved from the forests of the north ; 
 water-carriers ; Chinese rice-peddlers ; children playing 
 with absurd, short-tailed cats; babies taking in life at 
 the curbstone from their mothers' breasts. Down 
 these streets in poverty, disease, and cheerful blind- 
 ness of soul, marched all the races of the East. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 7 
 
 Julie gasped at what she saw. The riddle of the 
 universe seemed to be unfolding before her wondering 
 gaze. 
 
 She turned from that strange stream of people with 
 their enigma, their insoluble mystery, to the houses; 
 such startling houses, intoxicatedly painted like the 
 sunsets over in the sea, and decorated with all manner 
 of things — orchids pure as souls; crimson-crested 
 parrots screaming for the jungle; rain-bow glass; and 
 little dragons' wings. 
 
 These were the state chambers of this existence: 
 their chromatic splendor was reserved for the cere- 
 monies of birth, marriage, and death ; but it was down 
 in the streets that these children of 'the sun lived their 
 lives. 
 
 There were flashes of queer open shops, cabinets of 
 the curiosities of the world ; showers of wooden shoes 
 suspended from the ceilings; pink satin cofiSns; 
 Chinese ginger jars painted with peacocks; brass 
 church-bells; unleavened bread, universal red pillows, 
 ornamental brooms that looked like Cleopatra's palm 
 sunshade. Julie passed them in ecstasy. 
 
 Farther on, she had a vision of old walls and moats, 
 and little stone gates with ancient coats-of-arms above 
 them, and a surprisingly great number of old stone 
 churches. They were passing now, Mr. Calixter told 
 her, through the ancient walled city that Legaspi had 
 built. She saw the priests in their white robes, pacing 
 their high airy galleries, saying their prayers in the 
 sunlight, above the world. She drew in with a deep 
 breath the fragrance of the sacred tree of India that 
 flowered in the monastic gardens. 
 
 Pensively, poetically, the conquistador atmosphere 
 still hung over the heart of the city. Priests and 
 
8 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 armored captains floated before Julie's mind. In all 
 the pagan hinterland of the East, this was the single 
 Christian citadel, attacked throughout the ages by land 
 and sea by all the savage hordes of darkness. 
 
 She stared at the tinted oriental domes rearing above 
 this ancient Christian city, and felt mingling with its 
 priestly atmosphere the Eleusinian mystery of the 
 East, as if hidden in this city there were still uncon- 
 secrated shrines. 
 
 They passed out of the Walled City with its dark 
 buttresses, its dungeons, its medievally barred doors, 
 its intimations of eternal age and impenetrable mys- 
 tery, to the Calixters' home on the sea. 
 
 A rainbow scarf of tropical vegetation trailed over 
 this part of Manila, and Julie caught glimpses of gar- 
 dens full of the perfume of dreams, gardens for whose 
 incredible blossoming all the light in the sun must have 
 been needed. 
 
 At luncheon, s!he cast her first attentive look at her 
 host and hostess. Beside the splendor of this new 
 planet unrolling before her, two individuals had not 
 been compelling in interest. 
 
 Mrs. Calixter, it appeared, was a lady from whose 
 being every particle of flesh had been amazingly sub- 
 tracted, save just enough to leave her alive. She had 
 stayed over here to keep Mr. Calixter company, and 
 in the process had parted ways with her youth. She 
 was very kind, but very, very tired. This fatigue, she 
 told Julie, had gone down deep, and would never rest 
 out. 
 
 Her husband was plump, and would go good-^iatured 
 to his grave. Against such a temperament all climates 
 are powerless. The tropics had achieved only the rape 
 of his hair. He was so astonishingly bald that when 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 9 
 
 he removed his hat the effect was one of almost in- 
 decent exposure. The hair that refused to remain on 
 his cranium displayed itself in perfidious and capricious 
 profusion in his eyebrows, which locked bushily across 
 his forehead. 
 
 Julie felt very jolly and very much at home. Mr. 
 Calixter, during the course of the meal, waved away 
 the most charming salad of sea-green cucumbers and 
 curling lettuce leaves. He explained that a lettuce leaf 
 over here might be a death warrant, as cholera was 
 more or less present all the time — though that fact 
 could never be impressed upon the Chinese cook. 
 
 Cholera! Julie sat up with a start. In this fairy 
 land could such a terrible hydra stick up its head ? Mr. 
 Calixter told her about a number of other things that 
 flourished in the islands, things which she had always 
 categoried as traditions of the Middle Ages — small- 
 pox, leprosy on beggars' outstretched hands, all the 
 dreadful medieval list! 
 
 " It is a hard uphill pull we have before us over here, 
 and the top of the mountain nowhere in sight." Mr. 
 Calixter looked grave. 
 
 " And the natives are fighting us, all over the 
 islands," Mrs. Calixter remarked, " and doing it in 
 a particularly barbarous and senseless way." 
 
 "Have you any idea as to where you are going? " 
 Mr. Calixter demanded. 
 
 Julie moved restively : "No — but it all sounds 
 rather awful." 
 
 " Well, we're aiming to — and will make this the 
 finest colony on earth. There are the men here to do 
 it; men with the genius for pioneering, and a glori- 
 ous fever to break the wilderness. The Department 
 of Education is the greatest idea of all. You must re- 
 
10 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 member that. It is the only thing that will touch the 
 soul of the people. All the rest, just yet, seems to fall 
 outside." 
 
 " There are hosts of interesting people here," said 
 Mrs. Calixter, smiling cryptically. " People with his- 
 tories made over night, and making history themselves 
 splendidly, too. Perhaps you will stay in Manila. At 
 any rate, you will catch an unforgettable glimpse of — 
 all this, as you flit through. This afternoon, late, we 
 will drive on the Luneta, where you will see a cross 
 section of the whole East. Later, we are to go to a 
 ball. All the empire-builders will be there. So keep 
 your young soul awake." 
 
 After luncheon everybody mysteriously disappeared. 
 Julie was liit alone in the silent, hot, perfumed world. 
 Not a sound came to her from anywhere; existence 
 seemed suspended. What had become of the contents 
 of the world? 
 
 She decided to open up her baggage — which, thanks 
 to Mr. Calixter, had already arrived — and lay out the 
 dress she should need for the evening. After five 
 o'clock, Mrs. Calixter had said, Manila drove forth in 
 full dress to the Luneta. Julie gathered up a ball 
 gown and went over to the glass to appraise its rela- 
 tionship to herself. She was enchanted with the ma- 
 turity of the garment. Through it she and the world 
 met at last; it suggested the finally opened door of the 
 universe in which she was free to find her dreams. 
 She whirled, a gay dervish, in front of her mirror. 
 
 Suddenly she stopped, awed by the strange reflec- 
 tion she saw of herself. Odd multiplied personages 
 attenuated from it. She couldn't begin to think that 
 she knew them, though each at an angle offered some 
 startling familiarity. She had merely wisihed to exact 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 11 
 
 from the mirror reassurance of hef woman's incontest- 
 able inheritance, but these strange images carried her 
 out of the background of the glass into a boundless ter- 
 ritory of conjecture. 
 
 Motionless now she beheld reflected a unique, youth- 
 ful face framed by silvery blond hair, with a pair of 
 green eyes of unusual hue, while flung upon the face, 
 as upon a screen, was an abstraction of personality like 
 a superimposed self. This abstract personality re- 
 vealed itself tangibly, on occasions, in a transfiguration 
 of light disclosing something inscrutable, eternal, and 
 absolute. 
 
 A cryptic sentence of her aunt's flashed through her 
 mind. " There's a singular thing that comes into your 
 face — " which was followed by another, "You think. 
 yx3u are strong. It will take many a road to show you 
 that you are not." That old subjection was over now, 
 forever. Julie shivered a little. 
 
 She went back to her unpacking; but as she drew 
 out the airy charming dresses a sudden dissatisfaction 
 with them seized her. Their expensive beauty was all 
 wrong. She had seen at once that pioneer women garb 
 themselves very plainly for the day's work — and her 
 work indubitably was to be of the plainest. 
 
 For particulars concerning a suitable wardrobe, 
 Julie had consulted a schoolmate back home, the daugh- 
 ter of an army officer, who in her eighteen years had 
 never bought a garment of her own. The inspired 
 inventory they had worked out together Julie might, 
 she now felt, have to reckon with later as a force of 
 fate. Her aunt having been called away to the bedside 
 of a sister, Julie, the reins quite off, had gone in quest 
 of clothes as if she were walking the Milky Way, look- 
 ing for free stars. She had selected and bought in a 
 
12 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 glory of mood that beheld the world at her disposal. 
 An exultant thing, this wardrobe of rejoicing gar- 
 ments that fairly caroled the elated moods of youth. 
 Quite the wardrobe with which to set out to conquer 
 the world. 
 
 Julie stared at it. The fatality of that delicate 
 mass! Her uncle's face, aghast at the riddle he ap- 
 peared to confront in her, rose before her. And the 
 bitter complication of bills that could not be met, huge 
 heedless bills that he had told her in his desperation she 
 must somehow face. There wasn't a thing in the 
 world he could do for her any more. He would get 
 somebody to lend her the money for the present ; which 
 would amount to an actual mortgage upon her exist- 
 ence, with so small a salary and with her agent's com- 
 mission to pay. " Poor little Argonaut," he had called 
 her, " setting out with the intuition of a nineteen-year- 
 old girl as a divining rod of the world, ignorant of the 
 values of money or men ! " 
 
 Julie closed the door rudely on the dresses, and 
 slipped downstairs to seek brighter diversion in the 
 hot, fragrant world. 
 
 She passed admiringly the statue of the Godmother 
 of the New World, standing in her sweeping robes look- 
 ing out across tihe sea to the Spanish Main. Splen- 
 didly believing Isabel, whose faith in the vision of a 
 Genoese captain gave a new world to men ! 
 
 Just beyond were two school houses. Julie 
 wondered wistfully if she would be assigned to one of 
 them. It would be very lovely, in this flower-scented 
 spot, right under the shadow of the ancient stone 
 church across the street, to bring wisdom to this people. 
 She smiled at herself. How much of the world's wis- 
 dom had she, young, terribly ypung thing that she was ? 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 13 
 
 She moved meditatively toward the church, scents of 
 tropical flowers on every side of her. 
 
 The church was of aged gray and battered stone, 
 with the single white effigy of a saint guarding the 
 worn entrance. There was moss in every crevice of 
 its strong sides, which stood out like great gaunt ribs. 
 Near by, in a wild area of sim-dried grass, was the 
 refectory, ruthlessly severe in its economy of lumber. 
 The resistless fecundity of the tropics encroached upon 
 all this grimness ; vines were flowering over the frown- 
 ing vortices. 
 
 Julie stepped through the faded green door. At 
 once the hot world slipped behind her. In the dim 
 shadowiness, she stood staring wonderingly about. She 
 had been in Catholic churches many times, but this was 
 like none of them. The gray pillars were painted with 
 the sunset colors of the East. The dome, full of stars 
 and suns and portraits of the Deity, suggested a rather 
 crowded Mohammedan Heaven. The altar, shining 
 silver twenty feet high, was gorgeously hand-carved, 
 and upon it, in white brocaded satin and pearls, stood 
 Mary. In one of the smaller naves, there was a small 
 statue of Christ, terribly sweating blood. 
 
 Julie tiptoed across the bare stone flags. A couple 
 of women were kneeling in the silence, and one or two 
 tragically old men, slowly and painfully with wrinkled 
 hands telling their beads. The women were with 
 child; the old men, their own concern done, prayed 
 for the world. 
 
 To the right of the altar, she heard a soft murmur 
 of sounds, where in a side chapel a priest in a black cas- 
 sock stood by a font administering the baptismal 
 service to a tiny brown baby in a very long pink s^in 
 robe. The godmother held the baby, while the bare- 
 
14 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 footed native mother stood apart. Another Christian 
 into the fold ! Julie was struck by the priest's face, the 
 fine pity he turned upon the futile little brown mite. 
 
 Julie moved on. As she was about to step out, the 
 priest passed her. She stopped him. 
 
 " May I ask the name of this church? " she faltered 
 uncertainly. What she wanted to ask was the signifi- 
 cance of it all. 
 
 A tired shadow crossed the priest's face. " Saint 
 Francis Xavier's," he said. Then he stood and looked 
 about him, and the shadow grew. 
 
 " It is beautifully decorated," Julie ventured. 
 
 " It is one of the Christian churches of the Orient," 
 he said. " Is this the first one you have seen? " 
 
 " I only arrived to-day. I am stopping with the 
 Calixters. I am a teacher." She added this a little 
 proudly. 
 
 His manner altered. " The Calixters are friends 
 and parishioners of mine. You are the young lady 
 they told me they were expecting. I am Father Hull." 
 
 Suddenly he made a gesture to the gorgeous mystery 
 about him. " You are not a Catholic ? Then this can 
 not break your heart. Did you expect," he asked, " to 
 find a bonze in here dealing paper prayers ? " 
 
 Then, with an abrupt change of manner, he asked 
 her about her work. She told him she had no idea 
 where it would be. Everybody over here seemed to 
 be very busy ; it would no doubt be real work and hard. 
 She told him naively about her old ambition to go as 
 a nun to the Leper Islands. 
 
 He shook his head. " I hope," he said, regarding 
 her with a sudden keen penetration, " that you will not 
 go very far away. I have been a soldier, as well as 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 15 
 
 a priest. I have tramped through the jungles of many 
 of the islands." 
 
 "Will you stay here all your life?" she asked in 
 awe. 
 
 The priest looked at the blazing landscape. His 
 shoulders drooped. Finally he said, " Where on earth 
 is the priest of God so needed as in this wilderness of 
 darkened souls? If I can ever serve you, let me 
 know." He turned toward the stark rectory. 
 
 Julie stood on the spot, and watched the black cas- 
 sock disappear. 
 
 Rousing herself, she walked down the street, stop- 
 ping to peep wonderingly over the tops of old walls at 
 the contents of gardens, at gay dwellings gleaming 
 like bright fruit or gorgeous birds' eggs out of the 
 giant foliage. Before one house, most orientally im- 
 posing of them all, Julie stopped in amazement. 
 
 This dwelling was so extraordinarily different from 
 her conception of human habitations that her fancy 
 coupled it with pillared pagodas. It was painted in 
 a number of strong colors, which, as in none other of 
 tihese strange houses, made a singularly stirring 
 harmony, even in the spectrum of startlingly tinted 
 pillars supporting the great galleries. Orchids — 
 elfin, super-mundane faces, and air-plants, free from 
 the bondage of the earth, swung like stars in the soft 
 evening wind from the balconies. 
 
 Strange flowers, mysteriously unfolding in the tree- 
 tops, showered the coming twilight with a delirious 
 fragrance. All about the boundaries of the garden 
 towered cocoanut palms, looking with their clean trunks 
 like magic beanstalks leading to higher regions ; on the 
 ground were large, brown cocoanuts, their milk spilling 
 
16 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 over the earth. Ripe fruit hung from many trees; 
 bananas, like huge golden branches, and a strange fruit 
 that looked like little green hedgehogs hanging upside 
 down in the high foliage. 
 
 Over the garden the light of the lowering sun lay 
 now like the glow of Aladdin's lamp, illuminating it 
 to supernatural dimensions. Over in one end of it a 
 little grizzled Malay dwarf, perfect in his proportions 
 even to his uplifted tiny hands, with the aid of a device 
 on a long pole, was cutting flowers from the tops of 
 bushes and trees. Julie, staring at the surprising little 
 being and not perfectly sure what he could be, saw 
 him examine with intentness the insides of the flowers 
 as they fell, as though he might expect to find wrapped 
 lip in the great blossoms another of his kind. A young 
 monkey danced down a tree-trunk, and commenced 
 scattering the dwarf's store. The mannikin pounced 
 upon him, and whimsically thrust one of the golden 
 bells of blossoms upside down on the little furry head. 
 
 Of a surety this was a Caliph's mansion. Julie 
 gazed in longingly, venturing at last inside the gate. 
 In a Chinese ginger- jar a little yellow flower caught 
 her eye. In this oriental and magic garden to find so 
 strange, so alien a thing as an English primrose bloom- 
 ing ! It was not a very robust primrose ; indeed it was 
 faint and small. Yet clearly it was more carefully 
 tended than anything else in the garden. 
 
 Out of a green and bronze lodge a keeper emerged 
 to investigate her. The sun of the East had burned 
 bim to all but a cinder. Humbly respectful, he waited 
 for her to speak. Julie explained in broken Spanish 
 that the garden was so beautiful that she had been 
 tempted to enter. She would like to know who lived 
 in this little kingdom. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 17 
 
 The queer old wrinkled creature looked quizzically 
 at her, " Una hija del pais," he answered. 
 
 " A daughter of the country ! " What ever could the 
 old man mean by this cryptic reply? She looked about 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 Just then from the indiscernible depths of the great 
 house, an arm decorated with a wide gold band thrust 
 itself out of a cloud of long, black hair, and pushed 
 back the half -opened sliding shutter. A darkly beau- 
 tiful figure appeared up there. In response to a ges- 
 ture from it, the keeper strode toward the balcony. 
 The figure spoke to him, and he turned back to Julie. 
 
 " My Mistress says that the garden is at your dis- 
 posal, and for you to go where you please." 
 
 Julie moved curiously a few steps toward the bal- 
 cony. The gold bands on the arms of the princess up 
 there glistened alluringly down at her. A flashing 
 brunette face came out of the shadow of the dense, 
 splendid sweep of hair. It looked down out of a 
 startling and incongruous pair of violet eyes. As this 
 personality was not at all the setting for them, Julie 
 wondered how they had come about. 
 
 They played upon the girl with a flame of interest, 
 but their possessor did not speak. Conversation, Julie 
 reflected, was not perhaps included among the gifts of 
 Eastern women. This woman, she felt, had more 
 subtle modes of expression. With her deep, under- 
 standing silence, her flashing disclosures in gestures 
 and glance, speech would no doubt be a tardy revela- 
 tion. Her sense of repose disquieted Julie, reminding 
 her in its singular quiescence of that human becalm- 
 ment that had at the first so disturbed her in this land. 
 The blue eyes further perturbed her with their interro- 
 gations — unanswerable questions : Why she had come 
 
18 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 into this atmosphere, and what she dared to think she 
 would achieve in it. The Caliphess in the balcony- 
 managed to convey an impression of proprietorship 
 to this sphere, and to exact some sort of explanation 
 for Julie's appearance in it. 
 
 " I am a stranger — " Julie began " — it is all very 
 wonderful to me " ; she paused and looked around her 
 with a sense of inadequateness. 
 
 " I knew that you did not belong here — " 
 
 The woman above spoke at last, using England's 
 English, with once in a while the flicker of some 
 strange intonation, like the out-cropping of a subcon- 
 scious tone. " But where did you come from ? " 
 
 " The States — San Francisco ! " Julie replied. 
 
 A change flashed across the mobile twilight hce. 
 
 "They keep coming! What," after a pause, "do 
 you expect to find ? " 
 
 Julie did not reply at once. Ah, that was asking 
 the riddle ! Her gaze roamed over the wondrous gar- 
 den and palace. The sphinx above read the look. 
 
 " This garden," she informed Julie, " has been here 
 for centuries — and more." 
 
 " So of course it wouldn't do me any good to want 
 it ! " Julie laughed outright. " And, you see, I am 
 quite awfully poor." 
 
 " But you come to — take something — all of them 
 do." 
 
 Julie sobered. "I came — but of course you 
 wouldn't understand^! came — " She sought for 
 the articulation of the high and splendid mission. 
 Words came forth disjointedly when she sought to 
 give form to that inner fervor. The lady in the bal- 
 cony listened, and as she listened to the halting speech 
 a change passed through her blue eyes and vanished. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 19 
 
 " How old are you ? " she demanded. 
 
 Julie replied that she was nineteen. 
 
 A frown came between the splendid brows. " That 
 is not young in the East. We begin early to experi- 
 ence over here. We are not afraid of life. We do 
 not keep the young half their existence in swaddling 
 clothes. It is only too plain that you are not a woman, 
 in spite of your years — and the things that you are 
 inconceivably set upon doing. Perhaps you are 
 married." 
 
 Julie flushed. " You see, I was considered still too 
 young for that. I was in school." 
 
 "Did you learn in that school to live life — here? 
 Ah, I think not. And you may go any place, and to 
 any thing. You were not old enough to be married or 
 to live your own life — but you were old enough to 
 attempt — this fearful thing. My friend, go back to 
 your home. You are too young. It is written in 
 your face." 
 
 " But I have no home anywhere. All this wonder 
 is yours ; how fortunate above fortune you are ! " 
 Julie looked wistfully up at her from the ground. 
 
 The lady receded a little from the balcony, and the 
 shadows dropped 'heavily on the twilight face. " Am 
 I?" 
 
 Again she spoke. "What is your name? I want 
 to see you again. One does not see every day a little 
 Atlas who is going to lift the world on its back. You 
 promise ? " 
 
 "Indeed I do!" 
 
 Julie sped through the gold-tipped shadows. Mrs. 
 Calixter was late in her dressing, and Julie was so 
 concerned over the low-necked gown that she had 
 been commanded to wear for the drive on the Luneta, 
 
20 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 and so concerned later over what she saw when she 
 got there, that she forgot for the time to ask about 
 the garden and its fair owner. 
 
 " The Luneta is an open-air reception in this one 
 wonderful hour of the day, my dear. Did you have 
 a nice nap ? " 
 
 Julie smiled. Naps at nineteen, when every mo- 
 ment counts! 
 
 Mrs. Calixter regarded pensively this freshness of 
 the dawn. " May it be the top of the morning to 
 you always ! Look at me." She pointed to her blood- 
 less face and sun- faded hair. " The East drinks you 
 up after a while, body and soul. We're dust that God 
 needs to breathe on again. Don't let it swallow 
 you!" 
 
 " It's marvelous though, like a dream," Julie mur- 
 mured. " I hope I'll never wake up." 
 
 The Luneta proved to be an elliptical drive, pic- 
 turesquely verging upon the sea. The winds and the 
 water at this hour contrived to make it the single cool 
 spot in the city. 
 
 A native band, led by a remarkable negro musician, 
 played haunting music of the sorrows and loves of the 
 earth. The drone of the waves lashing upon the rocks 
 mingled with the melody. The sun setting behind 
 an island over in the sea, fantastically enkindled the 
 city, making it appear with its gleaming domes like 
 some citadel of the unbeliever reclaimed in this Cru- 
 saders' light. Julie had never seen such deep and 
 powerful colors. They stunned her mind, yet en- 
 gendered in her a strange exhilaration, a subtle invita- 
 tion to plunge behind those shadowy walls and follow 
 their secret. The light shivered into shadows ; the fall- 
 ing night dropped enchantment over the city. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 21 
 
 Carriages swept by with the races of the earth in. 
 them; quiet- faced Englishmen staring pensively out 
 to sea as if to discern in the distance a certain blessed 
 island that lay over there; Spaniards with brooding, 
 Moor-like faces, adventuring still in the East after 
 their country had withdrawn forever out of the New 
 World; close-cropped, investigatory Germans, eager 
 traders all over the East; native families of the better 
 class, dressed stiffly in European costume — a conces- 
 sion to the new age — and riding proudly behind 
 American horses; Chinese women in jade and bro- 
 cade, beside their funereally garbed husbands; East 
 Indians, Japanese, Anamese, Koreans, Armenians — 
 and faces that belonged to no race or clime, intermedi- 
 ates of the white, dark and yellow peoples, circling 
 round the edges of this phantasmagoria like will-o'- 
 the-wisps. And last, there were feverishly alive Amer- 
 icans, with an inexpressible urgency in their attitude 
 — soldiers of the empire, here to make their for- 
 tunes and the fortune of the land. 
 
 It was a little frightening, this hodge-podge of 
 stranger peoples met at a single point out of the world. 
 Julie noticed how few American women there were. 
 The land was still too tumultuous for their advent. 
 She faced nervously the curiosity of so many men. 
 
 Every face was coimted in Manila, Mrs. Calixter 
 told her. 
 
 A great many carriages stopped to visit with Mrs. 
 Calixter. Julie saw one passing, which of all the 
 procession claimed her attention. A tall young man 
 with a tawny head from which he had swept his hat 
 rode in it — his face turned to the sea winds. 
 
 Julie looked, and vrondered. Who could he be? 
 In this cavalcade that vivid personality of power and 
 
22 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 strength blazed indelibly apart. When he turned his 
 face, a recollection of a child's highest dreams flashed 
 through her sensibilities in a single word — Excelsior ! 
 She could not have explained how his youthful stirring 
 face had recalled that supreme childish fervor. 
 
 " Who is he ? " she asked. It was so clear that he 
 was somebody of note in this world. 
 
 Mrs. Calixter followed her gaze. " A Prince of the 
 East," she said whimsically. "An Irish-American 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, naively engaged in the recrudes- 
 cence of the East. We call him The Mayor of Ma- 
 nila. He believes that it shall transcend all other 
 cities of the earth; he pours himself and his substance 
 out over it. We are going to his home to-night. He 
 gives entertainments famous all over the Archipelago 
 — and is a bachelor." 
 
 " Barry McChord is one of the most striking of all 
 the empire-builders," added Mr. Calixter. " He is 
 determined to make this colony a gospel of conviction 
 to the East. We are the beacon, he believes, which 
 has come to light the darkness. We are to fire the 
 dead ancient nations into immortal life, and make the 
 East one sublimated republic. You can understand 
 how a young and Quixotic man with such tremendous 
 ideas does remarkable things. He has a hand literally 
 in everything — in education, public health, illumina- 
 tion, public gardens, schemes for first-class hotels to 
 replace Eastern inns, the development of the university, 
 hospitals and theaters. Manila is the theater in which 
 he is staging his Far Eastern drama. When his play 
 of sublimated Eastern civilization is ready, he will 
 summon all Asia to attend." 
 
 As they drove away, detaching themselves from the 
 human caravansary, Julie looked back upon the rough 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 23 
 
 and struggling mass of humanity which was wresting 
 destiny out of the standardless East, and sensed over 
 all the exiles a pervading pensiveness, an air of waiting 
 till the stroke of fate should open the gate. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Mayor of Manila lived in the Walled City, 
 although most Americans had chosen the 
 space and coolness of the outside districts. 
 
 His house was very old, and stood dose to the 
 ancient walls, overlooking the ocean. Its gardens 
 lifted the graceful sihadows of trees over the tops of 
 the high lichened walls and out into the world. The 
 house was in the ecclesiastical locality that had so 
 strangely impressed Julie that afternoon. 
 
 In company with the Calixters, she entered the in- 
 closed estate and found herself beneath the towering 
 shadow of a great white house rearing so high above 
 the walls that the glow of light pouring from the 
 opened window spaces of the upper regions seemed 
 almost to belong to the starred canopy of the night. 
 
 These upper regions presented an appearance of 
 spacious stately halls with very high ceilings and bril- 
 liantly polished floors. Pieces of handsomely carved 
 Spanish furniture were disposed about the room, and 
 some huge darkened paintings of Spanish captains who 
 had come this way hung on the walls. 
 
 The people, however, made the atmosphere of these 
 rooms. At first, Julie thought she was in a dream. 
 People from all the unheard-of places of the earth 
 seemed collected here. Such queer little brown 
 women, moving about on their fairy feet, in long 
 gorgeous trains, like gay little peacocks; arid their 
 men, mailed in European evening dress — as if it 
 were armor donned for the eternal triumph of civili- 
 
 24 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 25 
 
 zation. Most of them were painfully polite, Julie 
 thought ; with a touch of humility in their politeness. 
 Spain had not been very long gone, and even mestizos 
 and rich Filipinos had not figured in her social lists. 
 
 The Sultan of Sulu, temporarily absent from his 
 own dominions, appeared much satisfied with, the stir 
 he and his preposterous pearls were creating. " Holy 
 Mary ! Such as the very gates of Heaven are made 
 of ! " one dusky maiden exclaimed in rapture. 
 
 " An illiterate Malay, making an artistic collection 
 of wives, and deliberately decking himself out with 
 those things as a decoy. He's perfectly odious," Mrs. 
 Calixter declared. 
 
 Julie saw diamonds as big as hen's eggs on these 
 brown nabob's wives, but the pearls dramatically 
 obscured everything else. 
 
 "I'm very fond of Barry McChord," murmured 
 Mrs. Calixter, " but I don't subscribe to some of his 
 guests." 
 
 Their host was discovered in the front room, a blond 
 young man moving around the room in a white mess 
 jacket. He came across to greet them. 
 
 Julie looked up to the face she had seen on the 
 Luneta, the gay, young excelsior face with the vivid 
 hair, through which he stressfully rumpled his fingers 
 as he talked. 
 
 He had an ardor of being that communicated itself 
 electrically to those around him. Julie felt suddenly 
 on fire again. He looked attentively at her, as if there 
 were something about her that called up some associa- 
 tion. She wondered how he came to be so strong and 
 so magnificent, and to attain this golden blaze of power 
 out of which he shone like a prince. 
 
 They were separated before they could have any- 
 
26 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 thing to say to each other. Mrs. Calixter wanted 
 Julie to meet somebody " very special." As that was 
 precisely what she had been doing, Julie wondered 
 why she had to be led away. 
 
 Streams of fantastic people blocked their way. Re- 
 freshments made into the most fanciful forms were 
 proffered them from great nara wood tables, such as 
 might have served for a mediaeval feast. Every one 
 was going about his own picturesque business; love- 
 making was coming into play down under the lanterns 
 in the gardens, where the native musicians were making 
 music to draw one's heart out of one's breast. 
 
 In the midst of a sudden bursting triumphal strain, 
 Julie stopped to behold what she believed to be a queen, 
 with her train — a woman of such an opulent type 
 of beauty, of such vivid tones of costume and im- 
 probable profusion of jewels, that the eye for an instant 
 was overwhelmed. Mrs. Calixter whispered that this 
 was the famous Isabel Armistead, known all over the 
 Orient as " The Empress of the East." 
 
 " Why," Julie exclaimed, staring at her amazed, 
 " that's the lady from the Caliph's garden ! " She ex- 
 plained vividly her chance visit of the afternoon. 
 
 " A caliphess indeed ! " Mrs. Calixter agreed. 
 
 "And of course she would look like that," Julie 
 declared. " Oh ! tell me about her." 
 
 " She is a strange creature, certainly," Mrs. Calixter 
 said. " Her father was an Englishman, I believe ; 
 her mother, one of those unanalyzable mixtures of 
 strains you find over here. I think they were married 
 to legitimatize Isabel, whose beauty and brilliance were 
 remarkable. She has had the best of education abroad, 
 and is, without the shadow of a doubt, the most deeply 
 clever woman in the East — as well as one of the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 27 
 
 richest; for from the submerged mother she received 
 one of the great insular fortunes. At seventeen she 
 was married to Richard Armistead, a middle-aged 
 Englishman of first-rate family, who for years held 
 an important position as head of a bank here. He is 
 in England now, for his health; and there are very 
 strong indications that he will not come back. I 
 imagine Isabel has a way of disposing of inconveni- 
 ences. That is not so difficult here." 
 
 " Why, what do you mean? She hasn't hurt any- 
 body, has she ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of. But when people are in the 
 way over here, they are just put out of it." Mrs. 
 Calixter dropped her voice. " There's a woman over 
 there — quite beautiful, you see — with no sign about 
 her of being a daughter of the land, yet when she 
 wanted another husband she managed to bring it about. 
 She and the man she wanted, so Mrs. Roxas will tell 
 you, the two of them, just did for poor Tony. He 
 was delicate, and they merely made him die somehow. 
 Yet nobody ever fastened anything on to them. 
 
 " This is the land of the new chance. Men and 
 women who never found their chance at home, or who 
 debauched it, are seeking their Eldorado here. Stand- 
 ards, social and moral, are easier here than at home. 
 There's a lawlessness of soul that hangs heavy in the 
 atmosphere. You are too young to see it yet. Even 
 the girls are quite vivid — and illimitably experienced. 
 Whether it is so or not, they give one the impression 
 always of taking the most perilous chances." 
 
 She looked penetratingly into Julie's breathlessly in- 
 tent face. " My dear,, you are neither old enough nor 
 strong enough to encounter Manila — a city three cen- 
 turies old quickened by a new population — new wine 
 
28 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 in old bottles ! That's \vhy I don't want you to remain 
 over here." 
 
 " It's wonderful," Julie murmured with shining' 
 €yes " — like an Arabian Nights' dream. I do so 
 want I to stay." 
 
 Mrs. Calixter's attention reverted to Isabel, who 
 stood not far away. She said that Isabel had been 
 loved by many men of many races, and like an empress 
 of the East, she loved them royally for a day, and then 
 flung them aside. A woman whose blood was part of 
 the East, part of the West — nobody knew just where 
 the division lay. Mrs. Calixter stopped as she saw 
 Isabel approaching. She was looking at Julie. 
 
 " Isn't this," she asked, greeting Mrs. Calixter, " my 
 young acquaintance of this afternoon? I feared when 
 she walked out so radiantly into the shadows that that 
 might be the last of her that I should see." 
 
 Julie, looking across into the flashing face, concluded 
 that she had never seen anybody who intimated so 
 many human possibilities — unless it i^ere the young 
 host of this occasion. Isabel fascinated her, and 
 made her feel as if some queer Sybil of the Eastern 
 bazaars were summoning her down secret streets. 
 
 " You will like Manila very much," said Isabel, draw- 
 ing nearer to Julie as Mrs. Calixter turned to speak to 
 some one else. " Perhaps you will find what you are 
 seeking — they all seek, whatever they say. But there 
 is always the joy of the day. You Americans are for- 
 ever trying to steal to-morrow. See that you get your 
 share of the hours and minutes — and come to my 
 house again, as soon as you get your assignment. I 
 know the islands, every spot they could send you to. 
 Do this," she urged, with an insistence that captured 
 Julie. Her train swept her onward. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 29 
 
 Jtrlie suddenly saw thfeir liiH come out and accost 
 Isabel in the glowing spot under the central lamps. 
 He bowed laughingly before her, and Isabel's warm, 
 enchanting face swept off in the dance, close to his. 
 Julie paused thoughtfully. 
 
 A handsome girl in shining blue gauze stepped up* 
 to her, and was presented by Mrs. Calixter as Ellis 
 Wilbur. 
 
 " Barry says that you have just arrived, and that I 
 must tell you about everything. I think he meant, 
 everybody. It must all be so bewildering and strange,, 
 and so hard to catch up with. Leave her in my 
 hands," — Ellis turned to Mrs. Calixter — "you 
 couldn't for anything say the things I'm going to, and 
 I don't pretend that it won't be fun." 
 
 Reverting to Julie, with an air of light concern, she 
 went on : "I hope you are not going to any of those, 
 dreadful little islands where they are sending such: 
 tragically unsuspecting teachers. Papa and I have 
 visited some particularly atrocious ones — the Moham- 
 medan group, away south, my dear, and so called be- 
 cause they live right up to the worst tenets of the 
 Prophet. Moros are a nerve-shattering experience,, 
 they literally bristle with knives; and are always 
 breaking out into massacres. It's too big an emotion 
 for me to seek the wilderness. But over here the game 
 seems usually to over-shadow the risk." 
 
 Miss Wilbur's gaze, which had roved to the dancers 
 became suddenly alert. "Ah," she commented,. 
 " Isabel blooming like the ' Song of Songs ' ! Have I 
 a terrible little inkling of what that might mean?" 
 
 "For whom does Isabel bloom?" Julie demanded 
 curiously. 
 
 But the quaintly disclosive Miss Wilbur became un- 
 
30 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 accountably reticenflfche remarked carelessly: 
 " Isabel cares transcendmtly for that Ancient of Days, 
 herself. 
 
 " If Leah Chamberlain," she went on in an un- 
 changed tone, " would come in skirts up to her knees, 
 she would create a much more unlabored effect than 
 she is at present attempting with those classic black 
 silken limbs of hers." 
 
 For Julie's enlightenment, she pointed out a woman 
 with flaming hair and spectacular eyes, who seemed 
 altogether too resplendent for the ordinary purposes 
 of life. 
 
 " Leah keeps the emotion of the Empire astir," Miss 
 iWilbur declared. " She is one of its phases. She 
 lives in a flame always, and transcends the bonds of 
 mere husbands ' and other things. The husband, a 
 ■drab creature, lives in barracks out of town. Leah 
 puts up at the Oriente and spreads her splendid wings. 
 iWhat are the feelings of a gold-tipped goddess any- 
 way? Lovell is bent Burmese fashion before her — 
 Lovell is a bank-man in Hongkong who is about to 
 come into a big title. He aspires, at cross purposes, 
 to power and to Leah." 
 
 A woman with dark hair drawn over a glistening 
 pearl of a face passed on the arm of a plump, florid 
 man. "Another Woman of the Empire. That 
 Madonna face, my dear, has seen the floor of hell. 
 That woman has experienced the deepest brutality of 
 the East. She was a little New England factory girl, 
 whom her profligate lover abandoned in a Chinese port. 
 In her Hegira, she found her way here, and became 
 one of the famous -white hetirae of the city. That's 
 what they amount to here, and along the coast. When 
 you see particularly handsome women driving alone 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 31 
 
 along the Luneta, don't ask -whi^they are. Abernathy 
 came along and married her,^|ht out of the district 
 where they live, and now she has a great house, with 
 all the money in the world. But as isolated as if she 
 were in a cave. I went there once, and she took me up 
 on her high lonely roof, from which she said she could 
 look out over the city and watch it marching ahead. 
 Her heart was breaking with loneliness; the old days 
 when she ruled men were gone, but she wanted to see 
 this thing through. Just another obscure sentinel 
 who is sticking to her post. 
 
 " I have an idea that Mrs. Calixter has been telling 
 you things about the women. She doesn't under- 
 stand — her gengration can't — that they've got the 
 chance, and the second chance, over here. They can 
 do a lot and get away with it — and no hair-lines 
 drawn. But they have freedom of choice — they can 
 make or break themselves. A few, of course, are clear 
 outside — like Isabel, who has nobody to account to 
 and to whom not even the roughest rules apply. She 
 is one of the laws here herself. Don't try to measure 
 her by rule of thumb, she hasn't any measure; Isabel 
 has more freedom of will than it is safe to think about. 
 She is moreover staggeringly rich — and helpful ; and 
 I see as much of her as she will allow — although 
 papa, who belongs to Mrs. Calixter's tiresome era, 
 is inclined to discourage this intimacy. Yet I have 
 discovered," Miss Wilbur asserted calmly, "that he 
 goes privately and takes tea with her. He considers 
 it a very dashing experience, no doubt. She probably 
 tells him a great deal about the Islands, which he be- 
 lieves like gospel. That is he." Miss Wilbur 
 gestured cardessly toward a distinguished looking 
 white-haired gentleman. " So diplomatic-looking. 
 
32 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 everybody says ! Pap^ has ' represented ' at two 
 courts, and he was corlpletely taken aback when they 
 put him on a democratifc job hke this. He's on the 
 Commission. But he has caught the fire, hke the rest. 
 He is having a very disconcerting second blooming. 
 I used to conceive of papa as a sort of ancient, deli- 
 cate epigram, and behold, he has come to life! That 
 flower in his button-hole is what they call here the 
 * Chain of Love.' " 
 
 A pleasant, worn-faced Englishman in a singular 
 semi-uniform costume, with a dark sash knotted 
 around his waist, bowed to Miss Wilbur. 
 
 " That sash ? Nobody knows what it means. Per- 
 haps it's an emblem of the Republic of the Sun — 
 that's the fantastic name somebody has given to the 
 impossible Utopia that these men are trying to bring 
 about in the East, after Campanelli's or Plato's dream ; 
 I forgot which. They believe the East is to awaken 
 tremendously. Talk with Barry about it. But this 
 gentleman, Matfield-Barron, broods over the situation 
 with all the lonely passion of the expatriate; it's the 
 last thing left in his soul. Most of the others mean, 
 like the Chinamen, to ' go back ' after the day is 
 over, but Matfield-Barron will stay on. He was an 
 officer in the British army, and was cashiered out of 
 the service over in India — something about a woman, 
 who is said to have used him as a shield for another 
 man. So he drifted here. I hope for his sake they 
 don't break the Scheme, back there in the States. I 
 -can't bear to think of that homeless wanderer growing 
 old in the East with no Utopia to love. And I'm crazy 
 about that absurd sash! It waves a breezy, Anglo- 
 Saxon defiance to the apathy of the East." . ' 
 
 A blond, blunt man who looked like a shortened 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 35 
 
 Hercules exchanged a word with Julie's companion^ 
 and walked on. 
 
 " That's Holbome — organized the Constabulary - 
 says he's an Englishman — born in Malta, rather an 
 interesting place to be bom in. I think that Holbome 
 is a true soldier of fortune, and that when a bigger 
 fight comes up he will move on. Rumor has it that 
 he is bound up in Isabel's spokes; but so many men 
 are that ! It is written in his steel eyes that no woman, 
 shall upset his universe. 
 
 " But of course the main force in this unseen re- 
 public is Barry McChord. He is the Titan stoking^ 
 this furnace. He is one of those persons you want 
 to have around — he makes the world so exciting to 
 live in! He has gone mad over this rough-^and- 
 tumble colony, and over the whole East. He's in 
 love with the torn-up landscape, the scaffoldings, the 
 skeleton bridges, and diverted rivers. Cleaning, re- 
 habilitating, straining — he is trying to carry tht 
 East on his back ! 
 
 " And now I must relinquish this personally con- 
 ducted tour," Miss Wilbur concluded; "I see a circle: 
 of prospective partners frowning at me for having 
 hedged you in so long. It doesn't matter, however;, 
 for the dancing is only just getting under way." 
 
 As Ellis Wilbur had implied, young men got them- 
 selves brought up, and claimed Julie. Diffident, high- 
 CQlored Englishmen, whimsically satirical over the 
 paradoxes of the East, or wearily skeptical; her own. 
 coimtrymen, gloriously beginning and flushed with the 
 enterprise. These last had come to civilize Asia, and 
 made one feel that they were electrified with their 
 job; they had the air of being engaged in a national 
 knight-errantcy. Their mood kept the air stirred. 
 
34 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Julie was bewildered by all they found to tell her — 
 strange recitals that made an Odyssey of the hopes 
 and ambitions of many men. It set up in her a fresh 
 excitement. 
 
 Suddenly, looking up, she found her host before her. 
 
 " It has been quite impossible to get near you. I 
 have sought you once as my guest, again as the very 
 newest lady, and several times after that because I 
 seem to have remembered you some place." 
 
 Julie laughed. " Perhaps that all comes of my be- 
 ing so new. To-morrow I shall have dwindled back 
 into proportion." 
 
 " Come and take a walk on the gallery," he invited ; 
 " I vrant to show you the wall." 
 
 They passed through a doorway out to a high gallery 
 that brought them suddenly very close to the stars. 
 Julie faced them as astonished as if a corner of the 
 sky had been unpinned. 
 
 "Do these belong to your garden?" she asked 
 laughingly. 
 
 "To my Neighbor's Country." He smiled. "I 
 don't transgress." He laid his hand on a dark line 
 of stones. " Here are the walls. They keep the 
 Pacific out of my estate." 
 
 A stone's throw over the walls Julie saw the purple 
 stretches of the ocean that used to come gloriously 
 rushing through her gate of golden dreams. She 
 listened a moment to its roar rising above the music 
 in the garden. Then she stared over the city. Be- 
 fore her, mysterious, shadowy, inexorable, the ancient 
 ramparts rose, inclosing a black, fantastic city with 
 unearthly towers and domes. A city of fate ! 
 
 The girl shivered with mingled ecstasy and fear. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 35 
 
 " Why do you live here? You might have chosen 
 other cities." 
 
 " So might you — but there viras destiny. I chose 
 ■Manila for many reasons — some of them hardly 
 definable. There was something from the first that 
 spoke out to me from it, that whispered from every 
 one of its old stones — an atmosphere of profound 
 human struggle, as if for centuries the place had been 
 battling with forces that go back into the dark border- 
 land of human genesis. The human spirit at its dark- 
 est, lowest ebb. It seems to me that is the curse 
 that we have come to lift — the curse of the whole 
 East." 
 
 " Have you been here very long? " 
 
 " Almost since the beginning, the Year One with 
 us — " He rested his arm upon the surface of the 
 wall, and looked across at the stretches of singing 
 waters just beyond. 
 
 " Would you like to hear how I came? " 
 
 Her eyes sparkled. " Everybody's been telling me 
 to-night how they happened to come, but most of all 
 I want to hear about you." 
 
 " It was fate with me. I was shipwrecked off the 
 coast of Mindanao in a typhoon. I had been trading 
 up and down the East, here and there, with head- 
 quarters in China. I had been round the earth, and 
 I had seen most of the cities, but I had never seen 
 the one that I believed was my particular fate. I'd 
 always had ideas of what I wanted to do in the world, 
 but I'd never gotten much nearer than dreaming them. 
 Then came the shipwreck and the whole New World 
 for me. We were rescued by the Moros and were 
 traded round among them for a while. They led us 
 
36 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 along the tops of stony mountains and told us every 
 day when the sun went down that that was the last 
 of it we Would ever see. A couple of our men died. 
 After we'd been led about for months and our datta 
 had made up his mind to kill us, his force was at- 
 tacked by another chieftain. We bolted straight into 
 Dhe jungle, and nearly went crazy getting out. Finally 
 in an open boat we gained the sea, and just drifted 
 until we reached a town where a commercial steamer 
 had put in. I got aboard, an(J came upon this city, 
 and here in this unexpected corner of the earth I found 
 my countrymen engaged in the biggest thing I'd ever 
 seen. 
 
 " I knew right oflf that it was here that I belonged, 
 and that this city was my fate. A boat was going 
 out for Shanghai with the captain of it a friend of 
 mine, and he wanted to take me on; my affairs had 
 been going well across the China Sea. But I told him 
 good-by — I had decided to take my chances along 
 with the rest of my people. 
 
 " I started in with a trading company that knew 
 my firm, and I showed them what I'd learned about 
 selling goods to the Chinese — you see I knew all the 
 big Chinese concerns. I got to be a partner and then 
 I bought the other fellows out — and so I came to do 
 the things I'd set my heart upon. I'm Irish, you see, 
 Irish-Ataeritan, and my heart had burned with all 
 sorts of things. 
 
 " And you ? " he interrogated suddenly. " Did 
 those green eyes lead you East? They are like the 
 jade of a temple god — the color of the farthest reach 
 of the sky." 
 
 Julie smiled dreamily. " When I was a child this 
 same ocean used to flow in from across the world 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 37 
 
 and tell me stories of some of the lands it touched. I 
 knew a long time ago that I was to come." 
 
 " And how did you get to come ? " 
 
 " I am to teach ! " and she stopped, wondering within 
 herself. 
 
 " Ah, there are simply no limits to that. Peaceful 
 Penetration, quickening beats in this great life. If 
 we can get these white men and women to stick to their 
 out-posts, we'll win, in a few years. But to give up 
 life completely, and sit alone in the night among the 
 palms in a desolate bit of jungle with one's soul roving 
 out over the world and the stars in terrible longing 
 — that is asking blood tribute, as I know only too 
 well!" 
 
 " And does it seem to you that it will count? " 
 
 " It will count inconceivably in that biggest of 
 struggles — the powers of light against the powers 
 of darkness." 
 
 " But right now ? " Julie queried. 
 
 " We're getting the East from this foothold — and 
 the East, as you will come to know, is too big, too 
 monstrous a fact to have against our cosmos. We 
 think the moment has come when, by making clear our 
 ideals here, we can recast her at will." 
 
 " I see," said the girl slowly, " — and atoms count. 
 Why," she broke off, " does one feel the shadows so 
 here, quite cold shadows and pitiless? Mrs. Calixter 
 seemed to make me feel that it was all a vast tract of 
 quicksands which finally at some point, would grip 
 one's feet." 
 
 " A society like this seems to offer no place to a 
 young girl. You," he mused, " belong to my Neigh- 
 bor's Country." 
 
 And thus out of this great big life pattern, this 
 
38 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 tremendous human arabesque, he thrust her into the 
 limbo of the inconjecturable — out of the work in 
 which he, with his quick vivid face, looking oddly 
 white and visionary in the moonlight, had a star part ! 
 Standing there among the shadows of the universe, 
 with the work of men's souls lifted out of her par- 
 ticipation, her heart dropped. 
 
 " I came," she said, trying to assert some title to 
 this New World, " because I wanted to give a little of 
 my life — before I should grow old and forget." 
 
 She looked up and found him staring at her with 
 a strange intensity. He appeared as startled as if she 
 had just walked into his soul, a visitant from the 
 Neighbor's Country he had talked about: Julie was 
 leaning against the wall, and for an instant they deeply 
 regarded each other. It seemed to the girl that some 
 powerful experience was seizing possession of her — 
 as if a flash of lightning illuminated her being — 
 deeper than she had ever dreamed. Just for a second 
 she felt, on unimaginable heights, a moment of mystery 
 and wonder and high enchantment. 
 
 Some one stepped out upon the gallery and the spell 
 that had caught at the stars broke. The girl quiver- 
 ingly came back to her surroundings, wondering what 
 invisible places she had touched. 
 
 She heard her companion's voice saying hurriedly, 
 " I'm called away — in the midst of everything — 
 on account of an outbreak of cholera in one of the 
 remote provinces. But I shall be back in a few days, 
 and I will see you then." 
 
 Her ear caught the definite promise and expecta- 
 tion the words contained, the intimation that their 
 lives had crossed by a stroke of fate. 
 
 That night while she undressed with the light burn- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 39 
 
 ing low, she reviewed in her mind this first day in the 
 East. She felt as if, from a high seat in some fan- 
 tastic houdah, she had seen pass a great pageant. In- 
 credibly exciting and splendidly adventurous it all was ! 
 Compared to the wall-paper universe of her youth this 
 phenomenal flash of events was unbelievable. To live 
 in a land where things actually happened, where the 
 hours were full, and where with every breath one 
 drew in a bewitching experience ! Youth's playground 
 with its everlasting drama impending. 
 
 Julie leaned out into the scented darkness and looked 
 around the sky — a nightly custom of hers — a leave 
 taking of God's world. But this imminent heaven with 
 its fearful host frightened her. Nothing was familiar. 
 Strange constellations had preempted the place of the 
 old ones. This was not God's world, but a world of 
 many gods, and she wondered, with a little shiver, 
 which one she should propitiate. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE next morning Mrs. Calixter offered to 
 drive Julie down to the Ayuntamiento Build- 
 ing where she was to receive her instructions 
 from the Head of the Department of Education. 
 When JuUe came downstairs, she found Father Hull 
 sitting in the carriage, opposite Mrs. Calixter, who 
 had promised him a lift to the Observatory. He 
 greeted Julie with pleasure, and told her that he was 
 on his way to see Father Algus, who was perfecting 
 a remarkable instrument for forecasting the typhoons 
 which periodically tore up the islands in these hazard- 
 ous seas. 
 
 " Its success now seems certain," continued the 
 priest, "thanks to Barry McCihord, who has been 
 keenly interested in the invention and has sent to 
 Europe for many delicate appliances to assist the re- 
 searches of my venerable friend." 
 
 " He' has so many things to be interested in," Julie 
 commented with sudden wistfulness. 
 
 The priest looked across at her : " I think I should 
 say he has the interest for so many things." 
 
 " Is it because I am a newcomer," the girl asked 
 the priest, " that things seem to move so bewilderingly 
 fast here — like a dance whose rhythm you can never 
 catch up with?" 
 
 " These, my child," the priest replied, " are the 
 Days of the Empire. Those of us who have experi- 
 enced them will remember them always. Conquest 
 and prowess of arms have put a dangerous fire in 
 
 40 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 41 
 
 xnen's veins. We are reaching out for more than 
 human hands were meant to grasp. When men are 
 rich overnight, and women arp scarce as queens, the 
 ■universe is not stable. Not but that there are some 
 who walk steadily in this fever — " He smiled at Mrs. 
 Calixter. 
 
 " I don't count, I'm old," replied that lady. 
 
 " Are you challenging youth ? Who in my camp 
 iire colony, as I call it, is so safe and sane as my friend 
 Barry? We have worked alongside each other for a 
 long time — and it would be difficult for me to tell 
 what he has been to me." 
 
 " The natives call Barry El Mayor," Mrs. Calixter 
 told Julie, " and believe that in power he is infinitely 
 above the Governor-General. In so many incorrigible 
 centers of rebellion he has somehow found an effectual 
 compromise." 
 
 " The natives reason that governor-generals may 
 come and go — and temporary officials of all sorts; 
 but that Barry is with them for good," Father Hull 
 said. " I don't understand all his aims. Perhaps they 
 are too wide for me, who find my own are more than 
 I can hope to cope with — but what I am very sure 
 of is that he is working always for a better order of 
 things in the world. I, too, am selfishly concerned 
 that he should not go away from here " — the priest 
 laughed ; " I have planned that he and I shall grow 
 old here together." 
 
 " And what will the ladies who admire him so much 
 say to that?" Mrs. Calixter demanded. 
 
 " There are plenty of others for them. If Barry 
 were pinned to one little circle how could he wander 
 off to all the places he's sent to at a moment's notice 
 — like China, and India and Annam? If there were 
 
42 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 mumps in his circle, how could he attend to cholera in 
 the larger circles? " 
 
 " Well, we'll have to let you have him, I guess," 
 Mrs. Calixter amusedly remarked. She glanced at 
 Julie's thoughtful face. " This young person is on 
 her way this minute to her fate, and I don't in the 
 least like it that a certain red-haired person has the 
 settling of it. Maxwell and George have had a dif- 
 ference — so we can't lift a hand." 
 
 The priest thought for a moment. " I should be 
 only too glad to do anything I could. I know Mr. 
 Maxwell — but whether any word of mine would count 
 with him, I can't say. At least I can make the effort. 
 If you can wait a few moments I will go into Father 
 Algus's office, and write Mr. Maxwell a note." 
 
 When they had stopped in front of the Observatory, 
 Father Hull bade them good-morning, begging leave 
 to send out the note on the plea of his many pressing 
 engagements. 
 
 After he had gone, Mrs. Calixter remarked with 
 anxiety, " He doesn't look well. He's been told again 
 and again to take a trip home. He used to be very 
 strong, but he has gone through many ordeals and 
 borne the brunt of fearful hardship ih this new place. 
 His soul has never wearied; it's on fire like all the 
 others, but his body is showing the strain." 
 
 She added : " While we were waiting for you to 
 come out, he told me of your meeting of yesterday, and 
 he said that he thought you were too young to fol- 
 low the trail." 
 
 Julie waited in an outer room while the chief of 
 education interviewed personally a long stream of pred- 
 ecessors. These faces showed a great deal of earnest 
 purpose — the fervor of the empire builders, which 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 43 
 
 Julie had begun to recognize; and yet these people 
 were not to remain in Manila, but were to go out to 
 the most distant, unsettled parts of the Islands, to 
 put into execution one of the most stupendous designs 
 ever launched by any government — to put a whole 
 race simultaneously to school. 
 
 Julie listened to the reports these people gave of 
 themselves, and of the wild unheard-of places they 
 were accepting as their assignments, and knew that the 
 small salaries could not be the impetus that was send- 
 ing them, grave but uncomplaining, into far jungles. 
 Or course they yearned to remain in Manila. They 
 had heard strange tales of the provinces, and knew that 
 more than one of the number trudging their missionary 
 way had been murdered ; but they had cast in their lot 
 with the colony, and it was all in the day's work. A 
 strange, intangible spell had caught their souls, and it 
 seemed that the fervor of it must set things aflame. 
 
 When Julie's turn came, she found herself con- 
 fronting an astonishingly tall man with a huge florid 
 head. The education of several millions of beings was 
 the present concern of that head, which gave evidence 
 of the magnitude of the problems confronting it. In 
 times such as these, men are often shot suddenly from 
 commonplace experience into the most enormous un- 
 dertakings. In this case the call appeared to have been 
 too quick. The man was arrogant in his power, but 
 flustered over his responsibility. All day he had been 
 dealing with a complexity of human desires, which 
 in almost every instance had conflicted with 
 his own. Julie stepped into the moment of greatest 
 tension. 
 
 There was a great map on the wall, a scroll of fate 
 to which the Superintendent referred in making his 
 
44 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 assignments. There is nothing alluring in a map ever, 
 but this one seemed particularly bleak and strange. 
 The Superintendent frowned at it. " I haven't decided 
 yet, Miss Dreschell, just where I'll send you," he 
 observed in an olympian manner. 
 ... He juggled awhile with the fates, while Julie, con- 
 siderably heartened, decided to take advantage of this 
 critical uncertainty to assist him to a favorable de- 
 cision. 
 
 " I should very much like Manila," she said pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 The Superintendent's negative mental state vanisihed 
 electrically. " Every person who has entered this room 
 to-day has said that same thing! You should have 
 come here prepared to go where you are sent." 
 
 Julie flushed. " The provinces are still in a state 
 of insurrection," she declared spiritedly. " People are 
 being killed there." 
 
 " Civilians are not," the Superintendent exclaimed 
 exasperatedly. " We are sending teachers out to the 
 most remote parts, where there are no troops at all. 
 Miss Dreschell. You will go where I send you, as 
 it is your business to do; and your station," turning 
 to the dreadful map, " will be the small island known 
 as Nahal, in the southern group." 
 
 He irately pointed it out, remote, isolated, the last 
 before the Pagan group. Julie stared at the outline, 
 and her heart grew faint, It was the end of the 
 world ! 
 
 " I shall be going farther South than any one else," 
 she remarked with a break in her voice. Suddenly she 
 put her hand in her bag and drew out the letter which 
 she handed to him. 
 
 She watched him read it in curious wonder at the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 45 
 
 change that came over her face. " This puts a dif- 
 ferent light on the matter," he said coolly. "There 
 is no favor that Father Hull could ask in the Philip- 
 pines that would not be granted at once. I shall en- 
 deavor to assign you to the Ermita district in the 
 city." 
 
 What, Julie wondered, was the strange powel^ig 
 Father Hull whose words could in an instant revolt 
 tionize her fate? Her visionary green eyes fixed 
 speculatively on that spot on the map. " Father Hull 
 said I was to give you the letter," she said slowly, " but 
 I think if you don't mind, I will go where you assigned 
 me. 
 
 The Superintendent was uncomfortable. There 
 were other islands much nearer than Nahal to which, 
 he might have sent her. He slid an elastic band over 
 a bunch of papers with an irritated snap. " Do as you 
 like, Miss Dreschell — but there is Solano " ; he pointed 
 suggestively to a larger island farther north than 
 N?ihal. " Conditions are better there, I should say." 
 
 " I think I will go where I was assigned," Julie re- 
 iterated — which decision seemed considerably further 
 to irritate the florid head. It was clear that he was 
 keenly eager to serve the writer of the letter. 
 
 But Julie rose with an air of finality. He stared 
 at her with annoyance ; and when she did not alter her 
 mind, he leaned over his desk and jotted down a note. 
 Julie knew somehow that it referred to her. She 
 caught a glimpse of the word Solano, and wondered 
 if he intended forcing her to go there. Evidently he 
 did not, for as she stepped through the door, he apolo- 
 gized perfunctorily for the difficulties of the occasion,, 
 and bowed her out with great courtesy. But Julie, 
 looking up into his face, saw that he would never for- 
 
46 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 get the person who had challenged his power and 
 caused him to be ashamed of himself. Some time this 
 incident would unfailingly bear fruit. 
 
 Mrs. Calixter was aghast. " He has banished you 
 into exile ! " she exclaimed. " Could it be because he 
 and'aGeorge are at swords' points ? Did you give him 
 ipier Hull's letter?" 
 
 " I gave it to him, and he took everything back in a 
 wink, and offered me Manila; but while I sat there 
 looking at my mysterious island, I recalled the faces 
 of some of those teachers, and the face of — a person 
 I met last night, and I asked myself why I should 
 shirk just exactly that which I had come over to do. 
 Why," she added suddenly, " did Father Hull's letter 
 make such an impression? The Church over here 
 must be very powerful." 
 
 " The Church hasn't a thing to do with it. It's the 
 man ! He's a saint, and the spiritual custodian of the 
 colony. He came over here as the Chaplain of the 
 Twenty-fourth, and marched right alongside the men 
 into every danger. There wasn't a soldier in the regi- 
 ment that wouldn't have gone straight through Hell 
 at his word. Yet I imagine he found it harder to 
 make them go the other way. He is known every- 
 where, and by everybody. No one could deny him 
 anything — it's the power of one man's life." 
 
 " There seem to be so many over here like that ! " 
 Before Julie's half-closed eyes a stream of faces rose. 
 One preeminently stood out, illuminated by moonlight, 
 and fired with the undying fervor of purpose. It was 
 her sub-conscious being which, stirred by the intima- 
 tions received last night on the roof, had decided in 
 a flash for her in the Superintendent's office. 
 
 (With the vision still about her and before her, she 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 47; 
 
 arrived at the home of Isabel Armistead, the woman 
 of Asian mystery. 
 
 The dwarf that she had seen before in the garden 
 received her. She had thought that he looked like 
 a child, but she saw now that the queer little creature 
 was of a man's years. She could not resist spea^ 
 to him, and the mannikin smiled at her out of 
 saddened, puckered little face. He showed her 
 stairs into a sala so vast that it seemed literally a sweep 
 of space broken by transcendently carved pillars. 
 
 The house was more than a century old, and had 
 come doAsm to Isabel through her inconjectural native 
 connections. Its carvings belonged to an era of 
 Pharaonic hordes of labor, or slavery. The house 
 and the other vast properties of its owner had some- 
 how come down unmolested by official upheavals. 
 
 The family was a queer one of many strains; all 
 the East was in its veins. After her husband and her 
 daughter had departed for England, Isabel's mother, 
 it was said, had gone up into a holy mountain to prac- 
 tice witchcraft. At any rate, after a time, she had dis- 
 appeared, never, apparently, to be heard of again. 
 The influence of this strange mother, Mrs. Calixter 
 had told Julie, was still perpetuated. One native lady 
 of her acquaintance had shown Mrs. Calixter one of 
 the old witch-mother's anting-antings, proclaiming that 
 she always wore it, and that it had astoundingly pro- 
 tected all her life, shielding her and her family from 
 all evil and lifting them above the common lot of men. 
 
 Julie thought of these strange rumors as she looked 
 about her. The walls were hung with a great many 
 rich embroideries, brilliant silks blooming with the 
 unfamiliar flowers of far kingdoms. It was like walk- 
 ing in a garden of Cathay. The room appeared to 
 
48 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Julie like a chamber of an Eastern palace in a rich 
 pagodaed city: there was furniture of teak-wood 
 black as a Nubian, brought from distant jungles by 
 toiling elephants, all marvelously carved into scaled 
 monsters; there were ivory gods with sleeping faces; 
 cuilliins strewn with gold, hanging in dim recesses; 
 rugs — that generations of men in almost m)^ical re- 
 "IrSats of the Himalayas had been a century or two in 
 weaving — lying like islands on the shining dark 
 lacquered floor, in which the shadows of the passer- 
 by drowned to endless depths; a pair of sentinel vases 
 higher than a man — made a thousand years ago for 
 an emperor who had become a god — out of their tops 
 a thin ribbon of green smoke curling from hidden in- 
 cense; and in one corner, hung with flowers, a queer 
 altar to whatever gods Isabel believed in. 
 
 Toward this niche Julie bent curious footsteps. The 
 altar was in the shape of a temple, a gilded fantastic 
 thing, wrought in what country it would have been 
 impossible to say. A Green God, like the monstrous 
 genie of a lake, sat cross-legged in the nave of the 
 shrine staring at rows of grotesque faces carved in 
 the walls. The artist had exercised the art of a 
 Leonardo da Vinci ; in the face of the little idol there 
 was neither the dead marooned calm of the great 
 Diabutz nor the cruel evil of Mongolian gods. He 
 was just a quiet little deity, green as the far spaces 
 of the skies, sitting thinking in his temple; but there 
 was in his oblivious, impersonal reflection something 
 that clutched at the heart. 
 
 Julie glanced up depressed, to find Isabel regarding 
 lier. 
 
 " What a terrible god ! " exclaimed the girl with a 
 shiver. " Is he yours ? " 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 49 
 
 Isabel smiled. " He is the god who is ' on the job/ 
 as you Americans say it. The Great One is too great, 
 the philosophers tell us, to have anything to do with 
 us. He has abstract names, and is too isolated by 
 infinity to be prayed to. But this little god, he knows, 
 he knows ! " 
 
 " Has he a name? " asked Julie, much puzzled by this 
 blatant paganism. The Islands were undoubtedl^'a 
 very strange place. 
 
 " In different lands, we call him different things." 
 
 Julie turned from the niche, " I am going to the 
 island of Nahal," she announced. " I have come to see 
 what you can tell me about it." 
 
 Isabel's blue eyes widened. " It is far, very far ! 
 We shall never hear of you again. It takes weeks to 
 reach there, because no boats run regularly. You can 
 ,get to Solano in three or four days, if you are lucky 
 enough to catch a boat — from there once in a while 
 a boat goes down to Nahal. It is a sm&ll island; the 
 people are Visayans. I really do not know so much 
 about it, you see. It is turbulent, I believe. Is there 
 a military garrison ? " 
 
 Julie was not sure. A volunteer force had recently 
 been withdrawn from it; Mr. Calixter was trying to 
 discover whether other troops had replaced the volun- 
 teers. 
 
 " Most of the women have been ordered out of 
 those dangerous places in the South. Have you not 
 heard the things that have been done there? You are 
 foolhardy to have come — some strange madness pos- 
 sesses you." 
 
 Julie's eyes took on an abstracted look. " It is a 
 madness that possesses others, too." 
 
 " I have not seen it." 
 
50 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Julie looked at her but remained silent. The two 
 regarded each other; Isabel out of her blue eyes, Julie 
 out of 'her jade-green ones. 
 
 " Why do you "go ? It is not safe. There are places 
 in these islands where white women have never been 
 seen." 
 
 Julie's eyes awoke. " I shall have something to do." 
 
 " Will you stay in the wilds till you have given the 
 Nahal islanders the higher education? Bah! Why 
 do you wish to waste your youth at such things ? You 
 are beautiful, and were made to be admired, not to 
 bury your youth in forgotten islands. You were made 
 to taste life a little richer in the fruit than the rest. 
 And you who could win so much renounce it all to 
 be a spectacled ascetic hanging to the tails of existence. 
 No Spanish woman would dream of doing such a 
 thing! You have come half way round the world to 
 do some vague thing you've set your heart on. Set 
 your heart on life. — it owes you much; make it mag- 
 nificently pay ! Did my Green God give you those eyes 
 and that face for the edification of small Malays? 
 Stay in Manila and drink life here where it sparkles 
 and overflows the goblet. I would no more do what 
 you are doing ! I might be a nun — that is picturesque 
 and fiercely renunciative. But to be a pedagogue to 
 brown savages! — it is dull to tears. Then," — as 
 a final overpowering fact — "there will be no 
 men!" 
 
 Julie's eyes gleamed disapprobation. " The women 
 of America have many resources. They go along their 
 real way until their real fate overtakes them." 
 
 "A single fate! Is there such a thing?" Isabel 
 seemed feverishly to question herself. " I have made 
 a long quest. I ought to know. No, there is no such 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 51 
 
 thing. It is a tradition they fasten in women's minds, 
 to make them become mothers. 
 
 " Look," she continued, turning toward the temple, 
 " I will give you a present, because I am so sorry for 
 you with such a terrible future. You are going out 
 to be a little Atlas — to lift up the world. Tell me, 
 when you return, how much you have supported on 
 your little back." 
 
 For an instant Julie was afraid that Isabel was going 
 to present her with the Green God, but she reached 
 within the shrine and drew out, not the God — to Ju- 
 lie's unspeakable relief — but an exquisite circle of 
 jade, clear and green like a tropical lake. 
 
 " A jewel from the Green God for you who have 
 his stamp in your eyes." 
 
 Julie started. " Some one else told me that." 
 
 "Who was it?" 
 
 " Barry McChord." 
 
 Isabel's lids dropped over her blue eyes. " You 
 know him, then ? " 
 
 " I met him last night." 
 
 "And he noticed your eyes — that way?" 
 
 " But nobody will notice them now — " It was 
 absurd to assume that there was the faintest flicker 
 of satisfaction in the other woman's look, Julie 
 thought. 
 
 Isabel slipped the bracelet over Julie's wrist. " It 
 has belonged to many women in many agefe. Perhaps 
 you will make more history for it. What beautiful 
 bones you have ! " she exclaimed. " They are like 
 sculpture — even in your cheeks where the bones of 
 the English go wrong. And your flesh is flawless; 
 an angel might use it to come down to earth. Look 
 at the difference." 
 
52 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She drew Jdie's arm up beside her own to the light. 
 "Yours is snowy, way down to the depths; but the 
 light stops under my skin, it can't get down. That 
 is the difference between you and me ! " She loosed 
 Julie abruptly. " Ah, well — you are blind. Go hold 
 up the world, and break your poor little back, when 
 you might be ruling the world, like me. All the East, 
 you know, is mine to work my will in." 
 
 Because Isabel was of that East, which she so fan- 
 tastically claimed, Julie took lightly all she said. To 
 boast of swaying empires and of taking kings out of 
 their thrones was part of the inalienable imagery of 
 the East, as were the widely unreal, the impossibly 
 beautiful things in the old Chinese lyrics. Isabel im- 
 plied that Julie had only to step out of her insignificant 
 profession to find herself ruling the world, the world 
 of to-day, which had such a marvelous capacity for 
 ruling itself. It was strange how something at other 
 moments so exalted could, under this woman's manipu- 
 lation, become all at once so obscure. Julie, turning to 
 depart, thanked Isabel for the bracelet. 
 
 " Remember, I am your friend," Isabel said, " and 
 I will help you at any time you say so. Adios! " 
 
 Julie left her standing in the center of her magic 
 chamber, its splendor hovering about her, her dark 
 face merging into its richness like that of some for- 
 gotten goddess. 
 
 With his small powerful arms, the dwarf swung the 
 gate open for her. She looked back at the garden, 
 starred with strange flowers, at the tiers of steps and 
 bright pillars whidi made the house resemble a Ba- 
 bylonian palace, at the light of the stained glass 
 under the blaze of sunlight : in that bizarre house had 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 53 
 
 lived a woman who had gone out to the tops of moun- 
 tains searching for spells! 
 
 In those moments when Julie cogitated upon mat- 
 ters of human life in connection with the Deity, she 
 conceived Him rather vaguely as a sort of sublime 
 executive, who drew up — sometimes perforce a little 
 hurriedly perhaps — plans of eternal destiny for every- 
 body. Dealing liberally in catastrophe, disease, old 
 age, poverty, and death, He yet conceded, like allow- 
 ances of candy to children, a certain amount of im- 
 permanent happiness; and it was into this arrange- 
 ment of things that the race was privileged to enter. 
 
 She wondered, as she turned from Isabel's gate, 
 who the little Green God was ; and whether he had any 
 character by which he would be recognized in the West. 
 She who had started out with a nameless exalted 
 fervor, whose spirit had been skimming like an inspired 
 comet through space, had been suddenly halted before 
 a strange house in which she had encountered dis- 
 quieting things — things which had brought the comet 
 down to a scented and blooming earth. So do the 
 moods of youth sway in the last wind blowing. 
 
 Still nothing caused Julie to change her intentions ; 
 not the troubled counsel of Father Hull, given in his 
 tired voice; nor the Calixters' tales of the far, fear- 
 ful South ; nor the exotic arguments listened to in the 
 Babylonian house. She set sail for the South on 
 the day that had been set. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 JULIE sat restively on the blistering deck of a 
 small vessel in the harbor of Solano. The Black 
 Pearl, which had brought her from Manila, had 
 deposited iier in this blazing city — which now lay be- 
 fore her like a peeling off the sun — and had sailed 
 on in the trail of the East Indies. She had been forced 
 to wait an incredible time for the rare chance that 
 would send a boat from Solano to her own world- 
 forgotten island. Even now she would not have been 
 on her way, if a government official had not appeared 
 from Manila and, from Solano, demanded transpor- 
 tation forthwith to Nahal. 
 
 It was getting late — late for a day when everybody 
 rises at dawn, when at last there walked across the 
 gang-plank a young man in a Norfolk khaki suit and 
 a white helmet. He was followed by a procession of 
 natives carrying his luggage, which they had so 
 light distributed among themselves that it took some 
 time for the column to transfer itself from land to 
 sea. It took more time, and a knowledge of the coin 
 of the land — which knowledge the young man seemed 
 to have — to compensate these individuals, who raised 
 a protest over the glittering new centavos. The young 
 man was obliged to add to his payment, whereupon 
 the recipients protested more loudly than ever, and 
 would not subside. The captain in disgust contemp- 
 tuously ordered the gang-plank lifted with them still 
 on it. Life in the East was too prolific anyway. 
 
 The young man, who had such a dark skin that Julie 
 concluded that he must be a Spaniard, came forward 
 
 54 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 55 
 
 with his luggage, which he now conveyed himself, re- 
 placing a dozen natives. 
 
 When he perceived Julie, he seemed much taken 
 aback, and removed his helmet, revealing a young as- 
 sured face, a trifle heavy, and a pair of very light blue 
 eyes. Julie looked at him attentively. 
 
 He paused, holding his helmet in his hand. It was 
 c4ear that he wanted to speak. He had the same curi- 
 ous, almost incredulous expression of those armies of 
 men in Manila. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, overcome by his desire 
 to address her ; " I had no idea I was keeping any one 
 waiting. I understood that I was the only passenger 
 for Nahal." All the time he was speaking his eyes 
 never swerved from her. 
 
 " It does not matter," Julie replied, " except for the 
 heat." 
 
 The young man sat down not very far away from 
 her, on a chair which he had brought. 
 
 Julie leaned over the railing and watched the reces- 
 sion of Solano. Somewhere far off in the sea was her 
 own terrible little island about which she wondered 
 deeply; she remembered now acutely that she need 
 not have gone to that Robinson Crusoe fastness. 
 Father Hull had warned her, and so had every one else. 
 Suddenly an image rose before her, a great youthful 
 frame with a rumpled head. For a moment she 
 seemed to be facing its high and inflexible resolve. 
 
 " We are surely bound for No Man's Land ! " The 
 young man at her side was addressing her. 
 
 She nodded gravely. 
 
 The young man went on politely to say that a Span- 
 ish Mestizo general was making himself troublesome 
 on the island of Nahal. He was a great bother to the 
 
56 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Government, which was trying to bring strife to an 
 end in order to set up its great emancipation schemes. 
 
 " They are over-sentimentalizing the thing — think 
 the bird can be caught by putting salt on his tail. 
 Government wants everybody to lay down arms and 
 listen to the gospel of democracy. Fancy that in the 
 East!" 
 
 " It must be a fearful struggle when the people are 
 so unconvinced. There were guns going off all night 
 in Solano ! " Julie reflected. " Are there any men and 
 women on Nahal ? " 
 
 " Oh ! of course." The young man made a care- 
 lessly expansive gesture. ''There are natives every- 
 where." 
 
 " But I mean real people, white people, people that 
 make things happen." 
 
 " Hope so. The natives are no good except for 
 background; help along with palms and things to fill 
 up space." 
 
 Thereupon the young man introduced himself, and 
 commenced to explain to Julie that he was going to the 
 island to act as Treasurer. He had been a captain of 
 volunteers, and appeared to deprecate his present of- 
 fice. It served in his opinion, however, as a step to 
 higher things. A Filipino had been made governor of 
 Nahal — matter of government policy ; but as he didn't 
 count for much, Mr. Purcell — such was the name the 
 young man gave himself — had been sent down to 
 bolster things up. His father was a politician in 
 Iowa, and would look out for his son's advancement. 
 His parents did not approve his roving, oriental life, 
 and wanted him to come home and settle down. He 
 allowed a considerable pause to ensue after this reflec- 
 tion. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 57: 
 
 For hours the only two persons on the tiny decic, they 
 sat and watched the sea. Later in the afternoon, the 
 sky grew overcast, bringing relief from the intolerable 
 heat. 
 
 Finally, a dissolving cloud broke apart on the hori- 
 zon, and the sun lit up an island green and wild as a 
 new-made world. Julie rose with a cry at the beauty 
 of it. That was Nahal! Mars itself could not have 
 looked more uninhabited. What subliminal, lonely 
 wildness ! It called up to her the vision of the wild, 
 moon-swept cliffs of Mindoro, passed at night on the 
 way down to Solano, with its mysterious jungle and 
 without even a light against its primal shores. This 
 little island had ridges of green cones, that looked in 
 the distance like the domes and spires of mosques, 
 all clothed in quiet forests over which the wind seemed 
 scarcely to blow. 
 
 The vessel was making for the eastern coast, to a 
 town called Dao, where it was to drop mail. It would 
 then continue to Guindulman, whither both passengers 
 were bound. 
 
 At Dao, the Captain said the passengers might go 
 ashore; so Julie and Mr. Purcell went with him in a 
 leaky row-boat into a cove of the harbor, which was 
 bounded on both sides by long gleaming arms of beach 
 dotted with palm trees, their heads bent like pensive 
 thinkers. 
 
 A small village barely peeped out from under the 
 foliage of the great tropical trees. A dusty primitive 
 road ran down from the village to the rude pier. 
 They climbed up to it by means of a flight of slippery 
 green stairs, a heroic undertaking for Julie in her 
 white clothes. 
 
 To her it appeared at once as an island of appalling 
 
58 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 silence. Even the sea out there was not so still. A 
 primitive, all-pervading hush — the deepest she had 
 ever known. A queer sensation came over her of hav- 
 ing reached a point in the universe where time was not. 
 
 A crowd of natives had commenced quietly to gather. 
 Two white men were approaching ; one a young officer 
 in a khaki uniform, with a sword hooked to his belt; 
 the other nondescriptly appareled in an officer's blouse 
 devoid of insignia, a pair of bleached trousers that 
 came considerably above his shoe tops, and a peaked 
 straw hat. ' 
 
 As they drew near, these men looked at Julie in 
 amazement. The Captain presented the officer as 
 Lieutenant Adams. Julie noticed at once the deep 
 shadow that rested upon his thin, troubled face. The 
 other strange-looking gentleman was the Doctor. 
 Outside of these two, the Captain remarked, there was 
 only one white person on this side of the island. At 
 this allusion, Julie noticed strained glances exchanged. 
 
 When Purcell got the chance, he whispered to Julie 
 that this third person was the captain in command — 
 perpetually drunk, and frequently insane with delirium 
 tremens. He had been a fearless soldier, and had once 
 performed a hazardous mission for the Government ; 
 and he had been put off here, with a one-company 
 command, in the idea that he could do little harm. 
 But this drink-maddened czar in his times of dementia 
 maintained a reign of terror over his small domain that 
 brought it always to the verge of mutiny. Only one 
 thing stood between his brutality and disaster. This 
 was young Adams, who interposed between the cap- 
 tain and his men — and who spent weeks in arrest or 
 confinement for his pains. 
 
 " What lives you regulars lead ! " Purcell exclaimed 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 59 
 
 to the Doctor. " Do you think any volunteer organ- 
 ization would stand for that whiskey king? They'd 
 take him out and twist his head off." 
 
 Adams frowned. " Let go, before the natives, when 
 the whole blooming show is at stake over here ? We're 
 not just a company of infantry. We're the ArmyE 
 I'd have my own head twisted off first." 
 
 " If, it were not for Adams," the Doctor said, shak- 
 ing his head, " there'd be a holocaust, all right. It 
 frequently occurs to me to take to the open sea. But. 
 I'd like Adams to go with me, and he keeps Nero so 
 peeved by his altruism that the old monster locks him 
 up; so he can't get away. Miss Dreschell," he con- 
 tinued, turning engagingly to her in his quaintly de- 
 ranged hat and incoherent costume, " you must really- 
 pardon my clothes. As you may not have found it 
 difficult to surmise, I haven't any. I came here a thou- 
 sand years ago, and never expected to encounter a lady 
 again. I have written to a tailor regularly, enclosing: 
 at various times a roll of bills — impossible to send, 
 money orders, there being no post-office on this island ;. 
 but that evil one simply disdains to reply. All the 
 world, by some singular sort of erosion, seems to have, 
 receded from us. I shall eventually be reduced to fig. 
 leaves — though they are not indigenous to the island^ 
 and banana leaves, while dressy and expansive, will not 
 bear needle and thread, nor glue together with any 
 success. 
 
 " I hope," he said to her in a lower tone, " that yoit 
 will talk very nicely to Adams. There is no such 
 thing as speech left in our principality, nor mirth 
 except the laughter of the monkeys in the hills. Our 
 brains are sucked out ; never a new idea comes here — 
 save what that black son of Neptune purveys every 
 
60 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 two months. Give the lad something to think about in 
 the next cycle of years. And I am asking you pri- 
 vately not to regard me too closely when we ascend 
 the hill. You happened upon me just before my 
 monthly sewing day. There goes our mail." He 
 pointed to a loaded sack that a soldier was carrying 
 up the hill. " It reminds me that there is one thing 
 you don't have to worry about here — that's bills." 
 
 The Doctor waved his hand ahead of him. " Be- 
 hold, the population of Nahal is coming down from 
 the hills to look at you. You are the first white woman 
 to land on this spot. Number this as an indelible 
 day." 
 
 Julie was staring with all her eyes. Whereas a 
 handful of people had stood but a short time ago about 
 the wharf, the road and the surrounding vicinity were 
 now black with natives surging in her direction. They 
 formed a solid Staring girdle around her, their unblink- 
 ing eyes riveted upon her. 
 
 To them her blond fairness was miraculous. When 
 the Doctor made her take off her hat, and her singular 
 silvery blond hair came forth to view, lighting her daz- 
 zling skin, a deep quiet stir went through the crowd. 
 The girl stood abashed in the midst of it. Long, long 
 afterwards, when many others had paid tribute to her 
 beauty, Julie remembered that moment in a wild little 
 spot out of the world. 
 
 One grimy little child crept up towards her, and, 
 plucking at her garments, demanded if she were not 
 the Blessed Virgin. The men of the lonely lives 
 turned abruptly. The others followed after them up 
 the hill, Julie's native coterie trailing behind heh 
 They picked flowers for 'her, and offered her strange 
 sweets. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 61 
 
 " A queen for a day ! " she laughed to Lieutenant 
 Adams, who was walking beside her. " I shall re- 
 member Dao until the end of my life." 
 
 " That's the strange part of the natives; they admire 
 our type more than their own. You are absolute 
 beauty to them — very near a glimpse of God. I am 
 going to send your worshipers away now, and ask you 
 to take a walk with me; for you will be here only a 
 couple of hours — two hours out of eternity, and I 
 must talk ! It is a long time since I said an)rthing real. 
 Let us waive the world, and consider that we are 
 two people met in outer space at the end of time, and 
 that it does not matter at all what we say." He looked 
 up quickly into her wondering face. " You think I'n^ 
 mad. What else, in heaven's name could I be? " 
 
 She regarded the strained, urgent face, and felt a 
 subtle appeal being made to her — youth in hard 
 straits, to youth. 
 
 They strolled down the main thoroughfare of the 
 town. Knitted closely together with foliage, it pre- 
 sented a weird aspect. Adams explained that the 
 Commandant liked this wild growth. They stepped 
 into a side street, and he indicated with a grimly sig- 
 nificant nod one house larger than the rest. Adams 
 passed it quickly; but before turning down the lane, 
 Julie glanced back and beheld a great shape at the win- 
 dow, bloated and distorted, the hair standing out all 
 over its head. The man creature up there was in the 
 depth of one of his worst debauches, when for a week 
 he did not touch food but lived in an alcoholic frenzy. 
 He was scarcely human, and Julie, who had never 
 dreamed of the existence of such a thing, fled down the 
 street with a smothered cry. " What is the matter? " 
 Adams demanded. 
 
62 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " He was at the window. Oh ! how awful ! How 
 can you live here? " A deep shame mantled the young 
 man's grimness. " Isn't he a beast? " 
 
 Julie followed her guide up the hill, reflecting that 
 strange lives must be expected to make strange men. 
 Adams pointed out a flat stone for a seat, and, drawing 
 a long breath, dropped down upon another. 
 
 " How long have you been here? " he began; " and 
 where do you think you are going? That's what we 
 always want to know." 
 
 Julie explained the uncertainty she faced. He 
 looked at her keenly. 
 
 " I used to be in Guindulman," he said. " It's one 
 of the three garrisons on the island, including this place 
 and Tarlac — only a battalion altogether." 
 
 She returned to him his question — the genesis of 
 everything in the East. " And you — how long? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Year and a half. 
 I've lost all track of time." He pointed to some pen- 
 sively quiescent hills. " Could you fasten time, or 
 change to them? As it was in the beginning, so it 
 shall ever be, world without end. You get up in the 
 morning and go to bed at night, till your brain reels. 
 I hate this eternity. I want to live or I want to die." 
 
 " Why do they leave you? It's wicked! " 
 
 " Why do they send a mere child like you to Nahal ? 
 We're grist for the mill. In order that big things shall 
 come forth from it, the wheels must grind exceeding 
 fine. You and I are slated for powder. 
 
 " This is my private little hell. I've got to keep the 
 old man from running amuck and the men from break- ' 
 ing out. But what I want to tell you right now — 
 because we are going to be such awfully good friends 
 — is that I am sick of my job, and I'm afraid that I'm 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 63 
 
 going to break out too. I've lost my perspective. 
 They might have let me go out for just a little while. 
 AH the time, I'm in insurrection inside. I seem to 
 have slipped some vital moorings — and to be adrift.'* 
 
 " But you wouldn't yield now, after struggling so 
 long ? " Julie pleaded. " Oh ! I'm so sorry for you ! "' 
 
 He clutched his face in his hands, and looked out 
 through the foliage across the sea. " What is life, any- 
 way? There must be more of existence than what we 
 manage to find. Sometimes I can feel whispers of it. 
 Do you think I'm mad, or just soul-sick of my kind of 
 a world ? You see I'm only a poor devil in purgatory,, 
 trying — and not succeeding — to fight my way out."" 
 
 " You have been splendid," she said tremulously. 
 " Does it mean anything to you to know that I think 
 that?" 
 
 He straightened quickly. " It means a lot. This 
 hour has put something into my veins." 
 
 Suddenly the boat whistled from the harbor. He 
 took her hand, and said with a feeling which he could 
 ill conceal : " The Blessed Virgin did not visit Purga- 
 tory for nothing this day." Then he added : " I shall 
 see you. Perhaps they will let me come to Guindul- 
 man — Ah, anyway, I shall see you ! " 
 
 Julie from the boat waved a farewell to the khaki- 
 clad figure standing on the pier, Mr. Purcell watching 
 her intently all the while. " Military gentlemen," he 
 informed the universe in a meditatively resentful way, 
 " are always irresistible to women.^' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 IN darkness, rain, and perturbation, Julie landed 
 at her destination. A storm had blown up from 
 the Sulu Sea, to which they were quite close. 
 Before the light had faded, however, the Captain had 
 pointed out as Guindulman a spot in the long, low 
 stretch of gray green against the gray sea,, where a 
 lonely torch light shot up in the dusk and was gone. 
 Julie's companion had managed to make the latter part 
 of the voyage somewhat too disturbingly intimate, and 
 she hoped fefvently that their ways would soon part. 
 
 In a large house near the wharf, they found that 
 a white woman, a teacher, was quartered. She sent 
 word that she would look out for Julie. Mr. Purcell 
 was directed to the Officers' Mess. 
 
 Miss Hope, a succinct person with the ineradicable 
 stamp of pedagogical command upon her, greeted Julie, 
 and explained conditions while the girl changed her 
 drenched clothing. Of the two available intra-suelo 
 rooms rented from the prosperous native family above, 
 one could be turned over to Julie — the one, the girl 
 noted, that was closest to the malaria-soaked ground. 
 Because of the military occupation, the village was 
 badly crowded. 
 
 " The General Superintendent must have known 
 something about this place," Julie reflected ; " since 
 he sent you." 
 
 " Oh, I know him very well," Miss Hope declared. 
 " He is a very busy man, and cannot be expected to 
 know everything. This is the world's end — but I 
 
 64 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 65 
 
 came here on my own request. I have a project which 
 obHges me to teach in at least one remote island. My 
 plan is to teach in every country around the world, as 
 far as I can get. In addition to teaching in the States, 
 I have already put in one term in Honolulu, one in 
 Yokohama, another in a girls' school in Pekin. From 
 here, I project India and Ceylon, a course of English in 
 a Greek School, ending up in a college in Madrid." 
 
 Everybody over here, Julie reminded herself, had a 
 separate and astonishing thing to do. 
 
 The rain had stopped when they set out to climb 
 the hill to the Mess for dinner. There was one 
 general military mess where most of the white colony 
 ate. Miss Hope explained. 
 
 In the inky blackness Julie tould form no impres- 
 sion of the town. There was the usual plaza inevitable 
 to every Spanish town, on a plateau at the top of the 
 hill. On a corner of the plaza loomed the large house 
 of the august Commandant. 
 
 Dinner was almost over when they arrived. Here 
 in this one room, closed against the elements like some 
 Monte Cristo world, were nearly all the white inhabit- 
 ants of the place. A hush fell as the newcomer stepped 
 in among them. 
 
 In a community like this everybody was potential. 
 The girl looked about her, stirred at the encounter with 
 these beings who were to become the companions of 
 her life ; and when she was stirred the singular, char- 
 acteristic inner gleam came out and lighted her fea- 
 tures. These people, huddled together to keep their 
 spirits alive in their neglected comer of the world, 
 woke up as if they had received a message from their 
 lost existence. 
 
 Major Landon, the Commandant, a tall, stem-look- 
 
'66 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ing man of swarthy complexion, rose and greeted her, 
 with the greatest possible courtesy, Julie thought. He 
 was in fact kind to her at once. That this graciousness 
 did not extend to every one, she soon learned. His 
 deep utterance rolled around in his throat like a growl, 
 and seldom got completely out. " You are the first 
 American girl to visit Nahal," he rumbled. " We 
 hope you'll stay ! " 
 
 Miss Hope looked vexed, and resumed her introduc- 
 tions. 
 
 The Smiths were the only married couple. Theirs 
 was a very recent and spectacular marriage — any 
 reference to which seemed excessively to annoy the 
 Major. 
 
 The two remaining members of the mess present 
 were Lieutenants Dwight and Brentwood, members 
 temporarily, since they had lost their cook; Bentwood, 
 the Major's Adjutant, was a prosaically good-looking 
 young man who certainly tried his best to please the 
 Major by purring optimistically at him all the time, 
 only to get snarled at for his pains. 
 
 The very slimmest lady with the very yellowest 
 hair Julie had ever seen leaned across and whispered 
 encouragingly : " Isn't he an ogre ! I came here, a 
 bride, six months ago, and he frightened me to death. 
 I had come seven thousand miles to marry dear Marl- 
 borough — I hadn't seen him since he was thirteen 
 years old — and you can imagine ! " 
 
 "Luella," Mr. Smith called from the door. 
 
 " Some time I'll tell you what the monster said." 
 The slim lady floated ofif. 
 
 Julie gave ear to Mr. Dwight on her left, whose at- 
 tention had been so persistently straying from his 
 ■food to her that t!he Major's basilisk eye had frequently 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 67 
 
 to recall it. Dwight explained to Julie in lowered 
 tones — the Major was happily a little deaf — that the 
 Commanding Officer was a somber old file, of belated 
 rank and defeated hopes. Even Ihis marriage had been 
 a retarded afifair — the lady had become middle-aged 
 waiting for him to propose, when suddenly she had dis- 
 covered that he had been making declarations to her 
 for fifteen years, which, owing to his unintelligible 
 utterance, she had never understood. Since the Major 
 had been so deliberate in his own matrimonial concerns, 
 he regarded with disfavor the precipitate nuptials of 
 the Smiths. 
 
 The next morning when they again climbed the hill, 
 Julie saw the village of Guindulman for the first time. 
 Always thereafter it was set apart in her memory as 
 a shining village set upon a bluff above the sea against 
 an emerald tropical forest. Along its lone lines of 
 snow-white beach, palms waved in solitude. Over to 
 the east a very singular natural causeway united the 
 island with a smaller one. To Julie there was some- 
 thing very aloof and strange about this causeway with 
 the sea surging up on either side. The whole looked 
 like Eden, new, green, and expectant. 
 
 Nahal was in insurrection. A great proportion of 
 its native men had decamped for the hills, where under 
 General Andegas they engaged in outlawry of every 
 sort, seizing the property of peaceful natives and even 
 killing them on the slightest suspicion that they were 
 friendly to the Americans. 
 
 The Major was an old soldier, and for all his brus- 
 querie a good one; but after a long sojourn in the 
 subordinate grades he had lost youth's sublime capacity 
 for hazard. He knew that if he should employ the 
 measures essential to the pacification of the island, the 
 
68 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 measures requisite for the obliteration of its chaos and 
 disorder, he would end up as an oblation on the altar 
 of American conscience. There might be others who 
 could laugh in the teeth of the gods but the Major was 
 too old. So, high up in his great open room, he could 
 be seen by his world eternally walking about like a 
 caged lion. There is no such bitter spectacle as that 
 of a strong man knowing and yet fearing his own mind. 
 
 Around the plaza was all the history Guindulman 
 had ever had. The church was very old, and was 
 supposed to trace back to the activities of the Legaspian 
 missionaries. It had a three-storied stone tower, in 
 which there yawned three gaps for missing bells car- 
 ried off by Mohammedan pirates to their own terrible 
 island — discernible on clear days as a sinister shadow 
 against the sea. The fagade of the church offered an 
 entertaining exposition of the Book of Revelations. 
 The several different kinds of Horned Beasts roared 
 sulphurously from its brow, surreptitiously urged on 
 from imder the eaves by the Scarlet Woman; an 
 incensed angel in the center with militant wings and 
 drawn sword, gave them all battle, while under his 
 feet a frightened saint hugged the arms of Spain in 
 desperation. 
 
 Outside the door of the church stood a slim, black- 
 robed figure, which, as the two women approached, 
 turned upon them out of a somber and lonely face the 
 sudden fire of a pair of piercing black eyes. 
 
 " Good morning, Padre," Miss Hope essayed defer- 
 entially. " May I present Miss Dreschell, who has 
 come to take charge of the Boy*' School ? " 
 
 A change flashed through tlie priest's face, which 
 was not suppressed before Julie had looked into a hid- 
 den chamber of his personality. The priest — he was 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 69 
 
 young and had all the swift movements of youth — 
 looked at Julie quickly, and murmured a few Spanish 
 words ; then with an inclination of the head, he moved 
 away. A crowd of children on their way to school 
 came flocking about him. 
 
 Miss Hope said that he was a mestizo, the usual 
 warring half-and-half — all restless souls vainly seek- 
 ing, between two races, their destiny. James, the 
 American teacher, who had visited him in his convento, 
 said that Father Herrero knew both Greek and Latin, 
 which in these parts was the same as saying that the 
 Sultan of Jolo could speak French. 
 
 The Ayuntamiento, or government building, seemed 
 in its huge concrete size, to overtop the village. It 
 held all the offices of the government, and streams of 
 people were to be seen hurrying in and out. 
 
 In a wing of the building Julie saw a great upstairs 
 gallery where two hammocks were hung. These were 
 the quarters. Miss Hope thought, of the new Treasurer, 
 the gentleman wiho had brought Julie ashore. Troops 
 quartered downstairs made this building eminently 
 safe. In a low-roofed building adjoining, prisoners 
 stuck sociable faces out between iron bars. 
 
 The bachelor officers lived on the corner opposite 
 the Major, the rest of the colony in intermediate houses. 
 Thus the Major had his whole domain under his eyes, 
 and could even see when those of the bachelors who 
 messed separately across the plaza came to the table 
 in their shirt-sleeves. 
 
 As Miss Hope and Julie walked down the road 
 toward the side street where the two schools were 
 located, the crowd of children who had been following 
 the Padre detached themselves with the inevitable in- 
 constancy of childhood, and formed a devoted train 
 
70 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 around the teachers, offering them flowers. Juiie, who 
 was pretty and always popular with children, fell into 
 possession of most of these. 
 
 The priest, left alone, frowned slightly in her direc- 
 tion. Before turning back into the church grounds 
 he paused a moment at the gate, and Julie saw a por- 
 tentous shadow cross his face. 
 
 " He's the most powerful man on the island," Miss 
 Hope remarked. " The Padre, for that matter, always 
 is. He is the mind of these people. Some of the of- 
 ficers accuse him of all sorts of things. It's hard to 
 tell from his face what he is." 
 
 The boys' and the girls' schools stood opposite each 
 other on a long, wide side street, over-shadowed by 
 great tropical trees, in which the boys roosted out of 
 hours among the mangoes and bananas. The build- 
 ings were high and roomy, overlooking charming 
 scenery of jungle and sea, and were surrounded by the 
 overgrown grounds that children love. This street 
 was their retreat; they lived in it nearly all the time, 
 played their games, mostly now those imported from 
 America, and satisfied their hungry appetites with the 
 queer cheap candies and little sponge cakes, made of 
 very ancient eggs, that were purveyed in its stalls. 
 
 Julie turned into the Boys' School, now her respon- 
 sibility, while Miss Hope crossed the street. Miss 
 Hope, Julie learned, had several native teachers to help 
 her; whereas one ex-soldier was the only assistant she 
 had with over a hundred boys. Brown boys of every 
 age and stature were filing past her up the stairs. The 
 airy tropical structure rocked to its foundation imder 
 the onsweeping surge of youth. Julie looked out at 
 the golden morning, and her thoughts glowed. She 
 felt equal to arty enterprise in creation. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 71 
 
 Mr. James was a well educated young man, who 
 had come out to fight for his country; and who had 
 stayed behind like others of his countrymen to experi- 
 ment. He was not a regularly certificated teacher, but 
 he was a good instructor and had been making re- 
 markable progress with the older boys, with whom Julie 
 could see he yearned to continue. The younger ones 
 were not advancing, James-confessed; his one ambi- 
 tious idea having been to turn out candidates for 
 scholarships in America. 
 
 Julie offered to take over the junior classes. Her 
 sixty aspirant es filled every nook and corner of the 
 room; sixty funny little brown creatures, fresh from 
 their morning dip in the river, sitting like wet little 
 birds in quivering expectancy. Julie glanced over the 
 rows of brown heads : — the people that the Caravan 
 in its long march had left behind. The boys put their 
 heads down on the desks, like little setters, and stared. 
 One hundred and twenty black beads peered up at her. 
 She was beginning to be disconcerted, when a delight- 
 ful little savage with hair standing up stiffly all over 
 his head, like a circular brush, detached himself from 
 the brown mass, and, moved by some aberrant impulse, 
 strayed barefoot up to Julie's desk and irrelevantly laid 
 upon it a rooster's long, bedraggled tail feather. Hav- 
 ing consummated this act of tribute, Delphine, who was 
 to become his teacher's undying friend, stole back. 
 
 Seized by an- idea, Julie drew a picture of the feather 
 on the board. The class sat up and inspected this feat. 
 Having a knack with a pencil, she elaborated the 
 feather into a rooster. A murmur of recognition and 
 pure delight passed through the class. The bird on the 
 board was a national idol. Unwittingly and quite by 
 chance she had captured their in.terest. 
 
72 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 In a few days they were chanting glibly of the rat 
 and the cat and the permanently unpleasant relations 
 between the two, soaking in learning by means of their 
 incredible memories, and wrestling musically with the 
 dark, mystic bars of the Star Spangled Banner and the 
 Battle Hymn of the Republic. 
 
 James taught mathematics, and almost nothing else. 
 He had a passion for numbers, which he taught dog- 
 matically as the whole science of life. His boys had 
 been shot dazedly through fractions, and were now halt- 
 ing awestruck before the heights of geometry. The fact 
 and values of the universe astounded their unaccus- 
 tomed minds. Their island had been their center of 
 existence, and in this painful trepanning, their brains 
 gaped before the marvels and terrors of higher human 
 thought. These incipient philosophers, much perturbed, 
 used to seek Julie out to ask her to explain a little the 
 metaphysical net in which they found themselves fast. 
 They were troubled terribly in their souls, and Julie, 
 ignoring geometry, and all the equations of men, would 
 seek with her fore-shortened philosophies to set these 
 simple minds right; but she could see that they were 
 not quite satisfied. There was no doubt about it that 
 the boys, still unsettled in their minds, went to the 
 priest, who received a very garbled version of her ex- 
 planations. 
 
 Julie's own little boys were in their seats an hour be- 
 fore school opened, exhilarantly scratching their 
 meager little life experiences on their slates, or de- 
 bating with one another in bragging English. They 
 loved the school, and lived in it in a state of expectant 
 excitement. Like little charmed birds they sat, while 
 Julie explained what became of the sun when it went 
 away, and the wonderful journey they were at that 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 73 
 
 moment taking around it; whereupon the boys would 
 feel their desks for the barest fractions of the move- 
 ment of this celestial merry-go-round. They had an 
 inordinate love of fairy tales, and listened — poor little 
 earth-grubs — with widened eyes to the recounting of 
 battles and heroes of far-away places of the world. 
 
 Julie never forgot those days. She could shut her 
 eyes long afterwards and see the monsoon bowing the 
 banana trees and scattering to the universe the golden 
 host of the sacred tree of India, rushing with its wild 
 force to up-root their little tropical world. The boys 
 still sat in her memory in quivering wonder before the 
 miracles of the cosmos. The archipelago could never 
 again be the limit of their consciousness; it strayed 
 now over the whole wide earth. 
 
 But it was hard work through hot long days for a 
 boy and a girl, and the minds they were pulling out of 
 savagery caught half-way. To pull them up to the 
 tidal mark of civilization would take years, and it was 
 just this staggering task that these two confronted. 
 With their buoyant young shoulders heaving at the 
 wheel, James would despairingly exclaim : " It can't be 
 done. The whole race is stuck right here." 
 
 Julie would set her teeth. " But they've got to go 
 through! The rest of humanity's done it. Remem- 
 ber they've hi^d only a few hundred years, and look 
 at the eons back of us ! " 
 
 " But we sweated into our own souls, and they make ) 
 us sweat for theirs. What were they doing in our eons 
 of advancement? and who is fighting their savagery 
 for them ? We are ! " 
 
 Julie sighed. " They are so eager, so anxious. I 
 get frightened sometimes as I sit before them ; they ac- 
 cept me so wholly as their creed. It comes over me 
 
74 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 that twenty years from now sixty men will be thinking 
 my thoughts. Oh, we'll get them, sometime — and 
 isn't it the most splendid work anybody could engage 
 in? To make a race! Why, you and I are sowing 
 the dragon's teeth, which shall spring up as the genera- 
 tion of light." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 JULIE now entered into a phase of existence that 
 she had never before experienced. She was im- 
 portant to quite an extensive number of people, 
 not in the school alone — that was a life apart — but 
 in the delightful world into which she had dropped. 
 A young, trusting, and joyous figure, she stirred Nahal. 
 Even the Major, when she came within his range, 
 emerged from his Hamlet gloom and persuaded his 
 facial muscles into a grim smile. To all the others 
 Nahal was exile ; to Julie among so many eagerly at- 
 tentive people, a number of them men and young, who 
 made a queen of her, Nahal was life translated to some 
 glorious star. Her work seethed in her soul and kept 
 her vivid ; all those keen brown boys who were to grow 
 up some day were her star dust, out of which she was 
 to create worlds. 
 
 Life is the present, the philosophers have said. To 
 the young men Julie was the eternal feminine, while 
 the magic of their youth stirred hers. She was utterly 
 unused to so much concentrated attention. The earth 
 was abundantly peopled with a kind race. She and her 
 followers spent the evenings on the Calcedos' balcony, 
 in the midst of an assortment of banjoes, rocking in 
 native hammocks and keeping the night alive. Noth- 
 ing at all went to sleep, not even the birds irritatedly 
 rustling among the leaves, nor the fireflies, nor the 
 timid Ghecko, who too horrible to be seen by day, crept 
 out of his mysterious retreat and offered his harsh bass 
 voice at very close range; nor Mike the Major's 
 
 75 
 
76 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 monkey, across the road at Head-quarters, where he 
 squealed and begged abjectly to be let into the fun ; nor 
 the natives drifting in their little boats out on the 
 silver water, with their guitars throbbing softly through 
 the moonlight. Here they swung and strummed, and 
 defied the stars, and wondered — what after Nahal? 
 though into this speculation Julie never entered. She 
 was unqualifiedly satisfied with Nahal. It was a beau- 
 tiful island, it was paradise, and in it a great many 
 remarkable things were to come to pass. 
 
 When she arose in the morning and drew into her 
 nostrils the perfume of the hills, when she came out into 
 that early sunlight that seemed to promise immortal 
 things, when she had a real look into that mysterious 
 womb of nature, the jungle, she was electrified. 
 Everywhere there was so much light; it whetted the 
 desire of living into a passion. 
 
 Thus Julie came into closer touch with native life. 
 It revealed itself more fully to her than to the rest of 
 the colony. Through the schools she saw just a little 
 into the native's heart, the heart of an imperfectly 
 civilized child. She was also by her zeal and indefatig- 
 able young strength impelled to go into the night-school 
 work. James had been struggling along with it alone. 
 As she came in out of the darkness, and gazed at that 
 assemblage for the first time, her throat went dry. 
 Seventy-five of them huddled into a room that had 
 been built to accommodate half that number, men and 
 women crowded everywhere and lining the walls! 
 There was something terrible about such an assemblage, 
 something that gripped the heart in a vise ; , for almost 
 none of them were young, many of them in fact were 
 grizzled and trembling into old age. Their hands 
 were gnarled with hard work, their faces blackened by 
 
THE'' GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 77 
 
 the sun. Most of them were so poor that a copper 
 spelled existence; yet strangely, incomprehensibly, 
 with some blind hope in their darkened brains, they 
 were here, and, with the stupor of half -civilized 
 drudges, were lifting up their eyes to the emissary be- 
 fore them in fearful, blind appeal. 
 
 Julie put her hand over her eyes. " They are look- 
 ing at me as if I were God," she thought to herself. 
 
 Often when the session was over, James and Julie 
 refrained from meeting each other's discouraged eyes. 
 All day and then at night, they had struggled with 
 all their young strength to drag a people over a mar- 
 gin. Never-to-be-forgotten nights were those, with 
 the dim lamp flickering above the long rows of benches, 
 and the dark trance of souls groping blindly for the 
 light. They were struggling against forces of the uni- 
 verse that would not be impelled. 
 
 " It's no use ! " James hopelessly declared one night. 
 " They are too old. You can only get at the young 
 shoot." 
 
 " It can't be too late, as long as they aspire," Julie 
 exclaimed, the tears springing to her eyes. " Think I 
 — after plowing all day in the river bottoms, in 
 mud up to their waists, they come here in the few 
 hours their poor souls own. It means something, I 
 say. It's a poor, twisted fragment of the thing that 
 wrested Mind out of the Universe ! " 
 
 " I've only one life to live," James declared, closing 
 his books, " and no more. Miss Dreschell, have you ! " 
 
 "If only we could see it through ! " Julie sighed. 
 
 She looked at the stars, as she walked home. Big 
 shining worlds rolling through space carrying the prob- 
 lem of Mind on into infinity. Such a far journey man 
 had yet to make. Isabel had told her to go out and 
 
78 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 hold up the world. She was finding it glorious busi- 
 ness. 
 
 Julie came out of the night with the star-light still 
 in her eyes. There was something stirring about her 
 rapt, young presence, as she ascended the stairs to the 
 sala, that quickened the attention of a tall young man 
 who was rather hesitatingly awaiting her. 
 
 The young man stood in full view, and her attention 
 was immediately attracted to his dignity of height and 
 his direct gaze. She liked his indomitable head, with 
 its rigidly youthful contour and surmounted by its up- 
 right crest of hair that glittered under the hanging lamp 
 like metal. She decided that what was so striking 
 about him was his superlatively untarnished look. 
 
 He introduced himself as Lieutenant Calmiden. 
 Julie understood then that he was the Post Quarter- 
 master, who had been absent, in Solano, for supplies. 
 
 They talked about Nahal, and he told her how much 
 he loathed it, and all other conceivable islands of the 
 seas. 
 
 " I've been wondering what you could have been 
 thinking about as you came up the stairs," he said. 
 " You came in scattering light about you." 
 
 " Oh, I am only a glow-worm, who's apt to lose his 
 little torch any minute, however much I may wish to be 
 an archangel of light." 
 
 "Angels are finished with experience; they are 
 men who have been sublimated to cold perfection. 
 Don't you wish to live, to experience, for yourself ? " 
 the young man demanded with intensity. Julie felt 
 rather unaccountably impelled to say that she did. 
 
 " I used to live in this house, myself," he declared. 
 " It was bachelor quarters till the Calcedos teased it 
 back. There is a wonderful view from the balcony; 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 79 
 
 I used to sit and look at it by the hour. Come, and let 
 me show it to you." 
 
 They strolled out to the gallery. Calmiden pointed 
 to the causeway, a narrow strip of glistening land, look- 
 ing in the moonlight like a bridge flung between two 
 worlds, with solid silver masses of water on either 
 side. 
 
 " What a strange roadway ! " Julie said. " Whait is 
 at the other end ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Nobody ever goes over there. 
 There is a mass of legends about the causeway; one 
 that in a great cholera plague, the angels walking about 
 the earth, lifted it out of the water in order to go 
 across. I imagine the volcano to the south — whose 
 red glow you can see on clear nights, against the sky, 
 as if the sea were on fire — had something to do with 
 its origin. I love it ^- 1 feel as if it were to have 
 something to do with my fate." 
 
 " These are such strange nights," Julie reflected. 
 "They are too dramatic for sleeping; the universe 
 comes out from behind its curtain ; they are nights for 
 walking the causeway alone with one's soul." 
 
 The young man's straight gaze swerved quickly to 
 her. Julie had on a green gown, and the green 
 bracelet, which rested on the railing of the gallery. Of 
 all the lovely shining things of the night, the young 
 man appeared to have decided, she was the loveliest, 
 and the most charming. 
 
 " Do you wear that," — he gestured toward the jade 
 circle — "because of your eyes?" 
 
 " I wear it because somebody gave it to me." 
 
 " Somebody! " the young man ejaculated in forcible 
 disappointment. 
 
 "A very beautiful woman in Manila, who had a 
 
80 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 tiny temple with a Green God in it — a pitiless little 
 Green God — presented it to me as a gift from him. I 
 met such strange vivid people up there. They called 
 the woman who gave me the bracelet the Empress of the 
 East. There were others — too," she paused, struck 
 silent by a recollection. " How I should have loved," 
 she continued, " to stay there ! Evidently it was meant 
 that I should miss wonderful adventures. I can only 
 be a glow-worm on Nahal." 
 
 " There is something about you that suggests that 
 you are to travel far. Oh, I hope not, Miss Dreschell. 
 Don't go any farther. Nahal might become something 
 remarkable." 
 
 As he said good night, and held her hand in his, 
 Julie's thoughts took a sudden unintelligible turn, as if 
 they were never again to follow the old course. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHILE Julie was dealing, in a splendid glow, 
 with the afifairs of the universe, her own 
 mundane concerns, she was uneasily aware, 
 were urgently in need of attention. She retired one 
 night to her room, with the jungle closing up about 
 it, and the jungle's wild creatures rustling but a few 
 feet away, to do some deep worldly thinking. From 
 her trunk she took the book in which she fitfully kept 
 accounts, and calculated furiously for some time, going^ 
 over the inexorable figures. 
 
 Suddenly she dropped the pencil, and sank back in 
 her chair, staring somberly into the night. Its black- 
 ness swept up to the grated bars of the windows, and 
 peered in at the solitary, harassed figure in the cell. 
 
 Not one dollar of the hundreds she owed Mrs. Mor- 
 ris had been paid back. That very first, sacred re- 
 sponsibility her new life had assumed! In Manilai, 
 money had unconsciously spent itself. Then, there 
 had been the expenses of the trip South. But bitterrat 
 fact of all, the splendid wardrobe, the cause of all this 
 trouble, had bit by bit, impalpably and detestably, as 
 if under an evil incantation, been giving way. Dresses 
 cracked explosively, at the touch, and silk stockings, 
 however prayerfully drawn on, disintegrated into an 
 elemental snarl of thread. What the elements did not 
 demolish, the cockroaches, nearly as big as mice and 
 scrambling deftly all over the room, voraciously de- 
 voured. 
 
 Julie sat and burned with dishonor over her affairs. 
 
 8i 
 
82 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She felt as abased as if she had become the actual chat- 
 tel of her far-away creditor. She would have resorted 
 to any expediency to keep this bondage from being 
 made public. The Dreschells had an unconscionable 
 pride. Mr. Dreschell had brought up his family on the 
 theory that borrowing money was only a shade less rep- 
 rehensible than stealing it. This obligation was the 
 Debt of England to Julie's soul. With her small 
 salary, how, she pondered, was it to be worked out ? 
 
 She had in her trunk one month's salary. Every 
 bit should go to the woman whose peon she had be- 
 come. In forgetting her own further necessity to exist, 
 she was acting with characteristic feminine reck- 
 lessness. There being no post-office at Guin- 
 dulman, Julie rolled up the bills neatly, put them in 
 an envelope, and addressed it to Mrs. Morris. There- 
 upon her mental processes took quite a leap. She 
 arose with a shade even of self-satisfaction. It was 
 splendid to be an independent integer of the world — 
 to handle your own destiny — to say nothing of your 
 own money — unafraid. 
 
 Into the midst of these cogitations came the Cal- 
 cedos' muchacho, to announce a young man. 
 
 " What young man? " Julie demanded particularly. 
 
 "El Teserero!" the muchacho declared. 
 
 Julie dropped back flatly in her seat. Since the un- 
 comfortable and startling moments on the boat, she 
 had contrived never to meet the Treasurer alone. She 
 knew how dissatisfied with this he had been, and that 
 in the midst of his activities planned to supersede the 
 Governor in power, he had been lying in wait for his 
 opportunity. She could see no way out of the en- 
 counter, and fortified herself for it as she ascended 
 the stairs to the sala. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 83 
 
 The Treasurer held her hand an instant and regarded 
 her closely with his odd light eyes. The surprisingly 
 sun-burnt face wore a look that sobered her. She in- 
 dicated a chair. 
 
 Mr. Purcell demurred. " Let's go out on the bal- 
 cony," he suggested, regarding with disapproval the 
 publicity of their surroundings. 
 
 " Oh, I think I should rather remain here," she re- 
 plied lightly. 
 
 " You don't object to going out there with the 
 others," he reproached. 
 
 " There are several of them," Julie explained. 
 
 " How about Calmiden, and — others, " he probed 
 with jealous meaning. 
 
 Julie started slightly. How had he managed to be 
 so well informed concerning her movements ? 
 
 " Why do you avoid me ? " he demanded. " Do you 
 think all these men are your friends? Wait and find 
 out. Now, I am serious. I care for you truly, as I 
 told you on the boat. I asked you to marry me ; and I 
 mean it still — in spite of your evasions." 
 
 "Please don't!" Julie begged. "You couldn't 
 possibly have meant it — after those few hours." 
 
 She recalled her refusal — so adroit and impersonal, 
 in which her altruistic aspirations and her inviolate 
 determination not to marry had been calculated to 
 carry conviction. She had wanted to regard the mat- 
 ter as settled, yet here he was more determinedly pos- 
 sessive than ever. 
 
 " You did not dream that I had given up ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " I beg of you to do so ! I refuse utterly ! " 
 
 " Don't say anything you'll be sorry for later," he 
 broke in. " Things are all your way now, but wait 
 
84 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 till they turn — till you find out none of those fellows 
 mean anything, and the bottom falls out of your air- 
 castle. Then you won't say that." 
 
 Julie stared at him in resentful amazement. " Mr. 
 Purcell," she exclaimed, " I don't understand this con- 
 versation. You don't at all love me. You have 
 merely set your will upon me, and are trying to frighten 
 me. Please never reopen ,this subject." She rose. 
 " It is, so far as I am concerned, definitely and com- 
 pletely closed." 
 
 " You'll regret that ! " he exclaimed agitatedly. 
 
 " Have you threatened me enough ? " Julie was 
 frantically angry now. 
 
 She was aghast at the purpose that gathered in his 
 face as he replied : " I do not wish to threaten you, but 
 I have not given up." 
 
 He descended the staircase, leaving Julie with her 
 breast heaving. 
 
 That wretched voyage ! Had men gone mad in this 
 queer land, that they would ask a girl to marry them 
 on a day's acquaintance, and to this staggering casual- 
 n€ss add the brigand intention to seize her if she re- 
 fused ? According to this doggedly unpleasant young 
 man, he had put a mortgage upon her that he meant 
 at some time to exact. How many more people were 
 to advance claims on her life? 
 
 To rid her mind of this uncomfortable visitor she 
 turned, on going downstairs, in the direction of Miss 
 Hope's room. The cheerful light shed through the 
 partly open door drew her forward. As she climbed 
 the three steps that lifted the room from the ground, 
 she caught a glimpse of Mr. Brentwood's white 
 starched back. She started to retreat, but the young 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 85 
 
 man, turning quickly at the sound of her footsteps, 
 caught sight of her. 
 
 " Why are you always out when I come to see you? " 
 he reproached, smiling with his white teeth through 
 his carefully brushed mustache. " I tried to call on 
 you to-night." 
 
 " I wasn't out," Julie moodily replied, remember- 
 ing how much she had wished to be. " I was up- 
 stairs." 
 
 Mr. Brentwood directed upon Miss Hope a peculiar 
 look. " Come in ! " he hospitably insisted. " I can 
 still see you." 
 
 Julie's evil star beckoned her on. Miss Hope of- 
 fered no remark as she took a chair. Mr. Brentwood, 
 promptly facing around to Julie, proceeded to direct 
 toward her the fullest extent of his charms, and suc- 
 ceeded for once in being truly entertaining. Julie, 
 eager to forget her experience with Purcell, dropped 
 gladly into a sprightly discpurse, and both of them for- 
 got utterly the rigid figure of the vestal virgin, which 
 opposite them began to steam with wrath. 
 
 After they had laughed together for some time, Mr. 
 Brentwood bade Julie a lingering good-night, calling 
 back a careless adieu to the shape in the background. 
 
 Julie turned to Miss Hope, but stopped short before 
 the spectacle of that lady who, having come out of the 
 shadows, was positively trembling with inconjectural 
 passion. Her indefinite features seemed to melt into 
 a boiling lava, which strangely her face appeared to 
 be. Her blue eyes vehemently shot flames. Julie 
 watched, with interested daring, the forthcoming erup- 
 tion. 
 
 " Miss Dreschell," cried Miss Hope, bursting with 
 
86 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 wrath, " you will seek quarters elsewhere. Do you 
 suppose it is entertaining for me to sit here all evening 
 while you monopolize my friends! Mr. Brentwood 
 was my friend, Miss Dreschell," — in rising crescendo 
 — " until you came. My room and the Calcedos' sala 
 have other purposes than the accommodation of the 
 crowd of young men with which you seem to find it 
 necessary to surround yourself. Moreover, natives of 
 the better class have a sense of propriety, and it is not 
 edifying to them to watch your friends — and their 
 caresses." 
 
 Julie stared incredulously. Then a realization of 
 what Miss Hope must mean flashed through her. 
 Evidently she had seen in the dusk under her window 
 the wind-up of a gay tender little adventure with Terry 
 O'Brien before he returned to command his mountain 
 fastness at Tarlac. It was never, Julie knew, to come 
 to anything, and had involved only a shadowy caress. 
 
 " But the Calcedos haven't said anything of the 
 kind! " Julie objected with rising anger. 
 
 " They will say so. They have some cousins com- 
 ing to visit them," Miss Hope declared, pointing posi- 
 tively in the direction of the door. She closed it 
 sharply on Julie's outraged back, leaving the girl to 
 grope her way through the dark. Julie got to the 
 entrance, and stood there staring indignantly into the 
 night. 
 
 It was a charming night, all the worlds of the uni- 
 verse spinning gayly up above her through the light 
 of myriads of suns. It must be really a very small con- 
 cern to Uranus or to Neptune, where a hundred years 
 are as one, whether the atom called Miss Hope or the 
 atom called Purcell were angry or not. As for the 
 atom called Julie dancing headlong through space — 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 87 
 
 was it even remotely possible that somewhere, some 
 place, any one atom tremendously counted? Was 
 there a law that held over those great worlds and their 
 activities? And must one conform to it? But how, 
 with mystery on every side, were you to find the law ? 
 Had she, because Purcell was not so pleasing as the 
 others, been intolerant of him? She had not been 
 angry at the sentimental intimations of the others. 
 She had, in fact, poetically enjoyed them. And Miss 
 Hope — although she was, according to Julie, terribly 
 old, might she not still cling through a thousand yearn- 
 ing desires to the magic garment of youth? 
 
 Julie was not sure concerning all these speculations. 
 A strange consciousness Seemed to be speaking through 
 her, a consciousness that saw things from all angles, 
 but which only occasionally broke into utterance. 
 
 The approach of a tall, familiar figure put a stop 
 to this metaphysical trend of thought. 
 
 " I came once before," Calmiden announced; " but I 
 heard you in there with Miss Hope, so I decided to 
 come back later. Come take a walk as far as the 
 steps of the convento." 
 
 " It's getting late," Julie demurred. 
 
 " What does it matter? Look at the night! " 
 
 Julie regarded it, and capitulated. They strolled up 
 the road that led to the upper part of the village. 
 Street lights were sparse and dim in Guindulman. 
 The avenue was almost closed overhead by the prodi- 
 gal foliage of mango trees, and blackened with the 
 soft, thick darkness of the tropics; yet to-night it was 
 meteorically lighted by myriads of fire-flies shimmer- 
 ing in the branches. 
 
 Julie threw up her head in wonder at the transfigura- 
 tion. Everything had become unreal. The avenue 
 
88 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 was like a road in fairy-land. The convento, white as 
 driven snow in the moonlight, rose from its high tier of 
 steps above them, like an ancient temple. 
 
 To the left was the Major's ogre-like retreat. Mike, 
 routed from his roost in the trees by this intolerable 
 illumination, was snarling and lashing through the 
 branches like an imp of darkness. 
 
 This little gargoyle had been deliberately installed 
 in this tree commanding the entrance to his office by the 
 Major, and Hell itself could not have been more 
 ferociously guarded by Cerberus. Men could come 
 and men could go ; but to the whole female race Mike 
 stuck out his whiskered jaw in challenge. He might be 
 swinging by his tail, ever so happy and carefree, in the 
 branches, but let a daughter of Eve, however secretly, 
 steal up to the portal of the omnipotent Major, and 
 he was down upon her with a thud, wildly rending her 
 garments. 
 
 " Wild little beast ! " Julie disapprovingly declared, 
 moving out of range of his chain. The monkey, like 
 some monster of elf-land, thrust his grotesque little 
 head out of a nimbus of fire-flies. He scratched them 
 out of his eyes, and securing them cunningly in his 
 wicked little paws, bolted them with rapt relish. 
 
 " Horrible ! " Julie cried. " And they were lighting 
 up the world ! " 
 
 " He's rather handy to have round, though," 
 Calmiden hardily declared. " You see I am Quarter- 
 master, and people want to bother one with such a 
 multitude of senseless things." 
 
 They mounted the terraced steps, which in a sheer 
 drop fell from the walls of the convento. " Look ! " 
 Julie pointed high above them. On the aerial gallery 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 89 
 
 of the convento, a black cassock loomed stark against 
 the night, a solitary brooding figure staring at the 
 stars. Once it bent intently to regard the two young 
 persons. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " Calmiden exclaimed. 
 
 " Why? " At sight of the priest a cloud had come 
 over Julie's mood. 
 
 " He's so solitary, by race and vocation. He's only 
 half white, and only half a man. He might as well be 
 a magus up there in his tower, for all the participation 
 he has in human living. Wouldn't you be lonely if the 
 gates of your soul's territory were closed against you, 
 if you were forbidden to love — ever? He has fire 
 in his eyes, our padre. He wasn't made to tend altars 
 on high mountains." 
 
 " It's my firm conviction," Julie declared, " that he 
 tends very assiduously the fires of the insurrection. 
 He hates us ; he hates all white men." 
 
 " Because we are what but for a little slip of fate 
 he might have been. The tragedy, the wickedness of 
 these racial Lucifers flung down to a lower world!" 
 
 " Do you know," Julie said soberly, looking up at the 
 Priest's tower, "I fancy the padre doesn't like me. 
 These people don't understand our women — the 
 woman who walks through the world alone. To them 
 she is an object of suspicion; to their mind her liberty 
 signifies licence. For instance, to-night I oughtn't to 
 be here — and he's looking down on me." 
 
 "What does it matter what they think? So far 
 as I am concerned they don't exist. I am just serving 
 my time,"— he closed his lips tightly; "counting the 
 moments till I can get out and go home." 
 
 A brooding distant look came into the girl's eyes. 
 
90 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " To pass in and pass out ? What good can that 
 do? One should put the plow into the soil and not 
 abandon it." 
 
 " I should think you'd want to get clear of the un- 
 cleanliness of this territory of Baal. I've seen enough 
 raw, bestial nature over here to make my soul revolt. 
 The standards civilization has fought for go by the 
 board here. One must be forever on the lookout in 
 the heart of half savage society to keep from relaps- 
 ing. ' 
 
 " Just you wait till my boys grow up. Then there'll 
 come a change." 
 
 " Good God ! You don't purpose staying over here 
 till then?" 
 
 The girl looked steadily into the night. " If I did 
 the right thing I'd stay. My little brown men lifted 
 into the citizenship of the world ! " she murmured. 
 
 " Come down from your perch in the skies. What 
 a dreamer you are — and -what a life to fling care- 
 lessly away! It belongs to somebody or other." 
 
 " Nobody gives up anything anymore," Julie went 
 on. " The renunciation that built up the world is go- 
 ing out of it. Upon whose shoulders, if not upon 
 ours, is the foundation of the New World to rest? 
 Isabel called me Atlas, and I have been so happy hold- 
 ing up my little end." 
 
 " It is terrible to speak of spending the years of 
 your life here. You don't at all know what you are 
 talking about. You don't know orientals. Wait till 
 you see China, a half dead amoeba sprawling over the 
 earth. You will be overwhelmed by the spectacle of 
 humanity getting nowhere at all — just crawling along 
 the surface -of the globe, like worms. Some day you 
 will wrest yourself out from these sunken millions in 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 91 
 
 fearful prayer to get back to your own kind. Oh^ 
 don't you feel the darkness, the despair of it? There 
 will never be any renaissance of the East — for to 
 have a renaissance you must have a soul." 
 
 " But we are trying to make the start here — that 
 the fire may travel." 
 
 " Among these inconsequential little swaggerers ? 
 Even China, with her art and her senile one-man kind 
 of learning, has them beaten miles. My soul is sick 
 of the whole debased East, I tell you; and I despise 
 this beastly hot-house of an archipelago that spawns, 
 existence in such hideous profusion. I am no colonist, 
 no pioneer, ever. I am just a soldier, to restore order 
 and pass on." 
 
 " And you don't care at all about the great struggle, 
 that is commencing, everywhere over here? Ah, I 
 can feel it," she cried, " — the powers of Light against 
 the powers of Darkness ! " 
 
 Calmiden regarded her with profound feeling. 
 " You are terribly young to be here alone." 
 
 " And already I have made two enemies," she said 
 with a change of mood. " The very first of my life ! " 
 she reflected ruefully. 
 
 He knitted his brows. " I don't like to think of 
 your having enemies in this country." 
 
 " They sprang up like a simoon in the desert. I 
 was angry for a bit, but I can't nurse a real good 
 hatred in my soul for five minutes. It just peters out, 
 and of course that puts me at a frightful disadvantage." 
 
 A swift change came over the young man's face, an 
 inflexible sheath changing it into a mask of steel. " I 
 can stay angry forever," he said, frowning into the 
 night. " I don't mean that I have merely a bad temper. 
 My mind simply will not expurgate an affront. I love 
 
92 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 and I hate for good," he declared with conce^'-rated 
 passion. 
 
 Julie drew away a little. 
 
 " Oh, but why dwell on such things, you and I ? " 
 "he went on. "All this would not have come out if 
 you had not stirred to the bottom, where the truth 
 dwells. I may be violent underneath, and hard with 
 those who injure me, but there are any number of 
 -things to which I am inflexibly true. I am as inexor- 
 able one way as the other. I despise weakness of all 
 kinds, and it is weak to let people hurt you. I don't 
 care what anybody says, if you let a person hurt you 
 he will despise you into the bargain. It's too bad, but 
 I can't be changed — and I'm glad somehow that I 
 made a clean breast of it to you." 
 
 " You frighten me a little by the order that is all 
 through you. Even your sins appear to have unity, 
 whereas I keep house topsy-turvily in my innermost 
 being. I have nothing filed there. I don't know what 
 will flash out at any moment. I am camping in the 
 universe — and having for the present a tremendous 
 time. Some policeman will come along some time and 
 take me in because I haven't built a house in creation. 
 But just now there is adventure, and the glory of being 
 alive under the tents of Kedar." 
 
 She smiled up at the moon. " I wonder where I 
 am heading?" she exclaimed. Her glance droppedy 
 she stopped talking, and her face lit up softly; her at- 
 tention claimed by something she seemed to see off in 
 dusky space. Calmiden watched her for some mo- 
 ments where she stood on the step of the old convent 
 with the moonlight flowing over her like a timeless 
 river. 
 
 " What are you seeing off there? " he asked. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 93 
 
 " F -ces ! Faces — startling ones that I saw in 
 Manila — made by the New World. I often think and 
 wonder about them — about one, more often ! " 
 
 " A man's ! " Calmiden echoed blankly. 
 
 " A god's — with the heart of all the world beating: 
 in his breast." 
 
 " And you think about him ! " he exclaimed ins 
 gloomy dissatisfaction. 
 
 The girl roused herself. " It was only the encounter 
 of an instant," she mused wistfully. " It would be 
 very foolish to think of just one moment out of one's 
 life, would it not? " 
 
 She turned suddenly, for the thought had surged over 
 her again that she had not in any way heard from 
 Manila since she had left it behind — that in the busy, 
 brilliant lives into which she had fluttered for ant 
 instant she was not even a recollection. Apparently 
 in these strenuous times it was every man to his own 
 road ! She had chosen her road — but she had never 
 ceased to remember those beautiful days and nights. 
 
 " Good night," she told the young man. " I must 
 go now." 
 
 Before she went to bed, she put out her light and,, 
 wrapped in the thick darkness, stared out on the sway- 
 ing groves. Far down the avenues her g'aze pierced, 
 as if some message were stirring toward her from off 
 there. Soon she was asleep, close to the evil, perfumed, 
 earth. 
 
 As Julie went pondering along the golden dust- 
 powdered road, she was confronted at the convent steps 
 by Anna Anastasia, the Priest's mother, who accosted 
 her with the freedom of manner that was part of her 
 efflorescent personality. 
 
 Once long ago Anna Anastasia had been pretty 
 
94 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 -enough to ensnare the attention of a rich young Spanish 
 official. The Priest was the issue of their irregular 
 alliance, and against its consequences his soul perpetu- 
 ally rebelled. This light, fluid creature had inexorably 
 fixed his fate. The desires of her soft little body had 
 made him what he must unchangeably remain. Far 
 from being a Magdalene, however, Anna Anastasia, as 
 the mother of the Priest, occupied in this elastic human 
 ■community a position of almost religious eminence. 
 
 Nodding sociably at the girl, she said in Spanish: 
 "" I've been told you seek accommodations." 
 
 Julie looked harassed. Had she not been every- 
 where unsuccessfully over this crowded town and 
 finally been advised amazingly by the Governor to 
 marry the Teserero in order to put an end to her 
 troubles ? 
 
 " It's maddening," she replied, pushing her damp 
 T)lond hair from her brow, " but there seems to be 
 none to be had ! " 
 
 The Senora smiled archly. " Quite true; there are 
 none. It seems a shame that so young and so charm- 
 ing a senorita should be distressed. I am lonely ! " 
 she exclaimed. " It is not," — she shrugged her 
 shoulders — " the pleasantest living in the world with 
 Raoul. If he could become more human — if he 
 would find something to take his black thoughts off 
 himself, and off me ! Would you believe it, Senorita, 
 he keeps me a close prisoner — me who am but thirty- 
 eight? Many women marry, and have lovers still, 
 very suitably, at my age. Always he makes life hell 
 by demanding, 'Why did you do it?' Why indeed! 
 It would be well for him to see that it is not easy 
 to resist. His father was a cavalier. You can see it 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 95 
 
 in Raoul, who is so tall and strong and beautiful, as- 
 you are. Raoul is of a higher race. 
 
 " Come to live with me in the convento, and I will 
 give you every comfort. Things must be made easier 
 for me, Seiiorita ; truly they must. I should love Raoul 
 to go through purgatory — to learn that outside his- 
 breviary there is a heaven and a hell." 
 
 Julie stood turning color under a mixture of violent 
 emotions. This impossible and monstrously uncon- 
 cerned woman actually expected an answer to her un- 
 thinkable proposal. But even in the midst of suffocat- 
 ing emotions, Julie remembered that she must be care- 
 ful of giving offense to so powerful a person. " It is 
 inconceivable ! " she exclaimed, drawing away. 
 
 " But why, Seiiorita ? You like men. There are 
 always many around you. It was so too with me. 
 Make Raoul eat the dust ! " Her face set into passion- 
 ate lines of hatred. 
 
 Julie stared dumfounded at the woman who claimed 
 her as a sister spirit. " This is horrible," she breathed. 
 
 " My son says you are beautiful, but that you are 
 evil. The other senorita, he says, is too old for sin. 
 You see that he is very harsh." 
 
 Juhe was trembling now. " Senora," she said, " it 
 is too much." She hurried back to her jungle room,, 
 clenching her hands, and letting the angry tears flow. 
 
 That afternoon, Maria Tectos, the Old Maid of 
 Guindulman, one of the most noteworthy personages 
 of the village, not only as the possessor of considerable- 
 wealth but as the acknowledged leader among the 
 women, hailed Julie as the girl trudged by. She of- 
 fered Julie a room in her large house, which was the 
 best and most unique mansion in the town. 
 
96 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 It was distinctly a compliment, Julie understood, to 
 he invited to join this exclusive household. The Old 
 Maid had been to a school in Manila; moreover, with 
 her ultra-modern, tremendous, iron-gray pompadour 
 shaking always like a tower with her laughter, she 
 would be a jolly companion. She believed, so she 
 was always averring to Julie, in the complete free- 
 dom of her sex; and she was constantly stirring the 
 women up to one thing or another ; but this feministic 
 progressiveness unfortunately carried along with it the 
 conservatism of old age. The exactions the Old Maid 
 imposed would leave Julie none of that liberty the Old 
 Maid extolled. Julie could see her young men friends 
 only under the Old Maid's eye; and it became dlear 
 that everything would be done to discourage altogether 
 their foolish visits. The Old Maid pointed out her 
 own successful single, elderly state as a contrast to 
 that of her companions. 
 
 After the sinister proposition of the morning, and 
 the accompanying insinuations, the Old Maid's invita- 
 tion seemed a real elucidation of her problem. The 
 view of her entertained by Anna Anastasia and the 
 priest was peculiar to their own dark minds. The 
 others knew that she had come here to give all she 
 could. But it was troublesome that their appreciation 
 of conventions so disproportionately exceeded their 
 realization of ethics. These people whose Atlas she 
 had come to be, might not at all understand her living 
 alone, as she had been thinking of doing, in a little 
 house which she had discovered she could rent. Per- 
 liaps, after all, since she had made this her particular 
 task, and was getting really to have quite a hold on 
 some of the people, she had better accept the Old 
 Maid's stringent proffer. So with a strange feeling 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 97 
 
 that this decision would be ultimately critical, she told 
 the Old Maid that she would come. 
 
 When she returned from school at five o'clock, 
 Calmiden stood waiting outside the closed Head- 
 quarters. 
 
 "You're late," he exclaimed, coming toward her, 
 " I've been waiting some time." 
 
 Julie regarded him gravely. " I'm tired," she said. 
 " Finding a roof for one's head is harder than I 
 thought it was. You know that Miss Hope has made 
 the Calcedos put me out. I've been everywhere, and 
 had the strangest things said to me — " She paused 
 gloomily.. " But I've succeeded at last." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " he demanded quickly. 
 
 " To Maria Tectos. She has offered to take me in. 
 She is very powerful, and I shall be very comfortable, 
 but — " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " She has made stipulations. She does not approve 
 of my seeing men alone, or walking out with them." 
 
 " Well, you told her you wouldn't go to her, of 
 course." 
 
 " I told her I would." 
 
 Calmiden stopped short with a forcible exclama- 
 tion. " Why, she will never let us see each other ! I 
 say, you are not going to let that happen? Do you 
 want to give up life completely, sit up alone night 
 after night in the dusk among the palms in this desolate 
 bit of jungle? You don't know what it is, I tell you 
 — this dark ailien land. Every atom of it makes you 
 feel your abandonment. This country's not for 
 women anyway. It's for armed marching men. I 
 can't think how you dropped into it. How did 
 you?" 
 
•98 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Julie started. " I think — somebody said something 
 to me once on a roof top." 
 
 " Well, I am talking to you now from the ground 
 Hoot. Life is short enough anyway, and you propose 
 to cut ofif all its possibilities by burying yourself in 
 the wilderness even more effectually than you have 
 -done already. Why it's insulting the high gods who 
 :made you the lovely being you are. Maria Tectos — 
 and all the natives be dashed when they try to dictate 
 your mode of living! " 
 
 Julie stood looking soberly down into the dust of 
 the sun-burnt road. The life of a hermit on the island 
 of Nahal! Could one even for the most inexorable 
 principles endure it? 
 
 " It's beginning to get awfully hard ! " She sighed. 
 " Sometimes I long so to go back to Manila — I really 
 had no idea of being so completely put out of the 
 world. I thought I should work very hard, and win 
 my certificate to title among the Builders. There ap- 
 peared to be very little real work left for me in Manila 
 — and it didn't seem fair to play safe over courses 
 already won. But I really didn't expect to be so cut 
 adrift." 
 
 She straightened up, and smiled. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CALMIDEN pressed closer. "We couldn't 
 walk in the dusk, ever any more, Julie, among 
 the mango trees, with the fire-flies all about 
 us, or sit on the wharf and watch the little boats." 
 
 Julie's gaze dropped again in heavy thought. 
 Calmiden was looking at her closely. 
 
 " What lovely hair you have ! Oh ! do be kind to 
 yourself, and to all the rest of us." 
 
 She lifted 'her head. " Why, anyway, should it 
 make any difference in the long run what I do about 
 it ? " she demanded of the universe. 
 
 " Then you won't go ? " Calmiden exclaimed joy- 
 ously. 
 
 Still Julie hesitated. But the instincts of youth and 
 the joy of living had won the struggle in her breast. 
 
 " No," she agreed. 
 
 When Julie went to the mess that evening, she found 
 the Major scowling heavily at the table cloth. He an- 
 nounced at last : " I've just received an order from 
 the Department which revokes commissary privileges 
 for civilians. This will of course deprive them of the 
 privilege of Army messes. I seldom make any com- 
 ment upon my orders, but right now this appears to be 
 particularly unfortunate. We are a remote and in- 
 accessible unit of society, facing the roughest condi- 
 tions ; and now some of us are about to be completely 
 cut loose. Supplies will liave to be procured in Solano, 
 from Shylocks who exact excessive prices. They must 
 
 99 
 
100 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 be requisitioned at once, but until they arrive, I shall, 
 on my own responsibility, keep this mess open." 
 
 He looked at Julie as he spoke. From the first, 
 he had made her his special charge. The girl was 
 aghast. For the purchase of large supplies she had no 
 money, having despatched it all to her creditor across 
 the ocean. She left the room heavily, and groped her 
 way down the road. There were no fire-flies to light 
 the world to-night. 
 
 Suddenly some one stepped out from among the trees 
 and softly spoke her name. He made a quick sign for 
 silence, and she suppressed the incredulous cry that had 
 sprung to her lips. 
 
 It was Adams, dropped down from the skies; for 
 how else, with Dao on the other side of the island, 
 could he have gotten here? 
 
 " My hour came, and I bolted ! " he said. " I've 
 ridden without sleep two days through a wilderness. 
 The ogre wouldn't let me have a leave ; but I persuaded 
 him to give me a three-day hunting pass to go after 
 deer in the mountains. Don't know how I ever got 
 through; and if the Major should find it out — or any 
 of them — I'd be court-martialled and chucked. 
 There seems to be a path in this grove, which we can 
 follow to get out of the way of observation. I came, 
 of course, to talk to you." 
 
 The path ran not far from the Old Maid's house, 
 into the copse. It brought them upon the deserted end 
 of an estate, where a small house could be seen deeply 
 sheltered in the trees. 
 
 " That's a nice place — sort of a wild garden." 
 
 They settled themselves upon a log. The moon 
 coming out from behind clouds broke only fitfully into 
 these woodland depths. All around them was the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 101 
 
 soft still dusk, and a mysterious pensiveness in the 
 night. 
 
 " I had to come," Adams declared. " I wanted to 
 see human beings, I wanted to talk to you. There's 
 an appetite of the spirit that has to be satisfied. I 
 haven't, had any dinner, nor what you might call any 
 lunch, but I don't care. I've run amuck to get here. 
 I couldn't stand living with the lower man any longer. 
 Doc's gone, and there were just the ogre and myself ! " 
 He rested his elbows on his knees, and dropped his 
 head heavily in his hands. " The men are sick and 
 going down. The falling white man drops till there 
 is nothing white about him but his skin ! I won't be 
 that. I won't go down with the rest ! Oh, I've a right 
 to live ! 
 
 " I fled over the mountains, I would have gone 
 through blood for this instant's reunion with the 
 decencies of my kind. To-night with my hat pulled 
 over my eyes, I walked into the post when it was 
 getting dark. I left my horse outside the village, and 
 as I passed every house, I looked into it like a ghost. 
 What a jolly little group! The Major was in his 
 window, his iron old face turned to the hills, planning, 
 I'll bet, red-hot campaigns that would put his honor at 
 rest. Good, decent old fellow, dressed in his stifif 
 white. You ought to see how we go to dinner in 
 Dao — or rather, you shouldn't. 
 
 " There was old Bent, sewing on a button by the 
 light of a lamp, and Dwight, a few feet away, reading 
 a paper in a hammock, with Mike sitting on his head. 
 Calmiden vras out on the back gallery, with his feet 
 wound round his tilted chair, staring at the stmset or 
 the island, or something over there. 
 
 " Three of the fellows all together. I used to make 
 
102 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 the fourth. We used to play cards, and read our let- 
 ters out loud. 
 
 " Little Mrs. Smith, farther on, was bending over 
 a photograph in the dusk — that one of Marlborough 
 taken in Cuba, I suppose. It made me wish I'd had 
 a romance. ^ 
 
 " You are about the only girl I ever thought about. 
 But think how long it will be before I see you again I 
 And then there are all these men here — " 
 
 Time passed unnoticed by the two sitting on the 
 log amid the silvery lights and shadows, reviewing 
 the experiences of youth and confiding to each other 
 its ideals. Those hours were printed forever on Julie's 
 memory. Long afterwards she could recall Adams as 
 he had sat with the moonlight playing about the shadow 
 of his figure and his pondering gaze bent upon the 
 encroaching darkness, and the way he had said, throw- 
 ing out his arms, " Every time I stretch out my hand — 
 it seems to come up against an invisible wall ! " 
 
 " Who's that ? " he exclaimed suddenly. 
 
 A man in white was coming out of the house. He 
 opened the gate in front of them. 
 
 Julie hesitated. She had identified the secret resi- 
 dence. 
 
 " It is the house of Nemecia Victoria," she replied. 
 
 " The village Thais ! That was an American. No 
 native is so tall." 
 
 He rose soberly. " I must go back and sit on the 
 lid of my little hell. I'm all right now. I went wild, 
 and have done a mad thing, but it has set me right." 
 
 They strolled along close to the fence that cut the 
 woods off from the public road. They stopped at the 
 delapidated gate. He took her hands in his. " Dear, 
 little, unforgettable friend of a few hours ! We have 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 103 
 
 both to stick to our outposts now, but these times can't 
 last forever. Till better days then, and don't let me 
 pass out of your thoughts ! Good-by ! " He bent down 
 and kissed her on the cheek. 
 
 Then he struck off at once into the darkness of the 
 thicket. Julie watched motionlessly at the gate till 
 the shadowy form disappeared. She had been groping 
 around in darkness for a hand, and suddenly, out of 
 another's extremity, one had come to meet her own. 
 Adams and she had both deeply become involved in 
 a great struggle. They had both, the girl subcon- 
 sciously felt, been elected to the destiny of the East. 
 Between them there was a cemented bond. By him- 
 self " holding out," he had helped her across the ditch. 
 
 A sound close at hand caused her to look around 
 quickly. The figure of a man in white was turning 
 down a side street, not a few yards away. Julie 
 recognized it as the same figure that she and Adams 
 had seen emerge from Nemecia Victoria's house. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A FEW days later, the Major, who had sat 
 throughout his dinner in gloomy silence, said : 
 " I've had a telegram from Templeton. He 
 says Adams left Dao five days ago on a three-day 
 hunting pass, and he hasn't returned. He says Adams 
 has had it in his head all along to visit Guindulman, 
 and he is sure now that he must have tried to get 
 across, a mad man's undertaking! And of course he 
 didn't make it, or we should have heard from him. 
 Brentwood," blaming the Adjutant, as he always did 
 when he was disturbed, "why hadn't Adams been 
 transferred? " 
 
 " I can't recall your saying anything about it, sir," 
 Brentwood pacifically replied. 
 
 " If he tried to come here there's a reason for his 
 being so long on the way, and he'll be court-martialled 
 for his pains. Even with a map this wilderness is 
 hard to wade through. But if he actually went hunt- 
 ing, he has met with foul play. Hunting in this coun- 
 try alone! What judgment Templeton ever had is 
 dissolved in whiskey, and Adams has gone stark mad." 
 
 " Adams has been in Dao for nearly two years, see- 
 ing only an occasional Spanish launch captain, and a 
 dipsomaniac," Mrs. Smith remarked. 
 
 The Major was too deeply worried to challenge this. 
 " We have no way of knowing what he did do. I 
 have telegraphed O'Brien to take out some men." 
 
 Julie who had sat listening, with staring eyes and a 
 fevered face, gazed in fright at the Major. Adams 
 
 104 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 105 
 
 had enjoined absolute secrecy concerning his dash in 
 and out of Guindulman. If she were to disclose his 
 adventure, she would expose him to military trial. If 
 she did not — She gazed round the anxiety-weighted 
 table, and tried with palpitating heart to come to a 
 decision. 
 
 After dinner, walking agonizedly down the hill, she 
 tried again to think what to do. Adams 'had said it 
 might take him two or three days to get back. If he 
 should arrive back, safely, it might appear that he had 
 been lost on his deer hunt; how could she dare to 
 subject him to court-martial? How, on the other 
 hand, could she dare risk his life by another hour's 
 loss of time in telling what she knew*? His safety 
 came first of all. 
 
 She retraced her way, and knocked timidly at the 
 Major's door. 
 
 He opened it himself, looking at her rather strangely, 
 she thought. 
 
 " I want to speak to you. Major! " she faltered dis- 
 tressfully. 
 
 He flung away his cigar, and invited her in. 
 
 " If you weren't the Commanding Officer, it 
 wouldn't be so hard. There must be moments when 
 you are not ; couldn't I claim one of those ? " 
 
 The Major deliberated. "Perhaps I'd better tell 
 you that I have just become acquainted with what I 
 believe you have come to disclose." 
 
 " You mean about Mr. Adams ? " she cried. " Oh, 
 nobody knew that he was here, but me — and I have 
 not breathed it to a soul." 
 
 " One other person knew, for he has just reported 
 to me the exact time that Adams left the village, and 
 with whom he spent his time while here." 
 
106 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " He spent it with me," Julie doggedly declared. 
 " He was lonely, going mad under that monster at 
 Dao. He wanted to see civilization again. This was 
 what meant civilization to him. Doesn't that seem 
 awful, after what he lias stuck through?" 
 
 " But would he risk his life, to say nothing of his 
 commission, for such an impulse ? " Some thought, 
 some intimation that projected from the mind of the 
 tmknown person who had seen Adams and herself, 
 stretched back of the Major's words. Julie's unpleas- 
 ant experiences of late had commenced to sharpen her 
 wits. The Major's informant, it was clear, had had 
 something horrid to say. The kiss ! The disappear- 
 ing figure of that man — who could he have been! 
 She began to be frightened. Glancing up, she saw 
 that the Major perceived photographically all that was 
 in her mind. 
 
 She cast about desperately in her thought. The 
 Major's conservatism must be won over, if one of her 
 spirit's company were to be saved from disgrace. It 
 was useless to try to penetrate the imderstanding of 
 this grim, practical man with the things Adams had 
 poured out to her on the log that evening in the thicket ; 
 idle to deal in symbols with the soldier before her. 
 Well, there was always the final, smashing conventional 
 fact! 
 
 " Mr. Adams and I," she faltered, groping for the 
 word, "had an understanding. It was for that that 
 he risked his life — for me. I met him at Dao, and we 
 had corresponded. Oh, please try to find him ! " she 
 cried. 
 
 "He has probably got on the wrong trail," the 
 Major reassured her, " and will turn up in Dao yet." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 107 
 
 "And you will do nothing awful to him?" she 
 pleaded. 
 
 " We will do the best we can within the scope of 
 the regulations, of course. He's had a tough time of 
 it, and the fact of your being here just swept him out 
 of his senses, probably." 
 
 Julie walked dazedly to the door. There she paused, 
 and asked almost fiercely: "May I ask. Major, who^ 
 your informant in this matter was? " 
 
 " I am sorry " — the Major appeared troubled — 
 " but I promised not to say." 
 
 Adams's danger swept Julie's mind of every other 
 thought. She was aware, nevertheless, of how fear- 
 fully, on the spur of the moment, she had complicated, 
 the situation that she had attempted to save. 
 
 She knew very little about military trials, but she- 
 was sure that in a time like this, actually one of war, 
 an officer who had deliberately left his post in violation 
 of orders, or in wilful misconstruction of permission,, 
 to travel through a hostile country, was in for a bad 
 time of it, aind possibly for disgrace. Any extenuating- 
 circumstances that she could advance it seemed her 
 duty to offer, at whatever personal cost. But what of 
 their future relations — of a bond cemented like this ? 
 In casting herself away, characteristically, on the in- 
 stant, to save Adams, she had never given a thought ta 
 the issue. 
 
 Terry with his detachment of men was sent out from 
 Tarlac in search of Adams. The Major also dis- 
 patched a force from his own garrison over the route 
 that Adams had probably taken on his return. The 
 country was wild and inaccessible, and it was hoped 
 that he had merely gotten lost. For several days noth- 
 
108 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ing was heard from the searching parties. The Ma- 
 jor's suspense, together with that of the whole garrison, 
 grew painful. It was about the time of the atrocities' 
 in N^ros and Samar, and the Americans knew not 
 what each dark day might bring forth. 
 
 Several days later both parties came into Guindul- 
 man bringing Terry, dangerously wounded, and the 
 body of Adams. He had been murdered in the hills — 
 had lost his life in the new country that he had served. 
 
 After turning the country upside down, Terry had 
 discovered Adams's horse in one of the dark little vil- 
 lages, and had forced the populace to disclose what had 
 become of Adams. He found that Adams had come 
 through the village very tired and hungry, and had 
 asked for some food and a place to sleep for a few 
 hours. He had a fine horse, a good pistol, and 
 obviously some money ; so the presidente had proffered 
 him a dinner of hot chicken and had led him to a room. 
 While he slept the presidente and his accomplices had 
 strangled him with a rope, and thrown his body in a 
 hole on the river bank. 
 
 After administering summary justice to these vil- 
 lains, Terry had started back, only to be caught him- 
 self in a bamboo trap laid in a nipa hut, into which he 
 had stepped after reading a placard on the outside 
 addressed to the Americans and promising that in- 
 formation of value could be obtained inside. Terry 
 had fallen through the false floor which had been laid 
 over sharpened bamboo poles planted below. 
 
 The priest refused to allow Adams's body even tem- 
 porary sepulture in the cemetery of Guindulman, de- 
 claring that, since he was not a catholic, Adams could 
 not be admitted to consecrated ground. The Major 
 refused to take the priest's objections seriously, and 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 109 
 
 pointed out the fact that, in default of sepulture tax, 
 the bones of those interred were unceremoniously- 
 thrown out of the graveyard. However over-crowded 
 the cemetery might be, room for the present, the Major 
 declared, must be made for the remains of the dead 
 officer. It was a note-worthy fact that in Nahal there 
 had never been sufficient accommodation for either 
 the living or the dead. 
 
 The quarrel ended in the annexation to the cemetery 
 of a bit of outside territory. So it was in uncon- 
 secrated ground, in a lonely comer of alien forests, that 
 Adams was put to rest. 
 
 The sun beat down on the open grave, and on the 
 rude box. A strange hush lay over the tropical atmos- 
 phere. Adams's horse, with his master's boots re- 
 versed against the saddle, stood arching his neck with 
 sad pride. 
 
 The Major read the burial service. His harsh voice 
 broke as he spoke of the good soldier Adams had been, 
 and a tear stole down his stern cheek. The men pulled 
 their hats down over their eyes, while Julie stole for- 
 ward weeping and sprinkled flowers over the friend 
 who had stepped out forever from the problem of the 
 East. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A DESPERATE situation now confronted Julie. 
 For two weeks she had been exhausting her 
 ingenuity trying to keep her household going. 
 The wages of Gregorio, the cook, were unpaid, and 
 trifling with the pocket of a desperado is never wise — 
 for it was patent from his physiognomy that Gregorio 
 "was an insurrecto, or about to become one. All of 
 Julie's affairs had been in suspense pending the arrival 
 •of her month's salary. Then word had come that the 
 boat carrying mail between Manila and Solano had 
 been wrecked and the teachers' checks lost. Cable- 
 grams sent to the chaotic Department in Manila evoked 
 no response. Miss Hope, the itinerant Croesus, did 
 not seem embarrassed by the catastrophe; duplicates 
 would undoubtedly be sent in time. But Julie could 
 tiot wait another minute. 
 
 James brought hope into Julie's despair, however, 
 by informing her that Miss Hope had told him that the 
 Treasurer was prepared to advance officially temporary 
 loans to straitened teachers. This was salvation 
 through 'the gate of purgatory; for Julie desperately 
 hated to approach Purcell in a capacity that would per- 
 mit him to assume the aspect of bestowing a favor upon 
 her. 
 
 But her affairs had come to such a pass that there 
 was no alternative to be considered. She owed press- 
 ing debts around the town, to say nothing of those in 
 Solano; and they all hurt her prestige as a teacher. 
 She knew that she would have to go to him. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 111 
 
 The evening after the burial of Adams, Calmiden 
 appeared, to bid Julie good-by before leaving the next 
 morning to take the field. The troops, with the ex- 
 ception of a small detachment for the protection of 
 the post, had been ordered out to punish the lawless 
 elements of the islands. Adams's death had uprooted 
 the Major's last inner reluctance. He was at last 
 going to take the responsibility of acting. 
 
 Calmiden sat down on the steps and looked about 
 him at the miserable little house. 
 
 " It's horrible to think of your living here alone. 
 There are three of us together there across the plaza, 
 I thought of course that some one of those women 
 would take you in. Aren't you afraid? " 
 
 " Perhaps — sometimes," the girl said slowly. " I 
 have the musical clock, though." 
 
 Julie stirred uncomfortably. " It sings when the 
 night is long and lonely — after the golden wine- 
 bibbers, with their careless voices, have passed on; it 
 sings through that dead stop of the night when people 
 die on earth. Then I am afraid, until I hear — well, 
 do you ever hear strange things? Did you ever sit 
 up and listen, and hear the powers of the invisible 
 universe sweep by? Some denizen down deep in me 
 responds to all this, and makes out it knows what is 
 going on. Otherwise it would be horrible ! " 
 
 His face grew grave. " You should never have 
 come here to undergo such things ! Ah, what do yoa 
 think you are making of life amid such hardships? " 
 
 " I don't know," Julie downcastly replied. " How 
 can any one know until the sum is finally cast up? I 
 am still trying to cast up the sum of Jack Adams's 
 life, and make it come out right. The memory of 
 our brief poignant talks, with the moan of isolated 
 
112 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 forests in them, comes back to me — " The girl's voice 
 broke. 
 
 Calmiden glanced at her quickly. "You think a 
 good deal about him, don't you?" Then he added, 
 as if to get away from the thought, " Poor Jack ! 
 However did he come to do it? He seems to have 
 lost his head over there. The Major knows what hap- 
 pened, but he never says a word." * 
 
 Julie leaned forward earnestly. " Do you think that 
 Jack understands — that it was worth while; that 
 what he did over there all counted in the project — in 
 the whole big scheme? For you see, he used to say 
 we were grist for the mill — he and I; and I never 
 understood that. It seems sort of disquieting to recall 
 it." 
 
 " Oh, can't you see that, even if the revolution, or 
 evolution, you talk about did come over here, you are 
 too slight a fabric for such a thing? You don't be- 
 long in it." 
 
 " You mean I'm not strong ? My aunt said that, 
 too," she pondered sorrowfully. 
 
 " And if you were strong? Adams was strong, and 
 he lost his life. If you play for big stakes over here, 
 sometime you've got to lose." 
 
 Julie sat very still. At last she drew a letter from 
 her dress, and held it before her in the dim light. 
 
 " This is such a strange letter," she murmured. 
 " And it's so odd that it came just at the time Adams 
 was killed. It's from that beautiful woman whom I 
 told you they call the Empress of the East — and who, 
 when I left Manila of my own free will, said I was 
 mad to throw away my life. She is the only one I 
 met there who has written to me. One individual 
 counts for so little there — you understand. Well, I 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 113 
 
 did not completely drop out of her mind, anyway 1 
 Listen to what she says : 
 
 " ' Dear Atlas : The Green God has told me to write 
 to you. I don't know why — since he never gives 
 reasons, nor answers questions. What has happened 
 to you? Has the earth begun to tremble and slip 
 from those white young shoulders ? Or why does the 
 Green God fear for the Shining Apostle to the East, 
 and direct me to recall myself to yau and cause you to 
 bear in mind that there is always — Isabel? ' " 
 
 Calmiden snatched the letter agitatedly. " Who is 
 this Eastern Witch ? What on earth does she mean ? 
 What has her horrible God to do with you? Promise 
 me that you will never answer that letter, or go near 
 her again ! " 
 
 " Indeed, I shall probably never see her again, since 
 my destiny lies down in jungles, and hers in the beauti- 
 ful places of the world." 
 
 Calmiden dropped the letter, and regarded Julie with 
 emotion. " And so this was your choice ? Indomit- 
 able little being, with the luminous faith! Do you 
 know that this island which I hated so with my whole 
 soul — where the days were but blank heat waves and 
 the nights a horrible huSh — has become paradise since 
 you warlked into it ? " 
 
 His tone took on a poignant wistfulness. " But 
 your eyes seem to take you always out of my reach. 
 . . . Ah, do you, after all, belong to the Green God? 
 — you who say you have thrown in your lot with the 
 East!" 
 
 Before Julie could reply, Brentwood came up the 
 steps, and announced that the Major wanted Calmiden 
 at once. Calmiden went away with him, throwing 
 back of him a long glance. 
 
114 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 The next day, Julie, gathering together the courage 
 of necessity, went to see the Treasurer about the pro- 
 jected loan to the teachers. 
 
 Her heart beat violently as she climbed the stone 
 flights of the Ayuntamiento, in the left wing of which 
 the civil government offices were located. Purcell was 
 in the Treasury, seated at his desk. As Julie appeared 
 before him, a strange alteration flashed through his 
 light eyes ; a swift omen, gone before it could be cap- 
 tured. 
 
 "Good morning!" he said, politely rising. "Is 
 there anything I can do for you ? " 
 
 There was a preparedness in his attitude that cast 
 the girl down more than ever. That it should be to 
 him that things had finally led ! She shrank from him 
 almost visibly, and longed imutterably for retreat; but 
 •consciousness of her disastrous concerns pressed like a 
 red-hot weight on her brain. 
 
 Purcell, never removing his eyes from her down- 
 cast face, waited. If Julie by some chance had glanced 
 Tip at that moment ! — but that abysmal ignorance con- 
 cerning human nature whi€h her uncle had deplored 
 blinded her to the subleties in which she was about to 
 become enmeshed. 
 
 She lifted her eyes with a terrible effort, and Pur- 
 cell immediately dropped his. 
 
 " Miss Hope says that you are advancing money 
 out of the Treasury to the teachers, till their salaries 
 arrive." 
 
 Purcell made a sudden movement, but did not speak. 
 
 " I have come on that errand. When my money 
 comes I will repay you promptly." 
 
 Still studying the flushed, downcast face of the girl, 
 Purcell reached out his arm to the safe and began to 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 115 
 
 move the knob of the combination. " How much do 
 you wish?" he asked in a low voice. 
 
 As little as was humanly possible to get along on, 
 was Julie's thought. It was torture to stand here and 
 have money doled out to her by this man. She hesi- 
 tated and finally murmured, " Thirty dollars ! " 
 
 He glanced up quickly from the safe, ahnost in dis- 
 appointment, she thought., He brought out a great 
 roll of bills which he held before the girl's eyes while 
 he slowly counted out the sum she had asked for. 
 
 Julie took the money with a quivering word of grati- 
 tude. After all, there was no such thing as hatred in 
 the world ! 
 
 Purcell, with an abrupt gesture, turned away. 
 
 Julie went home with the wherewithal to make the 
 world turn a little longer. Gregorio was paid, and 
 thus enriched, lit out for the hills to the solar plexis 
 of the insurrection, where by virtue of his brigand 
 appearance he belonged. 
 
 The troops returned after a vigorous quest of the 
 insurrectos, whom they had been able to engage but 
 once. Owing to the impenetrable character of the 
 country, the insurgents had managed everywhere to 
 hide themselves from conflict. Balked and baffled by 
 the unabashed desperados sitting unattainably upon 
 their horrible hills, the Major was in a furious frame 
 of mind. With his limited facilities, he seemed power- 
 less to cope with the situation; and unless something 
 should intervene in his behalf, it seemed that these peo- 
 ple, who, as Delphine had expressed it "greatly en- 
 joyed to insurrect," would go on warring forever, 
 through savage lust of the thing. 
 
 One morning shortly after the Major's return, Julie, 
 on her way to school, became aware of some deep agi- 
 
116 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 tation that was shaking the village. From hut to hut, 
 some tremendous portent had flashed as if by racial 
 telepathy, till every soul in the village was aware of 
 it. Julie, looking up at their windows where they 
 were foregathered, brown secret beings with terror in 
 their gestures, was unable to get any clew to the mys- 
 tery. 
 
 Upon reaching the school house. She was handed a 
 letter which she read with much astonishment. It was 
 from the Old Maid, and requested, in the name of the 
 mothers of the children, that school be suspended that 
 afternoon; Moreover, the Old Maid besought Julie 
 with all the fervor of the Spanish language to come to 
 her house at two o'clock, for an " asunto muy impor- 
 tante." 
 
 Julie learned a little later, to her further mystifica- 
 tion, that the girls' school would likewise be dismissed 
 at twelve, for the day. 
 
 Returning home at the noon hour, Julie found the 
 little houses on stilts looking strangely deserted. Ap- 
 prehension seized her. Had the women too decamped 
 for the hills? 
 
 Promptly at two o'clock, she walked down the hill 
 to the Old Maid's mansion, and found in that formid- 
 able vestal's extensive grounds all the women of Guin- 
 dulraan, as well as those from the neighboring districts, 
 as far even as Loboc. Every dusky sister of them was 
 in a high state of consternation. As if that were not 
 astounding enough, they had attached indissolubly to 
 their persons very nearly all the children in the world 
 — and these were shrieking in panic. As Julie 
 quickly recognized, the barren and the unwedded had 
 appropriated as their share the orphaned and deserted ; 
 and the orphaned and deserted were howling in ap- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 117 
 
 parent rebellion at belonging to anybody at all. Even 
 the Old Maid had one wriggling little goddess of the 
 dust — whom she ordinarily smacked soundly for 
 poaching on her premises — touchingly tucked under 
 her arm. 
 
 I)elphine alone had been able to elude these theatri- 
 cal adoptions, and skipped satirically free among the 
 leaves. The moment, however, that he glimpsed his 
 teacher, he ran up to her and stuck his head docilely 
 under her arm like a young ox under the yoke. 
 
 The women were all chattering hysterically. Sud- 
 denly the Old Maid burst out oratorically to Julie. 
 " Dios ! What are we to do ? " 
 
 " But what is happening? " Julie demanded. 
 
 " You have not laeard ? Christus ! " She flung up 
 her arms to heaven, while a piercing wail broke like a 
 dirge through the mango trees, "Los Macabebes! 
 Los Macabebes! " 
 
 Then Julie understood the meaning of the panic of 
 weeping. From the North was coming a band of those 
 unique and redoubtable little fighters, the Macabebe 
 Scouts, of whose name every other tribe in the Archi- 
 pelago stood in awe. The Macabebes, for centuries 
 the friends of the white man and the enemies of all 
 other tribes. There was no forest retreat they could 
 not ferret out and no danger that they feared. 
 
 In these far islands, they were a terrible legend. 
 The people feared them like the devil out of hell. 
 
 The women continued to sob, and to repeat, panic- 
 stricken their dreadful monotone, "Los Macabebes! 
 Los Macabebes ! " 
 
 The Old Maid commanded silence, and whirled upon 
 Julie. " You must think of a way to help us, you 
 who have gone to school and have seen the earth. All 
 
118 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 our men will be butchered. There will be no sons, 
 husbands or fathers left. The Macabebes are monsters 
 out of hell. They eat babies, and suck the blood of 
 the dying. They will make ashes of this island. 
 There will not be one man left. Dios ! " — she flung 
 herself down on her knees, and the others dropped with 
 her, beating their breasts — " if God made your brain 
 better than ours, save us ! " 
 
 "What can I do?" demanded Julie passionately. 
 " I have no power over such things ? Has not the 
 Comandante held out to your men every opportunity 
 to embrace order and peace, and have they not scorned 
 them all? Have they not preferred rather to listen 
 to the one malcontent who delights to sow discord be- 
 tween the two races to which he belongs ? " 
 
 After this fearful piece of daring, she swept on: 
 
 " Hasn't the Comandante promised you peace and 
 protection and a good government for all? And do 
 not your men continue to remain in the hills from which 
 the Macabebes, for whom he sent, will dislodge them 
 at last?" 
 
 "Come!" commanded the Old Maid. "Gather 
 your children about you, and go down on your knees 
 to the Comandante, and don't rise till he promises 
 to order back those devils from the North. You, 
 Maestra, will lead us and speak for us ! " 
 
 Julie glanced about her impotently. This desper- 
 ately misguided swarm of women had put themselves 
 into her hands. She was terribly sorry for them, for 
 after all they were only women who, uninformed as to 
 the motives of the men in the hills, had through weary 
 months held their families together. A thought struck 
 her. Her face lighted with some inner vision. She 
 halted the female mob. Was it possible to make 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 119 
 
 simple creatures like these revolutionary ? The women 
 looked at her, and waited. 
 
 " It is useless to go to the Comandante empty- 
 handed," she declared. " He is angry over the death 
 of his lieutenant. And many times your men have 
 promised to lay down their arms, only to break every 
 time their promise. On this island no crops are grow- 
 ing, no towns are flourishing. Those of you who have 
 property havfe had it seized by outlaws, and those of 
 you who are poor must continue to support alone your 
 children, and to endure your anxiety as well as the tax 
 levied by Andegas upon every soul of you. It has all 
 grown worse and worse until you can not bear it 
 any longer. 
 
 " The new government does not extort ; it protects 
 the poorest among you. It will give you liberty, 
 schools, the right to accumulate property without fear- 
 ing any man. It seeks to make you a happy people, 
 and the most enlightened in the East. 
 
 " Make your choice between the two, you women. 
 Deliver to the men your ultimatum — that you have 
 decided in favor of government instead of anarchy. 
 What! Cannot the women who, deserted and unpro- 
 tected, have borne the brunt of the war, take a stand 
 alone? Each one of you has power over one man who 
 must himself already be weary of hardship and separa- 
 tion. Rouse yourselves to act, for in this way and in 
 this way only can the Macabebes be kept away ! Stop 
 the war, the outlawry, and the destruction of a beauti- 
 ful island. Give your word to the Major — the sworn 
 word of the women of Nahal — that if he will counter- 
 mand his order for the Macabebes, the men will come in 
 and deliver up their arms." 
 
 Into the silence that surrounded her she continued to 
 
120 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 exhort. " You, Marianna Tectos ! " addressing the 
 Old Maid, " are rich and powerful. Many men will 
 listen to you, especially if you say that your purse 
 will be closed against them if they do not go over 
 to the new government. You, even, Nemecia Victoria 
 who have power over many men, we ask you to help. 
 And Seiiora Pandilig, tell your nephews you will dis- 
 inherit them and give your money to the government 
 if they do not come around. Oh, you all have your 
 lever, if you are courageous enough to apply it. Do 
 you agree ? " 
 
 The women stood in thoughtful silence. 
 
 " We must defy our men for the government ! " 
 Senora Pandilig exclaimed. 
 
 " To save them from the Macabebes ! " Nemecia 
 Victoria reminded. The dreaded name thrown into 
 their thoughts with this argument by one of their own 
 number had deep effect. They stirred and moved 
 under the sun, and thought. An unaccustomed feat! 
 
 Julie glancing over the crowd, reading the faces in 
 this moment of stress, held that each brown woman 
 was weighing just how much power she could per- 
 sonally, in an issue like this, exert. 
 
 Comments ran down the lines : " The men will be 
 angry! " 
 
 " They will be worse than angry, Mother of Jesus, 
 when the Macabebes tear out their hearts." 
 
 " What are we to do, Constancia ? " 
 
 " What do you think, Celesta? " 
 
 " Ah, it is beyond us." 
 
 "And if we don't dare!" 
 
 Thus rippled their breathless fears and uncertainties. 
 A concourse of brown women facing a crucial decision 
 which they could not absolutely consumihate, until 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 121 
 
 the Old Maid hurdled them across with a leap. With 
 a daring excitement that for an instant lifted her above 
 her wqrld, she cried, " We will tell the Comandante 
 that we, the women of Nahal, will undertake to bring 
 in the men. We will go before him now ! " 
 
 The procession started to surge forward, growing, 
 as it drew near Headquarters, more emotional at every 
 step. Against this collective femininity, Mike was 
 powerless. It passed him in an oblivious white heat, 
 in an unassailable mood. 
 
 Calmiden, whose office was in the entresuelo, stuck 
 his crest against the grated bars of the window and 
 stared in stupefaction. 
 
 Julie, bareheaded in the sun, her face reflecting un- 
 nameable emotions towered aloft in the heart of the 
 avalanche. 
 
 "Dear, dear! What's happening?" Calmiden de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Women! Oceans of 'em, overturning history! 
 We want to see the Major." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, don't overturn anything here ! 
 He won't have it. Tell them to go home, and you stay 
 and talk to me, you exalted green-eyed person." 
 
 " Calmiden ! " roared the incensed Major from the 
 upper regions. Clearly he had perceived the on- 
 slaught from his window, to which the worsted Mike 
 had valiantly climbed for assistance. " What do you 
 mean by letting all those women past the door? " 
 
 Calmiden looked at Julie in comic despair. " Does 
 he expect me to wrestle individually with the feminine 
 population of the island? What are you all up to 
 anyhow ? " 
 
 " Tell them," yelled the Major, " that I refuse ab- 
 solutely to see them," 
 
122 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 But the dogged remnant who had not yet succeeded 
 in getting inside the building merely continued to 
 push. Masses of agitated women driving up the 
 stairs and sweeping along with them in their advance 
 a wondering lieutenant, an indignant sergeant-major, 
 two native clerks and an intrepreter! A flood of 
 women inundating the furniture and bearing down on 
 one solitary figure that still withstood them. The 
 Major, in impregnable dignity, sat fast in his chair in 
 rigid military fashion while the excited Mike, picking 
 up everything he could find, fired it upon the advance. 
 Women fundamentally annoyed the Major, and to 
 have all the women in the world' surrounding him 
 in an unescapable embrace was too dreadful to sus- 
 tain. He sat like Pharaoh in the midst of the visita- 
 tion of the plagues, sputtering under his breath. 
 
 The routed office force stood helpless, while the 
 room rang with the classic wail of " Los Macabebes! 
 Los Macabebes! " 
 
 The Major addressed them. " Tell them," he said 
 to the interpreter, " that for two years I have exhausted 
 every peaceful means to get the men of this island to 
 return to their homes. They take the oath of al- 
 legiance only to gain access to the town and commit 
 fresh atrocities. This is one of the last islands to 
 continue in a state of outlawry and disorder. The 
 Macabebes shall come ! " 
 
 Calmiden and the Sergeant-Ma j or exchanged un- 
 official glances of pure delight. A hush of sheer fright 
 dosed the women's throats. 
 
 "You killed my Lieutenant," the Major accused. 
 " Your men strangled him in the night when he was 
 defenselessly sleeping. You have bad leaders who 
 inoculate you with their passions. There have been 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 123 
 
 wicked deeds and murders. These things must end." 
 
 The women wept in terrible despair, helplessly 
 wringing their brown hands. Brown supplicating 
 hands groping up out of the dark ! 
 
 Julie, carried along by the throng, tried to speak. 
 The Major was right. Yet if Adams had lost his life, 
 he had given it — to the East. There could be no 
 price set on blood so shed. The vision rose before 
 her of lonely Dao, and Adams guarding its destiny. 
 She wriggled forward through the women. 
 
 " Major," she said, " these women have come to 
 offer you a proposal of peace. If you will agree to 
 delay the coming of the Macabebes, they will promise 
 to bring in their men." 
 
 The Major stared at her incredulously. "The 
 women ! What have they to do with the insurrec- 
 tion?" 
 
 "As things stand now, a great deal. There are 
 only women left in the villages now — without food. 
 The burden of such an existence has become too much 
 for them to endure. They will no longer furnish 
 funds for Andegas. Maria Tectos and Nemecia Vic- 
 toria are rich women ; so are the Senoras Calextas and 
 Pandilig. The women are the backbone of the com- 
 munity, and they give you their sacred promise. 
 They are weary of war, and wish to embrace the 
 Government of the United States." 
 
 The Major strode over to the window and turned 
 his back on them. The women stared tremulously 
 at him — but Julie motioned them back. He turned 
 at last, frowning thoughtfully. 
 
 " Maria Tectos ! " he said abruptly to the Old Maid, 
 " Will you take the oath of allegiance ? And you, 
 Nemecia? And the rest of you?" 
 
124 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " But I am a woman ! " 
 
 " You are undertaking to make peace like a man ! " 
 
 " And I swear before the High God ? " 
 
 " That you will henceforth be a faithful adherent 
 of the Government of the United States. Put up 
 your hands." 
 
 Maria and Nemecia Victoria lifted trembling brown 
 arms. Dumbly the concourse followed their example. 
 Julie alone understood the valor of those uplifted arms. 
 All these women were imperiling their souls before 
 the Padre for this terrible oath. But the Major had 
 agreed to hold back the Macabebes, and for that they 
 could perform this miracle. 
 
 Calmiden watched Julie closely, as they went out 
 together. 
 
 " You put them up to this. What was the use ? " 
 
 "If they do bring peace — " 
 
 " Utopian dreamer ! It will be the first time it 
 has happened that way." 
 
 " But I know these people a little. Maria will leave 
 no stone unturned. She did not need that perfectly 
 valueless oath that the Major imposed upon her to 
 scare her into the truth." 
 
 " How can you be so interested in them? " 
 
 " This is my destiny," she said. 
 
 " Your destiny ! " He looked soberly at her. 
 
 There with the tropical sunlight beating down upon 
 them, they seemed suddenly to face their deeper selves. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 JULIE had received a note from Calmiden. " We 
 will cross the causeway to-night," it said. 
 She waved back the toiling future generations 
 of light, and took the note to the window. What did 
 it mean? The few lines managed to convey a mes- 
 sage quite beyond their import. She read them over 
 and over, then gazed across the white winding road 
 and the green banana trees, to the causeway lying like 
 a high thoroughfare between two worlds. Was to- 
 day to be the last of an old existence, which she was 
 to shed like a discarded garment? Would the foot- 
 steps that had followed strange paths in the East turn 
 about completely, and the dream that had burned in 
 her soul be left forever unfulfilled? 
 
 The breeze swayed the sacred tree of India beneath 
 the window, and its golden incense full of mystic and 
 exhilarating intimations showered upon the air. 
 Julie was carried on the wave of its magic to a roof 
 garden in Manila and the hero who had first over- 
 whelmed the horizon of her youth. Often, looking 
 out on this glowing landscape, she had seen this image, 
 but more and more as something lost in the swift pas- 
 sage of life. 
 
 She would not see him' any more. Fate, that fate 
 which ruled this world had arranged it so. Her des- 
 tiny lay along the beaten paths of the world. She was 
 too small an atom, as Calmiden had said, to survive 
 the great chances of the coming upheaval, or to dare 
 ever, ever to achieve a force like Barry McChord's. 
 
 125 
 
126 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 His spirit had lighted areas of her life tremendously. 
 Nobody ever had so stirred or quickened the pulse of 
 her soul. But that spirit was receding before the hard 
 facts of existence that Nahal had brought. It was 
 getting too terribly hard, with so much pressing upon 
 her, to inhabit two spheres. And if anybody in the 
 North had given her a thought again, he had not taken 
 the trouble to make it known. She had dropped com- 
 pletely out of those great activities, and not a re- 
 verberation of her life or its yearnings had reached 
 the far-off goal of her city of dreams. She herself 
 shrinking to her real, insignificant dimensions. 
 
 The tangle of her affairs complicated all her thought, 
 and sent a chill wave over her. The cold, hard, in- 
 superable fact of her debts ! She owed the merchants 
 in Solano, the small merchants of her village, and 
 still, after the lapse of maijy months, she owed Mrs. 
 Morris a huge obligation. Finally, and very nearly 
 the worst of all, there was the desperate debt in which 
 Purcell was involved. A pauper and a gambler with 
 life ! How else could a person who had managed to 
 put herself in everybody's debt be called ? Clearly she 
 had demonstrated that she could not handle her own 
 life, to say nothing of playing a part in that complex 
 organization to which she had had the assumption to 
 aspire. 
 
 A great agitation came over her when in that one 
 solemn final moment she looked into her soul and 
 bade good-by to all she had come to do. Slowly she 
 began to efiface and obliterate the old orders of life, 
 and the transcendent consecration of the past. The 
 East to which she had come with a torch became a 
 mere drear fact of over-powering millions. Ages, and 
 the tried souls of many men would be ofifered up be- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 127 
 
 fore the East found its freedom. What she did or 
 did not do could not weigh in the infinite balance. 
 
 Slowly she turned back to the room. The brown 
 gnomes were sweating terribly in the throes of com- 
 position, mining the realms of thought for a few 
 throttled ideas. Never anywhere were they so dearly 
 born. Julie stopped still to stare at them. " Poor 
 little generation of light ! " she murmured. 
 
 Delphine glanced up at her with his quick brown 
 eyes. He was the barometer of the class — a youth- 
 ful personality that had escaped the general languor 
 of the race. He watched the other boys, and inter- 
 preted their needs. He seldom sat in his seat, but was, 
 with his books under his arm, almost always in a 
 state of itinerant education. He had been a devotee 
 of the betel-nut, but at Julie's solicitation had given 
 it up. 
 
 The children marched out at the end of the morn- 
 ing session. Julie thrust her note in her pocket, and 
 was following after them when Delphine, trailing by 
 a string a big bright red tropical beetle, stopped her. 
 
 " You stay here always. Maestro f You never go 
 away? " he urged earnestly. 
 
 Julie glanced at him absently. " Go home, Del- 
 phine," she said gently. 
 
 " Here," said the boy, " is a present for you of 
 this beautiful bug — if you will not go." 
 
 " No, thank you, Delphine. I know it would 
 break your heart to give up Balthazar, though he bites 
 nasty welts all over you all the time." 
 
 But Delphine stuck along after her. 
 
 A quickening of her being took place as she came 
 out into the street. After all, she was in the golden 
 possession of life. She picked some heavily fragrant 
 
128 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 flowers and thrust them in her hair. She was young, 
 and Calmiden was young. 
 
 She moved along in the light like the heart of the 
 golden day, her shimmering head lifted to the perfume 
 of the Ylang-Ylang, and a hundred visions stirring 
 in her brain. Behind her unperceived, Delphine and 
 the scarlet splendor of Balthazar desolately trailed. 
 
 In the evening she donned the green dress; but as 
 she slipped the green bracelet over her wrist, a sinister 
 shadow swept for a moment upon her mood. 
 
 A lithe white figure appeared in the road. She 
 went out to meet it. She had never seen Calmiden 
 when he was so beautifully grave. She walked along 
 beside him. Neither of them spoke. 
 
 They went down to the beach, where leaving the vil- 
 lage behind they walked silently along the shore. The 
 water washed darkly on clean white sand with the 
 beat and rhythm of a majestic poem of which their 
 emotions supplied the motive. They pressed on 
 through the starlit hush till the causeway lay directly 
 before them. 
 
 Wonderful lighted bridge! Water from great dis- 
 tances bore up on either bank, and in mighty rushes 
 took itself off again into space. When the moonlight 
 sprinkled through the darkness, this narrow shining 
 strip stood aloft over the fretted world. 
 
 As they started to cross it, Julie said : " I feel as 
 if I were suspended between heaven and earth! I 
 hope I won't drop." 
 
 "Are you afraid?" 
 
 They stopped short. With the turbulence of pas- 
 sion the water was hurling darkly about them. The 
 land appeared to be groups of mystic shadows, and 
 the stars were down almost within reach. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 129 
 
 "It's all said around me," Calmiden declared in 
 an unsteady voice. " I have loved you from the 
 first, and I shall always love you. Nothing can 
 change that." 
 
 An agitating vibration passed through Julie's body. 
 Was this the hour of fulfillment, toward which she 
 had been moving like a star? 
 
 " Promise me," he urged, " that you will belong to 
 me forever, that you will go with me out of this 
 poisonous East." 
 
 "Of course," she said; "of course," speaking like 
 one in a dream. " Why, are you too afraid that some- 
 thing might happen ? " 
 
 " We could be married soon, and have done with all 
 fears." 
 
 Julie started perceptibly. Her thoughts had never 
 traveled that far. Marriage seemed vaguely a sort of 
 risk to her emotion. 
 
 " Why can't we go on for a while as we are — till 
 you are ordered away?" she queried nervously. "It 
 is so perfect as it is." 
 
 " But my existence is so uncertain ! And why 
 should you continue to be flung around in this whirl- 
 pool? Some one should look out for you." 
 
 " Because I am such a little fool that I can't look 
 out for myself? Oh, let us wait till the end of my 
 term. I came out here, you see, really to do something 
 — and I am so soon to drop it all ! " An unconscious 
 anguish crept into her voice. 
 
 " I believe this country has put a spell upon you, or 
 you wouldn't be putting me off." 
 
 They were walking now along the causeway. The 
 island ahead of them lay like a sable mesh of mystery, 
 with midnight archways through its dense foliage. 
 
130 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Startling creepers, like multiform arms of an unseen 
 body, groped over the heart of the earth. A sad 
 fragrance floated out to them. Once or twice the 
 moonlight making bold with the forest lit up its stilly 
 beautiful chambers. 
 
 Julie made a sudden startled movement. " There 
 is somebody over there! He is stirring along under 
 the trees. He looks all black. He is watching us! 
 Come away! " She dragged frantically at Calmiden's 
 hand. 
 
 He hesitated, his gaze strained into the darkness. 
 
 " Don't you see that you are only one man — with 
 only one pistol ? There may be a lot of men in there." 
 She pulled him back. 
 
 He yielded at last. " I've got you to look out for," 
 he muttered. 
 
 They ran swiftly back over the causeway, a target 
 they well knew for any one who might wish to shoot. 
 
 " I was a fool to take you to such a place ! " Cal- 
 miden exclaimed when they had reached the other 
 end in safety. 
 
 " I am sure it was the priest ! " Julie panted. 
 " Where rather than to that Eleusian island would that 
 dark spirit go ?• Those black trees just ached with the 
 hatred of that Lucifer soul. Over there, he plots to 
 stir up discord among men. There on that ground 
 that he has made forbidding with supernatural tales 
 he plans insurrections." 
 
 " I wonder how many rifles he's got stored away 
 over there," Calmiden said. 
 
 Then he sighed. " We didn't get across the cause- 
 way, after all ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 FROM his upper state chambers, the Major was 
 beckoning to Julie with as much excitement as 
 that statuesque personality was capable of 
 manifesting. 
 
 " Come up a minute," he called. " I have great news 
 for you ! " 
 
 As Julie entered the room he greeted her with a 
 smile that thawed every line of his stony visage. 
 
 " The insurgents will surrender in Guindulman next 
 Thursday," he told her. " They will deliver up their 
 arms, to a man, and will take the oath of allegiance! 
 This might be called the ' Peace of Women,' don't 
 you think so? They have carried the thing through. 
 If it hadn't been for you, young lady, those Macabebes 
 would be down here right now. You belong to work 
 like this. The Island of Nahal ought to canonize 
 you!" 
 
 Julie had never been so acutely stirred. After all, 
 a part of the Great Adventure was coming true! 
 
 The natives of Nahal entered into a state of inordi- 
 nate rejoicing. On the evening before the memorable 
 Thursday they gave a ball of towering magnificence. 
 It was true that at the ending of the war almost every 
 one was bankrupt, but nothing so spectacular had ever 
 happened in Nahal. It would be in the Manila papers 
 — it would be in the papers of America that the re- 
 doubtable Nahalites, of their own free and enlightened 
 will, had come to peace. 
 
 Julie went to the ball with Calmiden, notwithstand- 
 
 131 
 
132 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ing the fact that Purcell, in a formal note, had claimed 
 the privilege of escorting her. Julie had been cruelly 
 bewildered and apprehensive of* the consequences of 
 her refusal, because the Treasurer was now the actual 
 head of civil afifairs. 
 
 It was indeed a magnificent ball, but the Americans 
 felt considerable discomfiture upon finding their hosts 
 still wearing arms, when they had come unarmed. 
 
 And a breach occurred between Julie and Calmiden, 
 because Julie accepted the Insurgent General's invita- 
 tion to dance. From Calmiden's point of view the 
 request was the next thing to an insult ; but since this 
 was the culmination of the coup d'etat which she her- 
 self had instigated, the fear of jeopardizing it in the 
 slightest degree had her caught fast. Not until the 
 next day were the insurgents to give up their arms, 
 and in case Andegas became incensed, a little thing like 
 a dance might overthrow the whole course of destiny. 
 It was perfectly possible for Andegas to stick a knife 
 in her back, as a signal for a general slaughter. 
 Moreover there was something in the perilous uncer- 
 tainty of the moment that exhilarated her. She had 
 bent her soul upon a great adventure, and she thrilled 
 to the dim things it foreshadowed — things that swam 
 before her stirred vision like the pageant of the worlds 
 in the night sky which she glimpsed through the gal- 
 leries. 
 
 When they left the ball, the Americans departing en 
 masse for mutual protection, Calmiden gave very clear 
 expression to his displeasure. 
 
 " I can't understand you — the things you do. 
 What came over you to consent to dance with that 
 half-breed? Imagine their getting up a ball and 
 coming bristling to the teeth with weapons, just to 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 133 
 
 tease us ! That ought to be enough for you forever ! 
 What makes you act as if you belonged to this hideous 
 game ? " 
 
 " I do," Julie under the fever of the night recklessly 
 replied. " I understood this particular thing, and I 
 was going to see it tiirough ! " 
 
 " Even against my wishes ? To dance with Malay 
 cut-throats — you a star ! " 
 
 " I would have danced with the devil under the 
 same conditions." 
 
 "Julie, talk sense. However am I to understand 
 you? Chasing chimeras that will bring you nowhere 
 — whereas you and I are all that count. Give up these 
 terrible notions. You don't know what you are about 
 ' — what, my God, all this may lead you to ! " 
 
 They parted at Julie's door with a feeling of es- 
 trangement, like the prick of pain. 
 
 The next day Calmiden left for Solano, to secure 
 some supplies for the garrison. He went on a boat 
 which had come into Nahal harbor the night before, 
 bringing mail. 
 
 At school, Julie, who had not yet received her mail, 
 learned that salary checks had arrived for both James 
 and Miss Hope. At noon she hurried home, fluttering 
 with anticipation and relief. The thirty dollars was 
 nearly all gone. At the thought of Purcell, she 
 shivered. 
 
 With trembling fingers she opened her letters. One 
 was from Mrs. Calixter. She thrust it aside to hunt 
 further for the check; but her money had, incon- 
 ceivably, not come. The disaster of the wrecked boat 
 had been rectified for everybody but her ; all the others 
 now had their checks. What sinister design was back 
 of this? Soon her desperate situation would become 
 
134 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 known, and against such publicity her pride forcibly 
 rebelled. 
 
 She was facing a critical state of affairs. Although 
 certain varieties of food were cheap in the village, her 
 resources would soon be unequal to purchasing even 
 these. She had been doing her own cooking — very 
 badly indeed ; and suffering from it, as well as from a 
 too rigid economy of diet. 
 
 Moreover the school, which was the center of her 
 life, was subtly, as under an evil enchantment, dis- 
 integrating. Every day disclosed more and more 
 empty benches, the youthful occupants of which, in 
 JuUe's dreams, were to have been shining pillars of 
 the future. The girl's efforts to locate the cause of 
 the disaffection came up against a dead wall. The 
 secret psychology of the ^Ipast confronted her. In 
 vain, after facing those deserted benches that struck 
 like a blow at the very roots of her spirit, had she 
 appealed to the parents. The women were silently 
 sympathetic, the men were non-committal; but none 
 reached out a hand to her. 
 
 She guessed only too well whose power alone was 
 great enough to deflect the boys from their upward 
 course. The souls of their parents were throttled by 
 their leader, at whose heels they would have gone to 
 the devil. 
 
 The priest had learned who had instigated peace — 
 Maria Tectos having hung in the terrible limbo of 
 excommunication till full confession had been forth- 
 coming. His spiritual subjects had begun to show 
 the disquieting effects of revolutionary new thought, 
 and he hastened to stretch out inexorable arms over 
 his dominion. A spiritual czar, whose whole power 
 in life lay in his compelling hold on the souls of men, 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 135 
 
 he did not intend that any of his chattels should escape 
 their bonds. He had an overweening sense of pos- 
 session, but little real interest in his creatures. Above 
 everything conceivable, he hated the Americans. 
 Since he had laid his special curse upon Julie's estab- 
 lishment and had not interfered with Miss Hope's 
 school, it was perfectly clear upon whom his ill-will 
 was concentrated. With the vital structure of her 
 work shaking about her, she was in the worst possible 
 straits. 
 
 Her money, or rather Purcell's, had come to an end. 
 She was facing starvation. There was no one whom 
 she could bring herself to approach for help. She 
 summoned her last forces of resistance. Calmiden 
 must certainly be back within a few days, and the 
 money from Manila could not diabolically hold away 
 much longer. 
 
 She picked up Mrs. Calixter's letter. It was full 
 of explanations of divers sorts, and threw light in 
 multiple directions — belated light. 
 
 She and her husband had been to India on an ex- 
 tended official visit with the Governor-General. She 
 had meant to write sooner to Julie, but on a trip like 
 that, Julie would understand, a great many things had 
 been wiped out of mind. 
 
 " Barry McChord, whom you remember, I know, 
 and who still holds himself as your friend, told me on 
 my return of his fruitless efforts to find out what had 
 become of you — and a very strange mix-up it was. 
 I was gone — and your Department gave your lo- 
 cation as Solano. But when Barry wrote there he 
 received the answer, after an unconscionable time, that 
 there was no such person on duty there. The Depart- 
 ment, upon being again questioned, hazarded the theory 
 
136 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 that you might have died or gone home — although it 
 admitted that of such events it should have a record. 
 At any rate you were given up for lost. What chaos 
 inconceivable! And that red-headed schemer — who 
 I suspect was to blame for all this — is still away 
 on a long rest in Japan! I believe that wretch has 
 been deliberately miscarrying you on his lists so that 
 upon investigation he could point to his magnanimity 
 in assigning you to the superior station of Solano. 
 If you would, brave little Julie, insist upon going to 
 the dangers of Nahal, he may have argued, whatever 
 happened to you should not be set down to his account. 
 If you wandered off any place else, it was not his 
 fault. But how you have received your salary I can't 
 think unless he has made it his own concern." 
 
 And was that why, Julie wondered, she was left 
 in these straits ; and would be — until the red-headed 
 man came back? 
 
 She read on : 
 
 "A little army woman whose husband is on leave 
 here from your very spot cleared up the mystery. She 
 told Barry how much alive you were — ending revolu- 
 tions, and transforming the Malay race; and being 
 proposed to by the entire bachelor officer personnel of 
 the battalion — one of whom you were most certainly 
 going to accept. 
 
 " Barry told me he could understand how you had 
 forgotten your earlier friends. I believe he is goin^ 
 to China, and perhaps he will not come back. Each 
 time he goes, he says he may not come back." 
 
 Julie put the letter down weakly. Ah, she was not 
 at all successful, as Mrs. Smith had said. Her school 
 was almost gone — and to-day she had had scarcely 
 anything to eat. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 137j 
 
 When it was quite dark, she took a walk, staring 
 into the palely lit jungle as she passed. Overhead one 
 brilliant constellation blazed. It seemed to hang over 
 a distant city far to the north, beyond these troubled 
 southern seas. She put out her arms to its light. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A DAY came when Julie knew what it was to go 
 without food. She reasoned, in the midst of 
 a bad headache, that she was not the first 
 person to whom this had happened, and that to go 
 a few days without eating was not absolutely menac- 
 ing to one's existence. 
 
 The next day she unearthed a wrinkled camote, and 
 Delphine presented her with a couple of chicos. Her 
 giddy brain collapsed, however, over the boys' arith- 
 metic, which suddenly had become as incomprehensible 
 to her as Euclid. On the third morning, she was 
 wholly incapacitated, and before the school hour, 
 dropped down on a couch, where she dozed off from 
 sheer weakness. 
 
 At ten o'clock she heard as from a great distance 
 the whistle of the boat. Calmiden had come! She 
 dragged herself up and made an effort to dress, but 
 she, strangely, felt no interest in a world that seemed 
 to have receded immeasurably out of her actual ex- 
 perience. From tense struggle in its atmoisphere, she 
 had floated off into sleepy planets where dreams were 
 real. She timibled back on the couch and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 When she came back once more to mundane affairs, 
 it was about three o'clock. Everything was still and 
 lonely. Calmiden had not yet appeared. He was 
 always busy, though, for hours with the unloading of 
 the boat. Perhaps he had expected her to come down 
 
 138 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 139* 
 
 to the wharf to greet him, and she had been too dazed 
 to think of it. She dressed with closed eyes. 
 
 A knock on the door startled her senses into activity. 
 She ran her fingers hurriedly through her deranged 
 hair and opened the door. Not Calmiden, but Dwight 
 confronted her, looking greatly perturbed. 
 
 " I want to talk to you — just a bit — " he hesitated, 
 " if you don't mind." 
 
 Julie led him in. 
 
 He dropped down on the bare edge of the chair that 
 she motioned to, and stared at her aghast. " Lord ! "" 
 he exclaimed, " you look like a ghost ! Have you been 
 ill?" 
 
 Julie shook her head. " What have you to tell me ? "" 
 
 He was clearly at a difficulty to reply. Finally he 
 blurted out : - 
 
 " Why didn't you come to me, Julie, and let me help 
 you — I'd have been only too proud to do so — instead 
 of playing into the hands of that blackguard? " 
 
 Julie paled. " Purcell ! " she murmured in dismay. 
 
 " Then you know? " 
 
 Again she shook her head dumbly. 
 
 Dwight pursed his lips in a solemn whistle. " Gad ? 
 Some folks would say it was none of my business, but 
 I can't stand by and see you facing the thing so pluckily 
 and not lend a hand." 
 
 "What did Mr. Purcell do?" Julie demanded 
 heavily. 
 
 " He's been taking his meals at the bachelors' mess 
 lately — while he had no cook. To-day at the lunch 
 table he brought up your name, and he meant to do 
 it to death. But he was clever about it. He didn't 
 want any one to stop him before he'd let out his powder. 
 He began by saying that you were engaged to Adams. 
 
140 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 You bet that made a stir — your being engaged all the 
 while you were letting the rest of us give you a rush! 
 Purcell said that he had seen Adams here in this town 
 Tvith you, that he had made that fatal ride to see you, 
 and that he himself had seen you kiss Jack Adams 
 good-by. Moreover, he declared, that when the 
 anxiety about Adams was at its height you informed 
 the Major that Adams had been in Guindulman and 
 -confessed your relation to him. That was a stagger 
 for us — all right, Julie, you'll admit. He said that 
 the Major himself had told him all this. 
 
 " Now several of us had liked you, Julie, ever so 
 much — and we got rather excited at your way of 
 playing the game. Purcell went on to say that you 
 had haxi an affair with him, and with Terry, who had 
 also kissed you — along with Adams and others. 
 Seems he got the information about Terry from Miss 
 Hope. He also said you owed money to everybody, 
 and that the firms in Solano had written continuously 
 to him about it. But when the creature, quite gone 
 with hatred and jealousy, said that you had borrowed 
 money from him, and that anybody could have you for 
 a sweet-heart, I kicked him out." 
 
 Dwight had not dared to look at her during this 
 recital. Her head was bent down over her two 
 clenched hands which lay in her lap. 
 
 " Kenneth was not there ! " she murmured, illimi- 
 table satisfaction in her quivering voice. 
 
 " But he was there! " Dwight cried — only to regret 
 the next moment that he had spoken. 
 
 Julie had shot up out of her chair and was gazing 
 at him with wide eyes of horror. As she stood there 
 staring out of her ghastly pale face, and not speaking, 
 a sense of fear for her rose in Dwight. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 141 
 
 " I tell you, Julie, I'll stand by you through every- 
 thing ! " he vowed. 
 
 She clutched hard at the back of the chair for sup- 
 port. Her limbs were weak; her soul was shaken ta 
 its uttermost depths, but she must still make a stand 
 against this falling world. 
 
 " I did borrow money," she said in a voice so faint 
 it seemed to trail after her thought like a thin curl of 
 smoke, " not from Purcell, but from the Treasury, as- 
 I supposed. I was in the direst need. None of us 
 had received our salaries for months. I hung out as 
 long as I could, for I was afraid of him. But I was. 
 simply driven to him at last. What a horrible net 
 he has built around me ! Terry — himself — Adams, 
 Ah ! Yes, I did kiss Adams good-by ! " 
 
 " Were there any witnesses present when he gave 
 you the money? " 
 
 Julie shook her head. 
 
 " You poor, unsophisticated infant ! Don't you 
 know that it would have been a criminal offense for 
 him to use government funds for his own purposes? 
 You stepped right into his trap. He was waiting for 
 you, the rascal, and knew perfectly well that you 
 wouldn't know what you were doing." 
 
 " No, clearly, I have not at any time known what I 
 was about ! " She crumpled, stunned, into a chair. 
 
 Dwight rushed to her. " My God ! Is it possible 
 that you've been starving yourself with all of us right 
 around to help ! " 
 
 " I guess I have — but it wasn't anything compared 
 to this. And who are all of you, who were ready to 
 help — as you say?" the girl cried out in anguished 
 bitterness. " Didn't you all stand by and listen while 
 that man told his vile lies ? You see now why I have 
 
142 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 no more pupils in the school, why everything's gone 
 to smash, and I'm hopelessly ruined, as he meant 
 J should be? " 
 
 " Be just to us, Julie ! We were shocked at your 
 light treatment of Adams." 
 
 " Ah, I was never engaged to Jack Adams. That 
 ■was a desperate, stupid lie of mine, which I hoped 
 -would help him out of the scrape. As for the other 
 men that I thought to be my friends — Oh! this 
 terrible land — where we're all strangers to one an- 
 other after all ! " 
 
 " But this story must be put down. It's all over 
 ■the town. You can do that best yourself ! " 
 
 " The story of my own infamy — I must put 
 -■down ! " She laughed hysterically. " You see, 
 Dwightie, it's so f un-ny — when I came ofifering all I 
 Jiadl" 
 
 When the young man had left the house, Julie slipped 
 suddenly and insensibly to the floor. 
 
 It was dusk when she thoroughly came to herself. 
 Her brain was clearer, and into it faintly crept the 
 hope that Calmiden might emerge successfully out of 
 the catastrophe. Betrayal on his part — however 
 -odious Purcell had sought to represent her — was in- 
 conceivable. 
 
 Dwight had dispatched a boy with a mountain of 
 viands, which she barely touched. She was not 
 hungry. This was no time for eating, when alb the 
 issues of her life were at stake. With a heart that 
 stopped beating at every foot-fall upon the road out- 
 side, she sat unmoving among the shadows. Every 
 Tininute must bring him to her need. This day could 
 :not end in this monstrous state of affairs. 
 
 But as dusk deepened into night and no sign of 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 143; 
 
 Calmiden appeared, a bitter frenzy of anger stirred 
 up in the wretched girl's heart. What kind of a man 
 after all was he who could stand by, without offering a 
 protest, while her enfemies calumniated her? Here in 
 her humbled pride and disgrace, she was crouched wait- 
 ing for a man who had so clearly repudiated her that 
 he did not even deign to proffer an explanation of his 
 conduct. From the affairs of this notorious nobody- 
 — her promiscuous love affairs, and wholesale debts, 
 he had contemptuously withdrawn himself. Calmiden,. 
 she knew, had the conventional notions about the im- 
 peccability of a woman's name. It was her whole 
 duty, as he expressed it, to keep it "unsullied." He 
 made sharp, very sharp distinctions in his standards 
 for the sexes. All women were shooed into one corner 
 of the universe, from which he dared them on the 
 direst penalties to emerge, while the men gamboled in 
 the rest of its wide areas in a fashion which he toler- 
 antly chose to ignore. And all the while he sincerely 
 believed himself the broadest minded man on earth. 
 He had frequently crushed Julie in their arguments 
 with his towering Victorian morality. Julie had at- 
 tributed what she considered his charmingly archaic 
 habit of mind to the fact that he had derived his edu- 
 cation at West Point, a sort of Military Monasterjr 
 where women were barred. 
 
 " Pooh ! " Calmiden had replied to this, " girls come 
 up there in shoals ! " 
 
 " But you see them only on Dress Parade ! What 
 do you know about them in their own environment, in 
 the real phases of life that stretch back of the Dress. 
 Parade?" 
 
 " It was nice to have them come ! " 
 
 " Ah ! I think that that is just a little of what is 
 
144 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 the matter with you, Kenneth. You began your life 
 with woman coming to you!" 
 
 Julie admitted, as she sat waiting for him, that she 
 had committed some intolerable foolishness. It was 
 perfectly true that in order to afford herSelf the thrill 
 of conquest and satisfy at the same time an errant 
 poetic opulence in her nature, she had inconsiderately, 
 joyously and, as she had believed, inconsequentially, 
 permitted most of the men to make love to her. And 
 that not singly but simultaneously — and now she had 
 been found out. Slowly began to awaken in her 
 •mind the significance of every human act in the infinite 
 chain of cause and effect. Every one of these men 
 liad been humanly piqued and curious. That, perhaps, 
 accounted for their listening to Purcell. Concerning 
 Jack Adams, Julie felt her one justifying thrill. Her 
 comrade at arms ! 
 
 Perhaps she should have confessed this incident to 
 Calmiden, she thought, but she had never been able 
 to bring herself to speak of that adventure, now that 
 Adams was " out of it." It seemed something sealed 
 forever between him and her. 
 
 Another hour passed and the girl's black resentments 
 and outraged pride rose into fresh tumult. The pride 
 of the Dreschells was their dominant trait. The world 
 might hold Calmiden's position in life better than hers, 
 he might tower in immeasurable contempt over the sor- 
 did disaster of her life, yet she had one bomb left 
 to deliver. She would drive him out of her life. He 
 liad forced his way into it. The world might go hang ! 
 Purcell could make it believe what he would. But 
 upon one person the outrage to her dignity and pride 
 should be indelibly branded, so that never till the end 
 of his life would he be able to forget. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 145 
 
 His moment had come and passed — in the dark, 
 terrible hours, when frightened and half starved, she 
 sat waiting for him to come and set things right. Her 
 brain had traveled the whole blistered course of thought 
 for extenuation, and now, roused to a fury of injury, 
 she determined to hurt Calmiden in the last way possi- 
 ble — to cast him off finally and completely. That he 
 had already accomplished this repudiation beyond any- 
 thing that lay in her power goaded her to madness. 
 
 In a suffocation of emotions she wrote the letter. It 
 ■was not what she said in the letter but the way she 
 found to say it, the white heat of the words, that 
 must later have seared a path through his brain. 
 
 " My vulgar debts repulsed you ! The insinuations-- 
 of that man were preeminently revolting to your sense 
 of pride. Not to speak! It was an easy way out! 
 There is another kind of Judas, it seems! You sat 
 and sold me away by your silence. You have done 
 what I did not dream it was possible for any living: 
 being to do. For such a betrayal there can be no ex- 
 planation ever. None is humanly possible." 
 
 She summoned Pablo Cherico from the other side 
 of the house, and told him to get Delphine, who lived 
 not far away. The little boy, roused out of his bed, 
 came running. One person in this disheveled world 
 was always eager to serve her. She handed the letter 
 to Delphine. 
 
 " Take it at once to Teniente Calmiden, at the Mess. 
 Put it in his hands ! " 
 
 She stumbled back into the house, given over ta 
 the demons of darkness and despair. 
 
 When Julie awoke next morning, she found a bundle 
 of mail tied with a string, lying on her doorstep. 
 There were two official letters. Now when disaster 
 
146 THE GREEN. GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 was quite complete and irretrievable, her money had 
 •come — all the arrears of it. A week ago and her 
 life would have traveled into safe places. Now there 
 was nothing left but the bleak privilege of paying her 
 debts. 
 
 Delphine, with the captive Balthazar grubbing along 
 in the dust, appeared. " I gave the letter into the 
 hands of the Teniente, last night, as you told me to 
 do. He was already in bed. The house is very ugly. 
 No flowers on the table, no lace in the windows, like 
 in the beautiful residence of Mrs. Smeeth — nodding 
 hut banjoes." 
 
 " What did he say? " Julie cut in on him. 
 
 " Nodding at all. Maestra! He take the letter and 
 read it, while I wait. Then he turn away." 
 
 She turned heavily back into the house. 
 
 Ignoring school — she had now been absent two 
 consecutive days from that depleted institution — she 
 grimly resolved to attend to her own concerns. Miss 
 Hope, of course, would not fail to take note of this 
 "defection, but Julie, bitter over the careless methods 
 of the Department which had helped to bring about 
 this debacle, was reckless of consequences. 
 
 First of all there was Purcell ! She meant to tackle 
 "him single-handed. Indeed there was no one that she 
 could think of from whom she could have derived sup- 
 port in this situation. If she had been a man she might 
 have knocked him down and settled the issue at once. 
 She wanted, she thought, to do something inexpressibly 
 violent to him. 
 
 She was brushing out her hair before putting it 
 tip to go out, when a shadow loomed in the doorway. 
 There stood Nemecia Victoria swaying like a purple 
 -passion flower. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 147 
 
 Usually Nemecia was clothed in silken variations of 
 the spectrum, with cob-web laces across her bosom. 
 To-day with a winding-cloth bound round the body, 
 her beautiful bronze limbs bared, she looked like a 
 statue. 
 
 Nemecia crossed the room. She took the silvery 
 coif of Julie's hair in her hands and caressed it. " My 
 poor Senorita, with hair like this, to live so meanly — 
 at the mercy of men ! " 
 
 An acute curiosity shot through Julie. This was the 
 Nemecia who knew the secret hearts of men. Just 
 whose secrets? A temptation came to her to get 
 Nemecia to speak. But no, she would not lift that 
 curtain. 
 
 " You wouldn't live as I live? " Julie queried. 
 
 "My mother did; she worked always," Nemecia 
 brooded. " Her body grew to be all bones. Then 
 she was stolen by the Moros — to be a slave, till she 
 died. When the pirates came I hid in a hole in the 
 ground. They took my brother too." 
 
 Her voice commenced to choke. She broke off 
 harshly. " Senorita, have you heard the evil that man 
 says of you? " 
 
 She lifted up her arms, beautiful soft anns, harden- 
 ing as they rose with a fury of passion that for the 
 moment seemed to eclipse the great golden calm of the 
 morning world. 
 
 " Men I have known many, but that white one is 
 a devil! I ha-a-te him, £uid since I am afraid Hell 
 will not get him — I shall kill him 1 " 
 
 To Julie's dumfounded amazement she drew from 
 her bosom a long, thin, cruel strip of a blade and held 
 it in her clenched fist before her contorted face. 
 
 Julie knew these people too well to be panic-stricken. 
 
148 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " Put it away, Nemecia ! " she ordered. " They 
 would put you in the calaboose and keep you there till 
 you died, an old, old woman." 
 
 Nemecia's great eyes flashed fire. " Are you then 
 cool over the things he said of you all over the vil- 
 lage? Will you allow him to insult you to the world, 
 you who brought about peace for Nahal? He seeks 
 to ruin you, as he sought to torture me. Let me go 
 for us both," she whispered tensely, " to-night, to the 
 hammock in the gallery — and when he sleeps — 
 give two quick blows, one for you and the other for 
 me!" 
 
 " Alas, Nemecia, the calaboose is dark and cold. In 
 your little cell of stone by yourself forever, you would 
 never see the sun. You love the sun, Nemecia. You 
 love the praise of your pretty face. No one would 
 ever listen to the music of your ear hoops again. Just 
 stillness and dark, forever, as if you had died and. 
 hung by your hair in space ! 
 
 " Come! " she seized Nemecia's arm, and the knife 
 went clattering to the floor. Julie's eyes shone with 
 pleading. " Do this for me, Nemecia ! Let him go ! 
 Ah! What a wonderful revenge! To hold the op- 
 tion of one's enemy's life in one's hand — and to toss 
 it back to him. Give me that power, Nemecia ! Give 
 me that strength ! " 
 
 Nemecia sulkily picked up the knife. Then she 
 stood erect facing Julie. " My people owe you a debt 
 which they have forgotten. Take then as my share of 
 it, this creature's life, for," — in a fresh flare — " I 
 meant surely to kill him this very night ! " 
 
 She turned indifferently out of the door. 
 
 Julie waited till she was out of sight. " I can go 
 to hinj now ! " she cried to herself. She started forth 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 149 
 
 for the Palacio. Fortunately it was an hour when 
 there would be many people in the building. 
 
 There were two Filipino clerks in the office with 
 Purcell. Julie advanced, with head uplifted, to the 
 desk where he sat. He looked at her an instant and in 
 the flash of his expression, Julie saw how thoroughly he 
 knew he had done his work. 
 
 " I've come to pay you back your money ! " She 
 handed him several diecks. " You will please cash 
 these. And you will give me a receipt." 
 
 The note of calm authority in her tone clearly 
 puzzled him. He busied himself in a slight confusion 
 with the safe. 
 
 The transaction finished, Julie's spirits rose. There 
 were dangerous lights playing in her green eyes. 
 ** You have said some unspeakable things about me, 
 things that you knew to be utterly false! You are a 
 liar, of course, and you believe me incapable of de- 
 fending myself. In this country too, where as you 
 know," she looked at him steadily, " one can so cheaply 
 buy one's revenge." 
 
 Purcell paled. She saw he had understood. 
 
 " I did not expect my remarks to be repeated broad- 
 cast. You did borrow money from me — and as you 
 must be well aware, the right sort of women do not 
 resort to such expedients." 
 
 The girl looked hard at him and at the thought he 
 read in her mind, a painful dark red dyed his face. 
 
 " Who is to blame for all this ? " he exclaimed in a 
 hoarse voice. " If you had taken me, I would have 
 stuck to you through thick and thin. I wouldn't have 
 cast you oiif like your friend Calmiden. He never 
 intended to marry you. You must know that. Didn't 
 I warn you long ago ? " 
 
150 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " And you saw to it that your evil prophecies came 
 true. You have hurt me in every way possible." 
 
 She turned and started to go. 
 
 Suddenly she felt that he had pressed up behind her. 
 " If you'll still say it isn't too late — I'll — " 
 
 Julie wrenched herself out of his detaining grasp. 
 " You'll — What will you do ? " she cried, turning 
 savagely on him. " Having deliberately ruined 4he 
 whole compass of my life and brought to pass the worst 
 that was humanly possible, you still dare to think you 
 have power over my life? Listen to me! I have 
 power over your life — at any moment. I held it on 
 the tip of my finger this morning, and balanced it 
 there — and if you lift your hand against me again — " 
 She stopped in a wild sob and ran from the room. 
 
 When she got to school, she found five boys huddled 
 together awaiting her, generaled thither by the faith- 
 ful Delphine, who had gathered them up outlaw fashion 
 from the streets, and who was now oratorically in- 
 structing them from the platform. Delphine an- 
 nounced to her that the present gathering was the 
 very best he could do, for — though he had lain in 
 wait for the former scholars from dawn — they con- 
 trived to get down to the river, and from its inacces- 
 sible depths had defied him, their heads bobbing along 
 the surface like grimacing corks. 
 
 James, too, was furious and had been twice to see. 
 the Padre, who had retreated to the sanctity of his 
 lofty and, impregnable convento to avoid the emissary 
 of education. 
 
 " I'm going to climb the bell tower and beat him," 
 James declared in heat, "if he doesn't call off this 
 boycott." 
 
 Purcell's rumors, monstrously exaggerated and em- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION iSl 
 
 broidered upon, had swept through the village. Pub- 
 lic opinion had pronounced judgment in these empty- 
 rooms. In desperation, Julie went to the Major. He 
 had heard the reports, and as he had a particular sen- 
 sibility for Julie, who had been the means of cutting 
 the Gordian Knot of his military career, he offered to 
 give Purcell a piece of his mind. It was an extremely 
 delicate thing for him to undertake; for, since Pur- 
 cell was actually the chief civil functionary on the 
 island, it was the Major's duty to remain on good 
 terms with him. 
 
 Julie found in these trying moments that she had 
 misjudged this man who towered in his rigid rectitude 
 of character over the life of the colony. He was stern 
 military metal, but every atom of that metal rang true. 
 
 He assured Julie that the Americans understood the 
 unfortunate affair. The Filipino conception of it ap- 
 parently did not trouble his mind. The Padre to his 
 deep regret was outside his jurisdiction. 
 
 The women of the colony defended Julie, as women 
 if left to themselves generally will defend their kind. 
 One day when Julie was passing Mrs. Smith's house, 
 the little lady called out to her to come in. After the 
 girl had sunk dispiritedly into a cane chair, Mrs. Smith 
 broke out : " Julie, you're taking this wretched business 
 too much to heart ! Do you for one instant think that 
 we who know you would believe a thing against you? 
 Marlborough was at the Mess that day when all that 
 trouble rose and heard what passed — something about 
 'your having been engaged to Adams, and your letting 
 all the men kiss you. How many" — turning into a 
 tone of playful curiosity — "did, really? How fear- 
 fully interesting, you little philanderer! I — there 
 were a number in my history too. Just heaps of 'em, in 
 
152 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 fact. Why shouldn't there be, when we're making 
 the Sentimental Journey of youth? These stupid 
 men! They think they are the only ones who can 
 take the trip ! 
 
 " What made Calmiden mad, of course, was your 
 being engaged to Adams, his class-mate, all the time 
 you let him make love to you. That was playing the 
 game rather roughly, I admit ! " 
 
 Julie explained wearily the embroilment about 
 Adams. " He came down here because he was lonely 
 — and to see me, because, well, maybe I was a sort of 
 romantic ideal to him — who will ever kndw? We 
 had made a contract to help each other through — 
 quite different, you understand, from the other kind 
 of contract." 
 
 " Does Calmiden know about this ? " 
 
 Julie listlessly shook her head. 
 
 " But perhaps that's just what's the trouble! What 
 would you have done if you thought he were untrue? 
 He has, moreover, a peculiar character, as you know." 
 
 "Untrue? He is completely so!" 
 
 " What on earth has Calmiden done ? " 
 
 "What has he done?" Julie cried trembling. 
 " Didn't your husband tell you the horrible things 
 Purcell said against me — my character, my integrity, 
 shamelessly pulled apart before the whole mess ? " 
 
 " Purcell did not make any serious attack upon your 
 character while my husband was present. He spoke, 
 as I have said, of your engagement to Adams, and of 
 the fact that he had seen Adams kiss you — and some 
 others, I believe. What he said afterwards, Marl- 
 borough did not hear, for, not finding the conver- 
 sation to his taste, he got up and left, and so did Cal- 
 miden ! " 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 153 
 
 " Kenneth? " Julie cried wildly. 
 
 " Yes, he left the room, Marlborough said, white 
 with rage. He was furious at your double play." 
 
 " But Dwight said that Kenneth was there - — and 
 took no part." 
 
 " Who was following anybody's movements after 
 such a disclosure? Don't you see, nobody had 
 dreamed that Adams had come to Guindulman ! And 
 when you know Dwightie as well as I do, you'll dis- 
 cover that he never sees anything clearly, poor dear, 
 when he gets excited, Marlborough says that when 
 Purcell announced that the Major had told him that 
 you were engaged to Jack Adams and that that was 
 why he set out on his disastrous adventure, every- 
 thing was in excitement, and Calmiden rose straight, 
 off and left. Perhaps he should have said something 
 when Purcell spoke of your universal flirting — he 
 made a mistake there, but he was shocked and angry. 
 
 " There, I've handed you back a new lease of life, 
 I see. Go immediately and make your peace with 
 Kenneth. Good-by ! " 
 
 Julie never knew how she got across the parade 
 ground; it seemed as if on wings. The blood was 
 spinning in her head. Once home she sat down and 
 composed a letter, of a kind that never in all her life 
 was she able to write again. It was written under the 
 spur of renewed belief in the universe. Until this 
 wrong was righted the tmiverse could not properly 
 balance, and not an instant must be lost in setting it 
 right. 
 
 In this letter, Julie endeavorSd to make Calmiden un- 
 derstand that there was nothing she would not do to 
 show how fearfully sorry she was. 
 
 She made a full and free ^planation concerning 
 
154 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Adams. Very urgently she tried to initiate Calmiden 
 into the delicately intangible bond that had existed 
 between them. She explained that the disastrous first 
 letter had been written in one of her fatally uncon- 
 trollable impulses, prompted by circumstances which 
 at the time had distorted her view. She would reveal 
 those conditions when he came to her, which she begged 
 him to do at once. 
 
 Nothing could have been more consummately abject 
 than this letter. Julia again dispatched Delphineto 
 Calmiden, with the strictest injunctions for a swift re- 
 turn with the answer. 
 
 At last the swift soft pad of Delphine's feet in the 
 dust of the road! Then in another moment, breath- 
 ing hard, for he had sensed the super-importance of 
 the errand and had flown through the streets, the lad 
 laid the envelope in her hand. Her name was inscribed 
 on it in Calmiden's handwriting. 
 
 Julie tore it open. Short, like a telegram, it 
 burned through her brain. " I can not come, now. 
 Sometime you -will hear from me." 
 
 That was all. A masterpiece of the enigmatic, 
 meaning anything or nothing at all. Julie sat down 
 and studied it out for a shred of hope or help it 
 might contain; but at last, with tears of loneliness and 
 despair in her throat, she gave it up. Calmiden did 
 not mean ^:o come back. Of that she was now con- 
 vinced. She had injured him, and he had told her 
 over and over with unmistakable directness that he 
 did not forgive. From him this answer was inevitable. 
 There was no appeal from it. Not even her letter 
 had weighed in the issue. 
 
 Time went mercilessly on. The term was drawing 
 towards its end. There were now only two pupils 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 155 
 
 left in her once ardently conceived shrine of uplift. 
 One of these was of course Delphine — the other an 
 undersized youth who found it completely impossible 
 to escape him. 
 
 She wondered how she had managed to be so happy 
 once ; or so independent in her aims. Those aims had 
 now become almost obscured. One can't go on greatly 
 believing when the edifices one has sought to raise to 
 the gods are smitten by lightning. Julie's once fervid 
 spirit was becoming becalmed. She couldn't under- 
 stand anjrthing at all — a dark veil seemed to be 
 stretched before her eyes. She longed, and yet 
 dreaded to get off the stage of this drama. 
 
 The bachelors had moved their establishment down 
 the hill, to the very house that Julie upon her intro- 
 duction to Nahal had occupied. The Plaza had be- 
 come too congested, and the Reyes had rented their 
 house to the Military Government. Julie did not see 
 Calmiden; he contrived absolutely to keep out of her 
 way. 
 
 Finally they passed each other one day on the street. 
 Julie turned white, and a spasm crossed Calmiden's 
 grim, gray face. As their eyes met, her blood con- 
 gealed. For out of this brooding face nothing of the 
 old Kenneth looked. One hard passion had conquered 
 that face and turned it to stone. Right there the truth 
 that she had paradoxically refused to receive stared 
 her in the eyes. 
 
 He did not speak, and neither did she. A ghastly 
 encounter — the meeting of their dead selves! 
 Frightened and hopeless, Julie hurried on when she 
 saw that Calmiden was to make no sign. He had 
 closed definitely his strange soul. 
 
 Julie's reason was beginning to point out inexorably 
 
156 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 that Calmiden was a great deal more to blame than 
 she had thought. The questionableness of his per- 
 mitting Purcell to say in his presence anything what- 
 ever about her — however shattering to his personal 
 romance, or of his allowing his anger and outraged 
 pride to get the better of him before he had demanded 
 an explanation of her, had not at all balanced, in his 
 mind, the fact that in her blistering letter she had told 
 him that he was the worst possible conception of a cad. 
 She knew that Calmiden had sought out the Treasurer, 
 and that they had fought brutally in Purcell's quarters ; 
 but even there he had accorded her enemy, however 
 violently, the chance for a vindication that he would not 
 give her. Also she knew that, although he had fought 
 her accuser, belatedly, he still believed secretly a great 
 -deal of what that accuser had had to say. 
 
 He had caused her to suffer a great deal. He had 
 brutally broken her pride, and had done it wilfully, 
 hoping to make her contemptible to herself. It came 
 over her in a great moment of proud anger and relief 
 that she had never actually cared for him. He had 
 succeeded in swerving her out of her path, he had 
 -quenched her torch, and helped to place her in the 
 failure where she now found herself. Her soul, for 
 a long time to come, would scorch with the hurts he 
 and Nahal had inflicted. 
 
 In the bitter days that followed, the girl felt hide- 
 ously lonely and abandoned. A sense of disgrace 
 scorched her isolation. People believed wicked, 
 abominable things of her, and there was no way to 
 change their minds. The friend upon whose loyalty 
 she had most depended had under the severest condi- 
 tions deserted. She cried a great deal at night, till 
 one day a letter came that brought a rebound. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 157 
 
 For a minute or two it seemed hard to believe the 
 reality of this message. It read: 
 
 " Your friends, the Calixters, have left the Islands. 
 He was offered something better at home, and her 
 health had failed. 
 
 " She didn't have time to write you, but she did 
 tell me what those people down there were trying tO' 
 do to you. It is not my custom ever to stand by and 
 see my friends hurt. 
 
 " Father Hull and I are arranging your transfer to 
 Manila. I beg you not to remain an hour longer in 
 that awful spot. 
 
 " Father Hull will meet you when you come north 
 — as I am now leaving for China. I cannot say when. 
 I shall be back, but I shall certainly see you again. 
 Until then — 
 
 "Barry McChord." 
 
 "Would he indeed come back!" Julie recalled 
 what Mrs. Calixter had said : " Each time he goes he 
 says he may not." 
 
 There was another letter from Manila — from 
 Isabel Armistead: 
 
 " I saw the Calixters before they sailed. They said 
 you were about to come north, out of your hermit 
 wilds; and they intimated that things had not ^one 
 well with you. How could they indeed! The Green 
 God and I are still your friends. We will show you 
 a better fortune than you have ever found before. • 
 
 " I may be off on a journey when you arrive, but 
 until my return you are to make yourself completely 
 at home in my house." 
 
158 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 The time came for Julie to put in her application for 
 transportation to Solano, where she would catch a boat 
 for Manila. Calmiden being Quartermaster, her ap- 
 plication passed through his hands, and came back to 
 her signed by him. She stared grimly at his signa- 
 ture. 
 
 That same afternoon she met Mrs. Smith on a cor- 
 ner. " Have you heard the news ? " that lady ex- 
 •claimed. "The Treasurer has been dismissed, and 
 is ordered to turn over his office and leave at once. 
 Julie," she asked whimsically, " where is your pull ? " 
 
 Julie shrugged her shoulders negatively. 
 
 " You can't think? How about that man in Manila 
 who was so glad to hear about you again? Couldn't 
 lie do almost anything?" 
 
 Julie's eyes opened. She had written to Mrs. Calix- 
 ter and recounted her troubles. Could that have been 
 ■what Barry meant? 
 
 On that last day when she stood in the school which 
 had once been the temple of her faith, one solitary 
 boy faced her, struggling with his tears — the loyal 
 Delphine. 
 
 " Maestro, take me with you ! " he chokingly pleaded, 
 •clinging to her skirts in appeal. The girl and the 
 little brown boy clung to each other weeping. 
 
 After leaving the school, she went to a spot outside 
 the village and gathered some flowers. She had made 
 few*farewells, but there was one person to whom she 
 must bid a positive good-by. It was a shining morn- 
 ing. On just such a one had she embarked upon the 
 renaissance of Nahal. 
 
 The cemetery, as she entered it, was very still. No- 
 body ever appeared to visit it, yet Adams's grave had 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 159 
 
 a fresh look that startled Juhe. It was as if he had 
 not completely given up his hold on life; as if he were 
 vaguely in part still present. Somewhere down there 
 she might reach the heart of a friend — a friend who 
 had passed through the limits of human tragedy. 
 
 It was the kiss he had given her that had really put 
 her disaster in motion ; but it rose at this moment be- 
 fore her as the cementing seal of a friendship of high 
 deeds. 
 
 For a long time Julie sat over the grave, insensible 
 to everything but this sad communion. The sun, 
 merciless creator, flung upon the world the compulsion 
 of his quickening rays, ruthlessly enforcing the fiat 
 of life. All the burning force of existence seemed to 
 be beating down upon her bared head like an intoler- 
 able weight ; but she heeded it not. To be human, and 
 to be the plaything of unassailable forces; to aspire, 
 and to be defeated; to reach up like Prometheus for 
 the fire of Heaven, only to be dashed to pieces on the 
 ground! In a paroxysm, Julie flung her head down 
 upon the grave. There was nothing in the universe 
 to answer anything! 
 
 When she lifted herself up a queer numbness had 
 attacked her limbs. Forked lightning seemed to be 
 piercing her brain. Holding to her head, as if there 
 were a rift in it, she staggered out of the cemetery. 
 She was in the acutest pain. But beneath it, conquer- 
 ing each convulsion was the indomitable resolv% to 
 leave Nahal. To-day she should go out of this island 
 forever ! 
 
 From the wharf a row boat was to take her to the 
 steamer out in the bay. The vessel was to leave at 
 two o'clock, the siesta hour. The Major, with Mike 
 
160 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 scuffling along behind on a chain like an imp, escorted 
 her to the wharf. Almost blinded she got down the 
 hill. 
 
 The Major seemed to be much moved, and unable 
 -to find words that would put his feeling into expres- 
 sion. " It will be a long time hence perhaps before 
 you will reap any reward for what you've done," he 
 said. " I myself am under an imdying obligation to 
 you, and while my appreciation is not much — " he 
 stopped, and studied her face. " Go home, my child," 
 he urged. " Don't let the East crucify you! " 
 
 Julie shook the hand of the fine old soldier, and 
 ■walked down the wharf. There, a brand new camisa 
 on his back, and the smallest conceivable bundle in his 
 hand, was Delphine. 
 
 " I go with you," he announced in a transport of 
 ■determination. " My onck — he give me away, with 
 the new shirt." 
 
 Even Balthazar was not missing! With his halter 
 around his neck, he was hanging investigatorily over 
 the wharf by what appeared to be the nub of his tail. 
 
 Delphine thrust into Julie's hand a crumpled sheet 
 of paper written over in very bad Spanish, and signed 
 unmistakably by Pedro Bebong. In this document he 
 ceded over the body and soul of one Delphine. 
 
 The children of the East — bartered, sold, drowned 
 ty guardians who were unable to cope with existence ! 
 Julie*s heart had often ached over the valuelessness of 
 their poor little lives. It was for all these poor 
 crushed creatures that she had come overseas to offer 
 her life. 
 
 But she was having much too desperate a time mak- 
 ing her own way through this new world to become 
 responsible for another creature. Besides, she had had 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 161 
 
 one wormwood lesson in adoption. She gently shook 
 her head. 
 
 The boy began to cry wildly, in an abandonment of 
 despair. The tears ran down the quaint little corsair 
 face. The poor little starched camisa, which had 
 stuck out stifHy like armor in which to encounter the 
 world, fell limp imder the rain. Even the little bare 
 feet had their appeal. They were willing to trudge the 
 world over to find a future. 
 
 The Fiscal came down to the wharf on busineses. 
 Delphine appealed his case to him, crying and clinging- 
 to his coat. The Fiscal said that the note transferring^ 
 Delphine was perfectly genuine and authentic; that 
 the boy's aunt and uncle found great difficulty in feed- 
 ing their own brood, and that if the boy did not go 
 with the Maestra, he would be apprenticed to a China- 
 man who kept a tin-shop. 
 
 Into that den of filth and idolatry would go every- 
 thing that Julie had planted in the best of her boys. 
 Did Delphine, frantically pleading, dancing about in 
 his grotesque little camisa, and weeping terribly all 
 over his droll face, dream anywhere in him of saving 
 any of those things? 
 
 Julie stood silent. Balthazar, emerging from under 
 the side of the wharf, scrambled towards her, and 
 gave angry pecks at her shoe. 
 
 "The boy is dissatisfied with Nahal," the Fiscal 
 said. " Now that the yeast is in him, he wishes to- 
 rise. I was that way once; but a man, as you know,. 
 Maestra, cannot push through a wall. Take him, if 
 you can. Do not leave his soul to die." 
 
 Julie gazed at the boy clutching now at her skirts. 
 As she gazed down into his face, the revelation came 
 to her. Down there before her, electing to follow 
 
162 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 her wherever she went, the new generation knelt. 
 Whatever the past and the East stood for, the new 
 generation had cast the ballot for her and the Hght. 
 Defeat was turned into victory — a victory that would 
 grow and become universal. In the face pleading up 
 at her, she saw the curtain of darkness rent. 
 
 " Come, Delphine ! " she said. 
 
 From the deck she watched the island recede, beau- 
 tiful and paradisiac as it had first looked. The scent 
 of its golden flowers drifted out upon the water. 
 Quiet, green, and sun-touched, the island drifted off 
 like a dream. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 JULIE was entering again the Arabian Nights' 
 city. It lay emblazoned in the light of a blood 
 red torrid sun fast sinking behind a towering 
 mountain that uprose out of wide stretching plains 
 already shadowy under the first sprinkling of dusk. 
 Through the streets of the City, the many races of the 
 earth were moving in slow crooked currents. Back 
 in the charmed City to stay! Back in the midst of 
 the Empire-builders and the destiny of the enigmatic 
 East! 
 
 Julie expected to go to one of the hostelries of the 
 City. There were a number of them, of which the 
 Oriente was by far the best known and most brilliant. 
 It harbored under its palmy roof people from all cor- 
 ners of the world, and was the stage for a great deal 
 of the drama of the East. There were Australians 
 and New Zealanders, come up to see what the Ameri- 
 cans were making of things and to have a bit of fun 
 nearer than Europe; Hindoo rajahs with their trains, 
 who had unaccountably found their way here; Chinese 
 and. Japanese officials bound, in silence, on their in- 
 conjectural errands. Manila was glitteringly cosmo- 
 politan. It was just now attracting the eye of all the 
 East, and picturesque people coursed in and out of it 
 like a strange spice. Almost all of this throng found 
 refuge in the Oriente. Not foreigners alone made 
 lively this resort. There was the City's own strange 
 population; and exiles from the bosqtie were there 
 seeking nepenthe for their souls in the dancing and 
 
 163 
 
164 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 music of its plaza, in its life and love. No old colonial 
 of to-day can pass the still gates of this closed pavilion 
 of pleasure without a pang for the vivid era of the 
 past. 
 
 But this glittering khan Julie would be forced to 
 pass by. Aside from the prices, high in those prodigal 
 days of the Empire, the great hostelry, while respect- 
 able, held a much too vivid representation of Anglo- 
 Asian life for a solitary girl. 
 
 The ship was wharfing. Julie perceived a conspicu- 
 ous equipage waiting on the pier. Beside its white- 
 liveried coachman sat an unbelievably small figure 
 which was turning its strange miniature individuality 
 about on the box. Isabel's queer dwarf! He must 
 have seen Julie, for in an instant he was burrowing his 
 way through the travelers. Soon he was standing be- 
 fore her, extending a letter and nodding his uncanny 
 little face up at her. 
 
 The note was from Isabel. She had written it just 
 before setting out on some enterprise, and as she had 
 intimated before would not be at home to receive 
 Julie; but she had made all arrangements for Julie 
 to remain in her house. 
 
 The dwarf gesticulated towards the carriage with 
 one of his elfin hands. Delphine looking about him 
 at all the wonder uttered an exclamation. The dwarf, 
 glancing at him quickly, spoke to him in the same 
 dialect. They began to chatter to each other. 
 
 The mannikin, Delphine excitedly informed Julie, 
 had been born on the Island of Nahal. 
 
 The village of Guindulman — did they know it? 
 the dwarf asked. Julie told him that she had lived 
 there for some time. It was from there that he had 
 been stolen as a child, and made a slave. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 165 
 
 Guindulman remained as a bright spot in his 
 memory; his little nut of a face transformed under the 
 glow of reminiscences. 
 
 He and his mother and his sister had all been scat- 
 tered in the raid of a band of Moros, and he had never 
 seen either of them again. 
 
 A recollection seized on Julie. " What was your 
 sister's name?" 
 
 "Nemecia Victoria — she was a child." 
 
 " Oh ! " Delphine joyously put in, " she is there 
 now — a pretty lady; and very rich — with so many 
 friends!" 
 
 Julie gave Delphine an arresting look. 
 
 The dwarf trembled a little. " My sister is ^live ! 
 — and well off ! " he murmured. 
 
 " Yes," Julie replied. To her relief, he did not ask 
 any more questions. 
 
 " Will you then go back to her? " 
 
 The dwarf turned away. " What is to be, will be. 
 I have been everjrwhere with my mistress — even to 
 England. I will not leave — " he muttered to himself. 
 
 Julie drew Delphine aside, and cautioned him what 
 he should say of Nemecia. Delphine listened atten- 
 tively under the shadow of a dreadfully civilized little 
 derby hat, which had evidently accompanied the new 
 camisa, and demanded permission to tell his new friend 
 of the Peace that had come about in Nahal and of the 
 part his Maestra and Nemecia had played in it. 
 
 Julie sat back comfortably in the carriage, with a 
 feeling of gratitude toward Isabel. The hotels other 
 than the Oriente were neither good nor picturesque, 
 and from one of these Isabel had saved her. Her re- 
 flections were cut short by the sight of an urgent face 
 making its vyay toward her through the crowd — 
 
166 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 though it was not until a black habit appeared in con- 
 junction with the face that Julie recognized the pain- 
 fully emaciated features of Father Hull. 
 
 " I'm late ! " he exclaimed, extending his hand to her, 
 and taking in the carriage with a dissatisfied glance. 
 " They misinformed me at the steamship office as to 
 the arrival of the boat. 
 
 " I had a carromata waiting for you," he suggested. 
 " I have also made arrangements with some Spanish- 
 Mestizo friends of mine for your lodging. Suitable 
 accommodations are always hard to procure in Manila, 
 and I strongly advise you to take advantage of this 
 opportunity — especially as it is in the district to which 
 you will probably be assigned. 
 
 " Unfortunately," he added, knitting his brows at 
 the carriage, " the Reredos are not immediately pre- 
 pared — and an unprepared Spaniard is a serious thing. 
 One cannot walk in and out of their households after 
 the fashion we have at home. They lack the quality of 
 casualness. 
 
 " In the meantime, I know of a very good hotel 
 where you can pass a few days at a very reasonable 
 rate." 
 
 Julie informed him that the carriage she was in be- 
 longed to Mrs. Armistead, a friend of hers, who had in- 
 vited her to remain in her house till its owner returned 
 from a trip. She believed it would be ungracious not 
 to accept the hospitality offered. Part of her baggage, 
 moreover, was installed in the carriage, and arrange- 
 ments made for the rest of it. Privately Julie had no 
 desire to go to a cheap hotel when a chance at that won- 
 derful house was offered. 
 
 The priest appeared to consider, in troubled thought. 
 Rather reluctantly, Julie thought, he consented to the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 167 
 
 arrangement. He said he would communicate later 
 with her concerning the school. Then he lifted his hat 
 and moved away. 
 
 Julie had wanted to ask him about Barry, but had 
 not found the opportunity. 
 
 As the carriage drove away, the dwarf and Delphine 
 — who was clutching Balthazar, too stupefied from the 
 trip to be troublesome — sat close together, talking 
 rapidly. The dwarf occasionally stole a shyly appre- 
 ciative glance at Julie. 
 
 Julie passed across the city, coursing through its 
 dusky streets, in a mood of subtle excitement. Every- 
 where she was met by the Change ! Not a change that 
 assailed the physical senses, but one that transcended 
 them : a subtle, widespread intimation that quivered on 
 some inner receptivity. Not the altered streets, the 
 new buildings, the material renovation, gave it forth so 
 much as the peculiar quickening of the atmosphere 
 through which the soul of these people seemed to sus- 
 pire. How can one trace the leaven in the bread or 
 follow through the far filaments of thought a psychic 
 metamorphosis? Yet there it was. The very stones 
 of the pavement proclaimed it. The Resurrection was 
 stirring through the worn kingdoms of men, and the 
 blood of the Builders coursed beneath it all like the 
 rivers of life! 
 
 Every moment Julie thrilled deeply to what she saw. 
 The Builders were beginning to fulfil. Here in this 
 single corner the stagnant spirit of the East was awak- 
 ing to life. Wars might be fought in the future, and 
 races degraded and aggrandized, but the spreading 
 influences of this endeavor would reach far into the 
 future of men. 
 
 Again she found herself in that perfumed garden 
 
168 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 before the sweep of Babylonian pillars with the shim- 
 mering palace lifting like a jeweled Taj Mahal out of 
 the mystery of the thick, soft night — and the giant 
 trees and scented shadows, and the bamboo chanting 
 to the forthcoming stars. The mansion of the Caliph ! 
 
 She stepped softly up the flights of stairs into the 
 great lengths of chambers, glowing under dim lights 
 with the rich acquisitions of strange lands. The house 
 was all sheer beauty, exquisitely compiled. The river 
 came up to the verdant banks on its rear. Mystical, 
 shadow-banked, it set the senses quivering. The sur- 
 roundings stirred Julie like the confused beauty of 
 Eastern music, and brought up dim, poetic suggestions 
 of Queens of Sheba and Scheherezades and the un- 
 ending dynasties of kings — of the poetry and the ro- 
 mance of old, unchanging things. 
 
 She ate her dinner, a solitary figure, at a huge ban- 
 quet table of shining nara set forth with Indian silver, 
 delicately carved with the loves and conquests of 
 maharajahs and goddesses. After dinner, she wan- 
 dered about fascinated. What a triumph Isabel had 
 made of the house. What a marvelous woman, in- 
 deed, she was ! 
 
 She stopped short in a chamber of shining carvings, 
 slow wrought wonders of a land where hands were 
 cheaper than tools, and life was the cheapest of all. 
 From the midst of the labor of these unvalued hands, 
 she caught the glimmer of a strange little figure with 
 bent head, shining stilly out of the dusk. The Green 
 God ! Beautiful, terrible. Lord of the Eastern universe 
 — to whom myriads of souls were fastened in supreme 
 faith. With what awful power he was invested by 
 their belief ! She had walked upon him unawares, and 
 now hurried to get away. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 169 
 
 As she emerged disquieted into the main sala, a 
 head thrust itself softly, like a projected shadow, above 
 the old Spanish balustrade of the stairs. The body 
 did not appear and the head paused only long enough 
 to startle Julie. A dark, aged human vision. In the 
 fleeting look she could not tell whether it was the face 
 of a man or a woman; but there had been a flash 
 from the depths of that being that had frightened the 
 girl. It was gone, and she calmed again. After all, 
 in the East, all sorts of unexpected faces peer at one 
 from odd corners. 
 
 Later Julie tried to question the dwarf. Who was 
 the old being she had seen? Did it pop in and out 
 of people's houses at will? Did his Mistress know 
 anything about her? Dicky-Dicky, the dwarf, looked 
 at her with inscrutable eyes, and knew nothing. Julie 
 decided to say no more about it. 
 
 The next day Isabel appeared. Vividly beautiful 
 like some bright houri, she came smiling to the gallery 
 where Julie was sitting. " I am happy to see that you 
 have found your way back to us! " She kissed Julie 
 with her perfumed lips. Then she stood back and 
 regarded her. " Ah, my poor little friend, you have 
 changed! A hard time is written all over you, and 
 you are too thin for your clothes. Poor little dust- 
 covered Atlas! Tell me about it. I love all brave 
 journeys. But first we will have lunch. I am starved. 
 I have had a long trip." 
 
 " From your letter, I thought you would be gone 
 longer." 
 
 " I have been off on a secret glorious errand to a 
 place of which you shall never dream. You would 
 have to have the East in you for that. I have been 
 building paradise to suit myself, bit by bit. The kind 
 
170 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 of paradise you think of is made for every one, for all 
 sorts of people you couldn't get along with on earth 
 — so why, I ask, repeat the experiment in the courts 
 of God? 
 
 " Nor is paradise for one alone, my friend. It is 
 for the comrades of our souls, scattered sometimes as 
 far as the ends of the rainbow. There are a few 
 golden beings that in some eternal citadel we should 
 hold fast. Do you think — " she exclaimed suddenly 
 — " that if I climbed to the arch of Heaven by my 
 nails I could capture the one great friend of my soul? " 
 
 Her tone changed. " I came back. I hungered for 
 Manila. It holds the world for me." 
 
 " It is Scheherezade's city — full of wonderful ad- 
 ventures ! " Julie declared with shining eyes. " I 
 wonder," she mused, " what it holds for me ? " 
 
 They seated themselves at the table before golden 
 iced mangoes. The huge silver bowl in the center was 
 loaded with great scarlet blossoms whose perfume 
 saturated the Air. They seemed to faint under their 
 own fragrance, for Julie observed that while dewily 
 fresh at the commencement of the meal, they were 
 all but dead at the close. 
 
 " Nothing here lives an hour after you pick it," 
 Isabel dissatisfiedly remarked. " But the quick new 
 buds replace the blossoms almost in a breath. I am 
 glad I have no children, to crowd me out. I like 
 the flowers of Europe. You can wear them all day 
 and then keep them on in water. Life is longer 
 over there. Here we have only our hour. But such 
 an hour! Take you and me at thirty-five! You 
 will be young — a cold storage sort of youth — and 
 I, well, it is written in the stars and the heart of the 
 Green God where I shall be — but I shall have lived, 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 171 
 
 oh, very splendidly little Atlas, while you will only 
 have drawn breath." 
 
 After luncheon she put on a neglige of lustrous silk 
 and flung herself on a couch, her splendid black Malay 
 hair loosened about her, a cigarette in her lips. 
 
 " There is a water carnival at the Palace to-morrow 
 night, and the question of your costume must be settled 
 at once. It is late, and all the tailors are over-crowded 
 with orders. I am afraid too that I may not be able to 
 get you into a boat. I might take you in my float, but 
 that would necessitate daricening you up, and it would 
 not do to obscure your little ray of light. 
 
 " You might be gotten up as Saturn, with filmy 
 rings. But the nebulae would prevent you from danc- 
 ing. I have it ! You shall be a Pleiad. I have seen 
 a picture of them leaning over the edge of the world, 
 out of the mists of the sky, and you look like that! 
 You can be a Pleiad quite conveniently, too, with folds 
 of moonlight mist, some sandals, and a star. It only 
 involves buying a roll of gauze from an East Indian. 
 I have a star among my things, and we can find some 
 sandals. 
 
 " And now — " she urged, laying lightly compelling 
 fingers on Julie's arm, "tell me about it! Tell me 
 everything that took place down there — and after- 
 wards, forget it foirever. There are no memories in 
 Scheherezade's city." 
 
 This was Julie's first opportunity to unburden her 
 soul, and she was still surcharged with what had hap- 
 pened. Some one else might be able to understand; 
 some one else might be able to make things clear. So 
 under the stimulus of Isabel's fragrant liqueur her in- 
 nermost amazements and hurts burst into speech. 
 
 Isabel's 'blue eyes lost their dreamy expression, and 
 
172 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 came acutely awake, her cigarette burned unheeded, 
 while Julie's sorrows, perplexities, and final confound- 
 ment of soul passed in array before her. When the 
 girl had finished and had sunk back into the old stupid 
 questioninng wonder, Isabel exclaimed : 
 
 " Great is the Green God ! Never say he is not kind. 
 Surely he led you out of it. Don't regret the stone 
 image that let you starve under its eyes! There was 
 more to come, little Atlas. You have something dif- 
 ferent in you — something very nearly divine. I feel 
 it at my finger's ends ; though I don't want it to come 
 any nearer than that poetical distance. It is bring- 
 ing you some place, and it vras not meant that your 
 destiny should halt where you perhaps believe it should. 
 I am a prophet, you see. If I were not Empress of 
 the East, as they say, I should travel as a prophetess 
 through the land — like my mother. You have heard 
 of her — how she gave up her wealth to wander and 
 foretell? She too dreams of the Victorious East." 
 |- Julie regarded this magnificence of mood with won- 
 der. All manner of men, it was said, had loved 
 Isabel ; and in some peculiar way their lives had seemed 
 to be bound up in her colorful personality — as if her 
 sphinx-like spirit had devoured and assimilated their 
 soids. Her mood was always an extravagant expec- 
 tation of more than could be reasonably aspired to by 
 any one person. 
 
 "Ah, what do you know about men?" Isabel sud- 
 denly exclaimed. " To hear you is like listening to 
 the forgotten primer of one's childhood. Neverthe- 
 less, there was long ago just such another as yourself, 
 one as piteously credulous and'blind." 
 
 Suddenly an alien Isabel rose before the girl, an 
 
THE GREEN GOD'-S PAVILION 173 
 
 apparition of which the suppressed terribleness 
 frightened her as if some strange phoenix had risen 
 from its ashes before her eyes. 
 
 " You have told me your story. Now I shall tell 
 you one of mine — a buried story of my old, old self. 
 There are perhaps many turns yet in the course, but 
 long after I shall have forgotten everything else, this 
 one memory somehow shall remain. 
 
 " Maybe I had the promise of a soul then. I was 
 a little Eurasian, with the happy blood of both races 
 charging gayly through my veins. And I believed tre- 
 mendously, Atlas, just like you. Ah — ! 
 
 " I was born in this house of my ancestors. My 
 father was a Scotchman, of their best elan ; my mother 
 was of the East. All its bloods flowed in her veins. I 
 was taken young to England — and there," Isabel said 
 slowly, " my mother disappeared. I came to love my 
 father's land. I went to the schools there, and 
 dreamed great things. Sometime I too should play a 
 fine part in the world. Every man, I thought, had his 
 destiny in his own hands. 
 
 " It was all a long time ago. Of the seasons I re- 
 member vividly only the time when the primroses 
 open and the English hedge-lark is aboard." A fierce 
 blue mist veiled the flashing eyes. "Life dies and 
 resurrects itself in England. Every year one is bom 
 anew. 
 
 " The man was an officer in an English regiment — 
 fair as the daylight. On my knees I used to worship 
 him as a god. Nobody suspected what I was, and 
 I did not myself understand. He loved me, too — 
 with the kind of love the English understand. No 
 fire, no poetry in it — the love that is just strong 
 
174 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 enough to mantrfacture a few pink-cheeked children 
 for their tidy British homes. I loved him as we of the 
 East know how to love. 
 
 " In Europe one marries not merely a man, but a 
 family. How different from my mother's land, where 
 mates find each other under the sun! Yet they call 
 it civilization over there. Well, his family grew sus- 
 picious. They had heard tales of my father's wild 
 youth in strange parts of the world. It sometimes 
 happens that one must pay a very heavy price for one's 
 father's youth. 
 
 " The only retort my father could make was a big- 
 ger dowry. But I was different. I had then sublime 
 ideas of honesty of soul. My lover, I believed, would 
 love me the more exaltedly for them. I acknowledged 
 my Malay blood — all the bloods of the East that ran 
 through me. I stood up against the wall and did it 
 in a great splendor of mood. 
 
 " Ah ! You know the rest. When they, when he 
 — that European matrimonial compound threw me off, 
 I did everything that a woman of your race would not 
 have done. I threw myself in his path at every turn — 
 offered myself to him on any terms ; for I knew now 
 that never could I exact terms at all. 
 
 "And he took me on the lowest. West — East; 
 it is always the same. He got himself ordered to 
 India. That last night ! " Isabel sat up straight. " I 
 crept along the brush of the lane into which he was 
 to turn. An Igorotte from the Mountains had taught 
 me how to catch my foe. I slid out when he came! 
 I would have killed him, but the knife was poor. I 
 only wounded him. I had meant to kill us both, 
 but — " Isabel nonchalantly threw open the neglige, and 
 exposed a large scar — " we go on, do we not, Green 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 175 
 
 God of the Universe? " She turned her head toward 
 the room where the preposterous idol lived. 
 
 To this narrative, told with oriental fervor, of 
 things quite as beyond her experience of existence as 
 the pits of Erebus, Julie had listened in a conflict of 
 emotions. 
 
 " The priest will tell you many things about me — 
 among them that a young man killed himself here for 
 me not long ago. Men may have killed themselves 
 because of me, but not Grahaeme. He killed himself, 
 not because he was in love with me, but because he 
 couldn't alter the universe to an Englishman's idea — 
 because I was what I shall eternally remain — an 
 Eurasian, a mongrel ! You see, your Englishman can 
 gloriously destroy himself, but he can't sacrifice his 
 caste. Grahaeme was jaded by the East, and he took 
 me to die for. I would never again accept low terms. 
 A Ghengis Khan, perhaps — or — " She stopped short. 
 " Yes, I will be imchangeably /, till the end. It is so 
 decreed. There is something about you, though, that 
 stirs me, and makes me wish that one died like the 
 English summer and came up anew vdth the spring." 
 
 Julie rose, and in a surge of feeling looked down 
 upon the recurribent figure. For a bare moment Isabel 
 had opened the very secret gate and let her glimpse in. 
 The girl laid her hand on the olive shoulder. 
 
 "Those things. — make no difference to me," she 
 said diffidently. " We will always be friends." 
 
 Isabel glanced up at her ironically. " Is that a 
 covenant? Go away, little friend, with your spring 
 insistence! There is no resurrection here. And 
 Europe shall never see me again ! Once I wrote quaint 
 lyrics, full, they said, of the magic and mystery of the 
 East ; now I am preparing a volume that is not writ- 
 
176 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ten on pages — of things that must shortly stir the 
 race of men. ' Waters dried up that the way of the 
 Kings of the East shall be prepared!' Alpha and 
 Omega. Here the struggle of man began, and here 
 it will end ! And ' he who shall come, taking the peace 
 from the earth, and making kings ' ! Great resur- 
 rected Ghengis Khan ! Where is he ? In what recess 
 of Asia is he making ready to sweep the East to vic- 
 tory? Him my soul awaits. He will put the sun and 
 moon under my feet ! 
 
 " Half of this world will not sleep forever. The 
 sleepers of the East will touch their bonds and find 
 them rotten — the senile hold of their foreign masters ! 
 Then there shall be such a conflagration as will scatter 
 the very stars." 
 
 Isabel coming suddenly back from her feverish 
 flight, looked up at Julie. " Are you ill ? " she de- 
 manded. 
 
 Julie put her hands to her head and pressed it hard, 
 her lids drawing together with pain. " I had a sun- 
 stroke in Nahal, and ever since I've had a headache. 
 Sometimes it aches as if it would split my brain." 
 
 Isabel pointed to the adjoining room. " Go and lie 
 down! When you get up the sunlight will be dimmed, 
 and you will be better." 
 
 Julie dropped down on a bed that was a mass of 
 crawling teakwood dragons. All over the walls, from 
 queer prints etched as with a single hair, gazed fan- 
 tastic human apparitions wearing their limbs and fea- 
 tures in most extraordinary ways, all supremely 
 triumphant over space and perspective. Draperies of 
 embroidered landscapes, fine as old etchings, disclosed 
 temples of woven gold, rivers as fantastic as dreams. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 177 
 
 and blue mountains over which the mysticism of the 
 East hung like dew. 
 
 She drowsed, and presently the temples of gold 
 threads expanded into pavilions like the markets she 
 had seen in the city, and millions of people, thick as 
 flies, passed in and out. 
 
 She awoke, and her eyes rested on Isabel, who had 
 so agitated her brain with strange prophecies and 
 visions. The long hair, black as the jungle at night, 
 lay curved over her beautiful body ; the blue eyes that 
 judged etchings and old prints were closed, curtained 
 by heavy lids. The soul seemed to be withdrawn to 
 inaccessible retreats, afar off perhaps beating its wings 
 against inexorable walls. Only the mask of the East 
 looked out from the inert form. The Malay woman 
 lay there asleep — the woman that could track her 
 enemy, and kill. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 EARLY the next morning, Julie received a note 
 frbm Father Hull, in which he informed her 
 that her appointment to the Manila Department 
 had been arranged. Only one vacancy had existed — 
 in the Tondo district, a native section of the city. The 
 Reredos, the prosperous mestizos who were to accom- 
 modate her, had a large house within easy distance of 
 the school. 
 
 Isabel made a wry face over this prospect, and 
 advised Julie to remain with her as long as possible. 
 Julie had agreed to remain for the Carnival, but de- 
 cided that she must go at once to investigate her new 
 surroundings, and that she must establish herself there 
 the following day. 
 
 Her salary, she jeamed, had not been increased, 
 although this prospect had been held out to the teachers 
 for the beginning of their second year of service. For 
 a city like this, where high salaried oflficials set the 
 standard of Americanism, her stipend was stupendously 
 inadequate. Her financial affairs were in about the 
 same unsatisfactory state as when they had caused the 
 denouement in Nahal. She had always to cripple her- 
 self by payments to Mrs. Morris, and there was now 
 Delphine, 
 
 Isabel, however, entered into her perplexities to 
 some purpose. She knew, she said, of a Spanish 
 lawyer who wished to come abreast of the times by 
 learning English. As Julie's school hours were from 
 eight in the morning to one o'clock, she would have her 
 
 178 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 179 
 
 afternoon free to instruct Senor Sansillo, who was 
 sure to pay well. He was, Isabel said, a pure-blooded 
 Spaniard of culture, married to an enormously rich 
 mestiza. 
 
 Julie set out after breakfast to examine the niche 
 that had been made for her in the city. 
 
 Tondo, at the other side of Manila, was very ancient 
 and wholly native. It was as flat and sun-bleached as 
 a desert, and had for its horizon on one side the sea, 
 prognosticative of typhoons; on the other a wall of 
 high hills where the winds blew against heaven. On 
 beyond was holy Arayat, lifting its solitary head into 
 space, and holding, it was said, the Ark buried in its 
 crypt forever beyond the reach of man. The people 
 of Tondo lived in the very frankness, of being. Up 
 beyond the ridges were savages who had once been a 
 serious menace to this part of the city, which lay 
 outside the Christian walls. Julie came to believe that 
 the soul of this section lay likewise beyond those Chris- 
 tian borders. 
 
 There was a green somnolent river crawling like a 
 senile old serpent through the District. People 
 swarmed its muddy banks, fishing in it, washing their 
 bodies and their, raiment in it, and scooping its awful 
 water into drinking jars. So universal was its utility, 
 it might have been the River of Life itself. Old stone 
 bridges lent an undeserved dignity to the vile, green 
 thing, which, set as it was into the core of the people's 
 life, was boimd to have its grain of the picturesque. 
 
 A few of the streets were broad and long, but packed 
 with shops of tarnished brilliancy of color that looked 
 like pigeon holes and illustrated all vocations from 
 Abraham's time down to the present. These booths 
 made the streets look like dingy fragments of some old 
 
180 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 rainbow discarded out of the skies. From the robin's 
 egg blue regions of an " Esquela de Baile," the 
 abandoned notes of a Zingarella tinkled forth in de- 
 fiance of the feverish heat of the day, as if its incanta- 
 tion would set the whole street to dancing like taran- 
 tulas. 
 
 The " Booth of Miraculous Refreshment " was yel- 
 low and blue, with orange colored festoons, and be- 
 fore its delapidated wooden tables its patrons imbibed 
 its elixir without any special demonstration of ex- 
 hilarance. In the " Peaceful Barberia " two natives 
 were matching a pair of ferocious cocks. The " Pa- 
 triotic Clam " offered ice-cream as the medium of its 
 contact with the public. Next to the " Bar of the 
 Orient," in suggestive proximity, was the " Resigned 
 Funeria," done in apple-green and having on exhibition 
 hosts of pink satin coffins drowned in lace. 
 
 However ignominiously born, the native gets even 
 with the universe by going splendidly to his grave. 
 
 Beyond the row of Chinese rice shops, infants' 
 baptismal robes in waves of purple and cerise ruffles 
 smote the eye. The tiny, vivid gala company of elfin 
 shells suggested the shapes of an unborn race about 
 to enter the colorful, enigmatic destiny of the East. 
 
 One street was marvelous in the energy and variety 
 of its human service. In a single square one could 
 have one's teeth pulled by an experienced Japanese, 
 one's voice trained, through heaven knows what agency 
 of the East; one's toe nails pared, or one's self com- 
 pletely mesmerized by a thrillingly bearded Hindoo, 
 whose placarded likeness gave forth sparks in every 
 direction and guaranteed, in large print to all patrons 
 absolute irresistibility in love. 
 
 Agipito, from environs of violently stained glass. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 181 
 
 announced a " brokerage," and advertised pearls from 
 the Sulu. The riches of the East passed across this 
 pawn broker's palms. Perfect© Abbas was a lawyer. 
 Access to his conference room was gained through 
 a small swinging door, such as is characteristic of 
 places of alcoholic refreshment, and which possibly was 
 here employed to stimulate trade. Zee Woo, a laven- 
 dero of the first class with his mouth as a sprinkler, 
 was to be seen blowing water over the clothes he was 
 ironing. There were Chinamen everywhere, like 
 djinn in goblin depths, fingering abacuses, as if search- 
 ing for the mystic equation of wealth. 
 
 The Street! The Street! Bartering and bar- 
 gaining, following its oriental, alien and inconjectur- 
 able way. Birth is accidental, death inevitable, but the 
 exchange of things that are mine and the things that 
 are thine will go on to eternity. 
 
 The native of the East takes his entrance into, the 
 universe philosophically. He attaches to himself no 
 importance and definitely expects little, except death. 
 He has even a graceful way of meeting that. 
 The native of the West refuses to allude to this 
 common human casualty, of which he has a horror. 
 The Filipino, on the other hand, nonchalantly dis- 
 plays and even takes pleasure in his colorful coffins, 
 and when the time comes acquiescently sinks into them ; 
 for he knows that he is a poor creature with little to 
 cling to, and he is humbly grateful for his day in the 
 sun. 
 
 His intransitoriness of soul extends throughout his 
 whole existence. He erects houses that the winds of 
 the sea sweep away; he stores no treasure on earth; 
 he lives from day to day. To-morrow is so inconceiv- 
 able a mystery that he relegates to it everything that 
 
182 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 he cannot comfortably compass to-day. By to-mor- 
 row he may have dropped gracefully, unresistingly out 
 of the problems of the world. As a race he appears 
 to cherish no ambition of permanency on the globe. 
 Idling in his shops, he wonderingly watches the gnarled 
 Chinese water-carrier go by, bowed under his load. 
 It does npt occur to him that the Chinaman bites the 
 dust, that his sons and his sons' sons may survive. 
 
 It was into this existence that Julie was coming to 
 dwell. 
 
 The long street thinned out, fields intervened. 
 Finally Julie saw a house sitting back isolated among a 
 great deal of foliage near a bridge. It was of the 
 old Spanish type and had once, probably, harbored fine 
 foreigners. All but buried under the great palms, it 
 looked remote, shaded, and cool after the dust. of the 
 sun-swept street. She got out of her carromata, and 
 finding the iron gate in the stone wall that surrounded 
 the estate open, walked in. The rh)rthmic click of 
 wooden slippers across a stone floor and the soft drip 
 of water caught Julie's ear. 
 
 A muchacho appeared in response to her knocks and 
 led her upstairs to a sala furnished with a piano, a 
 marble-topped table, a heterogeneous array of conch 
 shells, and some startling looking portraits of persons 
 of extraordinarily blended race. Sefiora Reredo 
 entered the room, a tall woman with a slight stoop 
 and a passive gentleness of face. She was in native 
 costume, all black. Genteel native women are almost 
 always dressed in mourning. She led Julie to a large 
 airy room, well furnished and over-looking the garden. 
 She mentioned a sum which, while not extravagant, 
 was not completely gratifying. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 183 
 
 When they returned to the sala the children came 
 trooping in, quietly sparisling little folk in European 
 clothes. The Sefiora said that next year they would 
 sell the old house which she had inherited and go |5ack 
 to Spain where the children could be educated. Her 
 husband had an apothecary business, which he would 
 sell out. 
 
 The Senora said that she was going back to the 
 land of her father's people. His blood had sojourned 
 afar long enough. Julie glanced up at the human 
 array on the wall, and wondered. 
 
 A shriek burst from the children, and simultaneously 
 an energetic, purposeful, round pink pig with an up- 
 lifted curl of a tail burst into the room. He was look- 
 ing for the children who had deserted him. He clearly 
 knew his way about, for he at once dashed behind the 
 piano where the youngest had hidden away from him, 
 and gave forth squeals of joyful discovery. The 
 Seiiora ordered the children to take the beast out. He 
 went in the utmost rebellion. 
 
 Julie did not say anjrthing about Delphine. She was 
 distressfully at sea concerning him. Isabel had offered 
 to keep him, hut for some not clearly defined reason, 
 Julie did not wish to leave him with her. She left 
 the Sefiora with his problem still unsolved. 
 
 Returning, she found Isabel in a disguise of costume 
 so splendid it thrilled one like a poem. She had a 
 tower of jewels on her head. Her body was incased 
 in a kind of closely clinging filagree of shining armor 
 studded with great gems — which, however, left con- 
 siderable of the concrete, natural Isabel exposed. Her 
 blue eyes sparkled like the great head jewels of a god- 
 dess. She looked as if she had been looted from some 
 
184 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 temple. Nobody, Julie decided, would be able to enter- 
 tain a pretension alongside her. Her own Pleiad mist^ 
 iness seemed to dissolve before this glory. 
 
 Yet Isabel came over to her and, flicking Julie's 
 neck with the end of her nail, exclaimed : " That white, 
 white skin — fit for the mantle of an archangel to 
 come down to earth in! And that white fire back of 
 you ! Have you an appointment with the millennium 
 of the soul of man that you can contrive to look like 
 that? Take me along, Julie — take me along! " 
 
 Isabel was obliged to leave early, but she had pro- 
 vided an escort for Julie ; no less a person than Gover- 
 nor Shell of the Mohammedan Group. Julie had 
 heard a lot about this strange, dark hermit of a man, 
 and wondered how he came to be attending such a 
 function; but Isabel explained that he was visiting the 
 Governor-General, and couldn't very well hdp him- 
 self. 
 
 " I don't believe he wanted to take me," Julie de- 
 murred. " He is said to dislike women." 
 
 " Perhaps he didn't," Isabel declared, unabashed ; 
 " but when I told him about your exile on an island 
 not far from his own, his missionary instinct was 
 touched. You couldn't go with any one more dis- 
 tinguished." 
 
 When Governor Shell entered the room, Julie felt 
 at once the force of his somber, reticent personality. 
 She observed that he did not look very young, and that 
 he had a strained sweated look as if he were pushing 
 himself always just beyond the margin of what a man 
 might reasonably do. It was a dark world in which he 
 worked, in the hope of stumbling on the formula that 
 would transform the pretematurally vicious psycholo- 
 gies of the Moros. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 185 
 
 In, their common experience of the far Southern 
 Islands they found a great deal to talk about. When 
 they reached the Governor General's mansion, the bal- 
 conies were glittering with lights festooned like fireflies 
 against the darkness. The Palace sat in huge grounds, 
 one side of which touched the street Malacanang, while 
 the other dropped down to the Pasig, along which the 
 gala boats were to appear. 
 
 Everybody was crowded onto the galleries in 
 whimsies of costumes. Seats had been reserved for 
 Governor Shell, and he and Julie sat down near the 
 judges of the carnival. Almost all of these people 
 were prominent personages, unknown to Julie; so the 
 Governor explained them to her. 
 
 The tall lady in the handsome native costume and 
 the rope of pearls was the wife of the Governor- 
 General. Julie admired her graceful dignity. Colonel- 
 Messenger, the man next to her, was one of the big- 
 gest Americans in Manila ; he had straightened out the 
 land problem, which the religious orders had en- 
 gendered. 
 
 " He and his family are what you might call typical 
 colonists," the Governor said. " They have settled 
 down on the soil. That young man at his side is his 
 eldest son — Chad." 
 
 " He scarcely seems as large a structure as his 
 father," Julie commented, " — but what a fury of 
 dreaming he has in his face ! Isn't he the one Isabel 
 told me of — who married a mestiza in order to serve 
 the East, and who believes we are in the process of 
 remaking it? " 
 
 The Governor nodded. "He's a great friend of 
 Barry's." 
 
 Julie seized the opportunity to ask the question that 
 
186 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 had been for days on her lips, but which she had 
 somehow refrained from putting to Isabel. 
 
 "Is he back?" 
 
 " Yes. He got in on the Rohilla Maru yesterday. 
 Brought a Chinaman with him — a Sun Yat Sen 
 Something, I think the name was. He likes to show 
 them what's going on here — and he's the one to do 
 it. He has not only had the experience, but he has 
 the intuition which makes him understand the life of 
 the East. He has had a great deal more than most 
 people imagine, to do with the formation of the first 
 representative government over here. He and Caples 
 make a strong team." 
 
 Governor Shell pointed out a tubby, deeply tanned, 
 and patriarchally bearded little man; and Julie re- 
 membered his name as that of the head of the Com- 
 mission and a well known scientist. 
 
 " Barry hasn't the training of Caples, and Caples 
 hasn't Barry's faith. Caples is ironic, and believes 
 the Americans are going to get tired, as they usually 
 do, and quit, leaving the worst tangle the East ever 
 saw. Science and acute deductions take the faith out 
 of a man, and faith, I believe," the Governor said 
 hesitatingly, " is one of the great natural forces. It 
 enables Barry to convince a native quicker than any 
 other white man in the East can do it." 
 
 The Governor took out his watch, as if he were in 
 the habit of living by it. " Not a float so far ! " he 
 complained. " That's always the way — you wait and 
 wait ! " 
 
 " And the Moros never keep you waiting a minute ? " 
 
 He smiled. " You mustn't think I'm not enjoying 
 myself! Nobody ever heard me talk so much in my 
 life." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 187 
 
 Julie who had been studying the face of the man 
 who had married the Eurasian — to save the East, 
 demanded : 
 
 " What does Chad Messenger believe? " 
 
 " That things are very bad on the earth and need 
 what he calls a Great Change. He talks a lot about 
 it." 
 
 " He looks," Julie reflected, " as if he had great ex- 
 pectations. What do you think he expects ? " 
 
 " Oh, some sort of metamorphosis in which the 
 earth will break out of its grub's existence into a 
 winged thing. Wars — perfiaps a lot of them, 
 plagues or earthquakes or even a big war which, like 
 Noah's flood, would wipe out part of the world and 
 start the rest all over again." 
 
 " It sounds apocal)^ttcal." 
 
 " He and Barry have a lot of these East Indian 
 mystics for friends, ahd they have a grand prophetical 
 time together. I say the future is a disease with 
 them," the Governor grumbled. 
 
 Two men were entering the select group of judges. 
 The more noticeable of the two was tall and of that 
 consumptive leanness frequent among the scholarly 
 type of Oriental. His pale yellow face was indica- 
 tive of a Mongolian infusion of blood — a face full 
 of arresting attributes which were yet unaccountably 
 screened to the Occidental eye. 
 
 " Pablo Orcullu ! " Shell remarked. " Recognized 
 leader of the Filipino people. Some think him very 
 strong — but notice that stoop in the shoulders, the 
 scholars' stoop! That's Pablo's kismet. He may 
 scheme ever so splendidly, but when his moment comes 
 that will hold him back. His kind haven't learned to 
 think largely and act largely simultaneously. 
 
188 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " Orctdlu," he added, " admires Barry. He owned 
 a big dead old city down South, and he sent for Barry 
 to come down and help him build it over in fine new 
 cement. He says Barry is the biggest white man in 
 the East. 
 
 "The sad little fat fellow? De Cadegas. They 
 said in Europe, where he studied, that he had one of 
 the finest voices in the world. But there was the 
 Tobacco Factory which spelled the universe in dol- 
 lars to his parents ; so the nightingale* of the East 
 counts tobacco leaves." 
 
 The first float now emerged into view upon the 
 river, through fantastically light foliage. It brought 
 the Governor to his feet with an exclamation. Crim- 
 son silken sails, like the enormous petals of a flower 
 outspread to the night, glided beneath them. In the 
 boat stood a conclave of Moro chieftains in their 
 vivid costumes of coral red, tight velvet trousers and 
 jackets buttoned with gold coins, with turbans and gor- 
 geous serongs, and brightly cruel spears and curvtd 
 swords. 
 
 Julie gave a little cry as she recognized one of the 
 figures — Dicky-Dicky, the dwarf of Isabel's house- 
 hold, in the glittering regalia of a rajah, his small per- 
 son redolent with princely dignity. 
 
 " That scrap of a man was actually a Rajah once ! " 
 Governor Shell leaned down to inform her. " It 
 lasted only a few months, unfortunately for history, 
 for I hear he made a wise and progressive ruler. The 
 real Rajah, Bulai, was, by a queer chance, also a dwarf, 
 and in appearance very nearly the twin of the captured 
 Visayan slave. Bulai was a timid prince, afraid of 
 his responsibilities; so between the two mannikins it 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 189 
 
 was cooked up that Dicky-Dicky should impersonate 
 the Rajah. 
 
 " The tribe, however, found it out, and it was from 
 a particularly undesirable end that Dicky-Dicky was 
 saved, through the medium of a vast amount of gold, 
 by our friend Isabel, who happened to be visiting some- 
 where thereabouts." 
 
 " And so poor Dicky-Dicky will never reign again ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. He may break out again. He 
 may have his kingdom reestablished by the govern- 
 ment that Isabel plans." 
 
 Up the river now was coming a caricature of the 
 Archipelago. Queen Philippinitis in crown and robe 
 with unstockinged feet and flapping slippers cocked 
 shockingly up before her, and smoking a dreadful 
 cigar a yard long. Under her arm she hugged a huge 
 bespurred cock. She was politely ignored by the of- 
 ficial party, but was ever)rwhere else hailed with 
 vociferous appreciation. 
 
 Then came the float that Julie had been waiting 
 for — Isabel's marble barge, carved and tinted with 
 indigo, lit from stem to stem, and crowded with Asiatic 
 figures, from the steppes of the Tartar to the borders 
 of the Kurd. In the center of these human arabesques 
 sat Isabel enshrined. She had wonderfully contrived 
 it all, and there could be no doubt about the preemi- 
 nence of the float. 
 
 Then quite suddenly the attention of the beholders 
 was drawn to a tall brown man who stood on top of 
 the barge with a long propelling pole in his hand. In 
 the striking suggestion of his posture and the oc- 
 casional glimpses of his brown uplifted features, he 
 managed to convery a significance that transcended the 
 
190 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 glory below. There below reposed the ancient, static, 
 and unstable magnificence of the East; but above — 
 alert, upright, asking its question of the future and the 
 judgment of whitfe men — was the Man-Soul of Asia. 
 The boat drifted ofif into the shadows, but that brown 
 image remained, graven on the brains of those who 
 saw it. 
 
 " That was Barry ! " Julie said half under her 
 breath. She stared around at this strange galaxy of 
 people, whose background of the East gave them a 
 touch of fantasy. These days of the Empire, or crea- 
 tion — when a fragment of the East was shaking under 
 a stupendous renovation ! And back of it, these daunt- 
 less men and women who were stirringly pledged to 
 the resurrection ! A new world must take shape under 
 their will, a world of the best ideals. 
 
 There was an exhilaration in the air, an elixir work- 
 ing upon an ancient life. An intoxication came over 
 Julie as she watched and listened to the music. The 
 faces melted into a phantasmagoria, a marching host 
 dedicated to the East and sweeping on to shape its 
 mighty fate. Visions and dreams pulsated to the music 
 — strains of India, Malaysia, of far Mongolia woven 
 into its throbbing war-like tones. There must be some 
 place in the march for her! Some time in the Ex- 
 periment that place would unfold and give her a part 
 in the big things these men's brows portended. Hope 
 quivered through her like the life-giving warmth of 
 the sun. 
 
 They arose from their seats, and started to mingle 
 in the throng. Julie felt some one seize her arm. It 
 was Ellis Wilbur, the girl who had pointed people 
 out to her that first memorable night in Manila. 
 
 " How is the girl-hermit ? I am so glad to see her 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 191 
 
 back — though I wager that Providence has taken no 
 note of the things she has done." 
 
 Julie returned the greeting warmly. 
 
 "Did you see Barry McChord?" Ellis asked. 
 " Isn't it just like him to drive the things home with 
 hammer and tongs ? 
 
 " Do you feel at home in this Cataclysm here? " she 
 , demanded abruptly. " I don't ! Yet it makes my 
 mind spring as if I had found another dimension for 
 it. A long time hence, no doubt, I shall look back 
 upon it with the thrill of some splendid adventure in 
 which I ever so little engaged. I'm not a participant. 
 I don't care about the East, but I do care very much 
 about the courage of this attempt to disperse the dust 
 of ages; of which the smell is all over the East, in the 
 hovels of the poor and the decayed dwellings of 
 kings." 
 
 As she started away, she remarked : " Isabel, I hear, 
 has lost the best one of her stupendous bracelets in 
 the water, and is frightfully cross. Don't let her quar- 
 rel with anybody." 
 
 A wild throb shot through Julie's pulses. There 
 above the crowd was again the Excelsior face — that 
 fantastic name she had given it, oh, so long ago ! The 
 tawny head was watchfully alert, as if it were used 
 to scanning great distances. The face, glowing and 
 vital, had a desert tan, and in it was a hint of the 
 desert's awesome solitudes. His light, vigorous frame 
 seemed to have been built for heroic purposes. It 
 struck Julie that here was the real Atlas to hold the New 
 .World on his unbending shoulders. 
 
 Julie watched him breathlessly. People stopped him 
 everywhere to talk. Still he was advancing in her 
 direction. Her heart pumped so that the blood seemed 
 
192 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 to be escaping all over her body. When he was quite 
 near, his eyes turned in her direction. He stared hard, 
 and an abrupt change came over his face. 
 
 " It can't be you ! " he said before her, as if he 
 expected her to contradict him. Then he added: 
 " Some time, of course, I knew you would come back ! 
 But it's been such a long time. Something seemed to 
 swallow you up after that night — on the roof, you 
 remember." 
 
 She did remember, and it was plain that he remem- 
 bered too, just as if many sorry months had not in- 
 tervened. Very few people were like that — capable 
 of taking up, as if it had just been dropped, the mood 
 of the past. And they were back in it easily at once. 
 It was only by an extreme chance that she was here 
 at all. In these improbable times, where life shifted 
 as upon a screen from day to day, any expectations 
 were preposterous. Yet he accepted her reappearance 
 as something that was bound to come about in chance. 
 His certainty that they would meet again seemed 
 strange at first, and then the strangeness vanished, 
 
 " I was called out of the room — to the cholera sit- 
 uation in Leyte, wasn't it ? " he went on, looking in- 
 tently at her. " I thought I'd be back at once — 
 that's the way over here. But when I did return, you 
 had disappeared completely — not a clew to you left." 
 
 Julie smiled grimly. " The East misled me for a 
 while. Now that it has fomid me again, I wonder — " 
 
 " It was thought that you had gone back to the 
 States — but I knew somehow that you had not. 
 How did you happen to go so far away ? " 
 
 " It was you who sent me, that night. You breathed 
 the fire into me that started me going. But I couldn't 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 193 
 
 show you, or God, or anybody a thing that I have 
 done!" 
 
 His far-seeking, gold-colored eyes flamed through 
 her. " That's the idea that stalks us all. And we 
 can't live an age or two to find out what all this fine 
 fever of our actions will boil down to. We can only 
 go on believing that our particular fire is unquenchable. 
 I have my misgivings, too. There are shadows lift- 
 ing on the horizon at this moment that may portend un- 
 told calamity. But I am perfectly positive that vic- 
 tory — far along the road, perhaps — is ahead. 
 
 "As for my sending you away," he exclaimed 
 swiftly, " one does not, for all the causes that animate 
 the earth, send persons like you away. How could I 
 — a being all star-dust and light?" He looked in 
 admiration upon her shining youth. 
 
 " I am a Pleiad ! " Julie explained. " Don't ask 
 me where the other six are. There was no time for 
 the human things — and a Pleiad was easy, just a puff 
 of light." 
 
 " I rememfber," he said, " how glad I was to have 
 found you — only to have you slip out, like a ship in 
 a dream ! " 
 
 He was regarding her deeply, as if he would search 
 out the things that were printed most indelibly on the 
 plate of her mind. 
 
 " You have changed ! " he decided abruptly. 
 
 "Not quite so young?" She laughed wryly. 
 " Nahal helped to cure that raw curse." 
 
 " Come out on the gallery, and let's talk ! " 
 
 They walked to the end of the gallery overlooking 
 the river, which, like a current of silver, stretched down 
 through the city. 
 
194 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " Of course," she told him, " when you were the 
 means of sending me forth, I went believing that I was 
 going to work miracles. I lived terribly stirred by that 
 idea all the time ! " 
 
 " And inevitably you must have performed them. 
 It's the time for miracles ! " 
 
 " For you, yes." She looked up admiringly to his 
 heroic height. " But you see, I am only a village 
 school-teacher and not a prince of the East. It was my 
 beloved island, though, down there, my own domain 
 I thought. I was to have done so much, but I really 
 did nothing at all. All my grand purposes came to 
 nothing. I tried to bring peace, and lift up a genera- 
 tion of light — that is, it always seems to me I tried to 
 do that — and they took the children all away from 
 me. 
 
 The tears sprang to her eyes. " I can't get over it 
 — or forget it. Right there a fine sheath that en- 
 veloped me dropped to pieces. I was wholly unhappy 
 and unsuccessful. My friends died or ceased to be- 
 lieve in me; my people that I was to have led to the 
 Promised Land — Oh, don't," she cried, turning to 
 him, " break your heart with a dream like that ! " 
 
 His eyes, full of commiseration, flamed at her last 
 words into visionary light. " I dream," he declared, 
 " of the whole darkened lengths of the East ! The 
 better state is coming," he continued more gently, 
 " not to one land or one race but to the whole Hu- 
 manity — and the East must be in the Change, too. 
 Up from the muddy Caliban that it is there will rise 
 a soul to fashion a new Asia after the ideals which 
 we brought across the sea from the greatest Republic 
 of the world. Some time not so far ofif, mark my 
 words, common coolies," he exclaimed, " shall stand 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 195 
 
 in the Holy courts of the Forbidden City and in the 
 Temple of the Great Lama at Lhassa, the two most 
 inviolate spots on earth, and proclaim the equality of 
 men ! " 
 
 His face was afire. He thrust his strong nervous 
 hands through his rumpled hair. 
 
 " Some of us are daring to play a bigger game than 
 that of this archipelago. We are bidding for stakes 
 that are far in the future. I was in China for years 
 before I came here — I am steeped in it, I'll confess 
 that, I have more than one iron in the fire. The times 
 are beginning to take point. As an old Brahmin 
 priest I know says ; the souls of men are making ready 
 all over the earth." 
 
 He tingled all over with a power that seemed to 
 communicate itself electrically to her. It was fine to 
 be near him, to be in his atmosphere. He made her 
 transcend her human self for a while, bore her forth 
 on the crest of universal things. 
 
 " I want you to see the sort of things that I'm bound 
 up in ! " he said. " I want you to enter a little into 
 my beliefs. Though, after all, we are floating on the 
 waters of mystery." 
 
 " A big black enigma, it all seems to me ! " 
 
 " You speak as if you do not expect a solution! " 
 he exclaimed, 
 
 " Things will have to clear awfully for that — for 
 me at least. I have no expectations any more. 
 Women are not heroic over here. The men do the 
 big things. I thought I was an apostle. I find I am 
 only a woman tramp through the East — who has lost 
 her quest. I have made a mistake. Perhaps I should 
 turn back!" 
 
 "Ah! Don't talk that way. Be as wild as you 
 
196 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 please in your dreams, this is the background for them. 
 If you could see the extent of the domain over 
 which my aspirations dare to play ! You'd think I was 
 truly an Arabian Nights' romancer." 
 
 " Tell me about this domain of dreams ? " 
 
 His gaze traveled far, very far off, it seemed. " My 
 territory of the soul goes over Asia. I have stood 
 on a tower of the Wall and have looked over the 
 stretches of the desert, towards the heights of the 
 Himalayas, beyond the reach of eyes. Below me lay 
 the great uncomprehending land across which men 
 were moving in their bitter inadequate fates. I 
 wanted to march with them, soul to soul. I wanted 
 to stir them to struggle and revolt. I wanted them to 
 find a new vision. Those," he said, turning back to 
 her, " are still my hopes ! " 
 
 " I've never seen China," Julie said, after a pause. 
 " I have always wanted to." 
 
 " It will be the most staggering fact of the future. 
 One scarcely dares speculate upon it, it is so incal- 
 culably vast and undecipherable. Think of the poten- 
 tialities of three times our soul muster. Conceive of 
 the disaster to the world if by any accident in a genera- 
 tion or two this human force arrayed itself on the 
 wrong side! In the Boxer Rebellion, the people were 
 hitting blindly at the world, when in reality they meant 
 to strike at their own rotten government." 
 
 His voice dropped. " What some of us who love 
 China want to do is to put her on the right side of the 
 bars — change the habit of mind of centuries ; wipe 
 out those old ivory chess-men in Pekin, and set the 
 young China on her winged way. And for that we 
 are willing to go to almost any lengths." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 197 
 
 "Aren't you trusting a stranger with secret af- 
 fairs?" 
 
 "You were never a stranger!" 
 
 Under this bestowal of faith, Julie recalled the night 
 on the roof. 
 
 " I want to thank you," she said with feeling, 
 " for helping me in Nahal. I was in sore straits." 
 
 "If I had known — " he said. 
 
 Finding no words with which to push away the 
 obstacle of Nahal, she swept on quickly : " Do you 
 know what I might do with my Filipino ward? He's 
 a small brown creature for whom there doesn't seem 
 to be a place in the world. I'm not a capable Provi- 
 dence, I fear. He wouldn't be left behind, so I just 
 had to bring him along with me — though what I was 
 to do with an eleven-year-old Filipino boy, I couldn't 
 think. But you should have seen his little face that 
 day looking across the water toward the magic lands. 
 I seldom know what to do with myself, to say nothing 
 of anybody else. What do you think I could do with 
 him?" 
 
 " Give him to me. The boys in my house have their 
 duties so confoimded that domestic activity has very 
 nearly come to a halt. Delphine who is just from 
 the Provinces, and honest, can act as an official tattle- 
 tale and break the gang. Why should you be dis- 
 couraged over the noncomformity of the island of 
 Nahal," he demanded, " when I cannot evoke industry 
 from a single native in my home? " 
 
 Julie pondered. " He ought to go to school," she 
 said. " You see, he's a very special person. He's 
 caught the fire, too, and wants to forge ahead." 
 
 "There is a school within a few squares of my 
 
198 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 house. We'll let him go right on to school till he 
 makes a destiny for himself, and some day when he's 
 president of the Philippine republic, he'll raise a statue 
 to you on the Luneta, as the Light of Ages." 
 
 " I think I must have stumbled on a fairy god- 
 father ! " Julie smiled. " But they say you're that to 
 everybody." 
 
 " That's not true. I've never been as nice to any- 
 body as I've been to you. Don't dream for a minute 
 that I go round adopting stray children that everybody 
 has picked up." 
 
 Julie laughed. " Perhaps we'd better go and move 
 about a bit." 
 
 They came near a group of people who seemed to 
 have congregated in a comer of a room. Julie heard 
 the word " Independenda! " burst with a little shock 
 into the midst of them. 
 
 A man spoke up as if in answer to its challenge: 
 " We are within the walls of the East — where we 
 were called by Fate — for issues greater than we can 
 to-day foresee." 
 
 Julie remembered the speaker, Matfield Barron, 
 whom Ellis Wilbur had described to her. She saw 
 that he was addressing Isabel, who stood smiling with 
 quiet irony. 
 
 " Woman of the Cross-roads ! " he went on whim- 
 sically, " who have the East and the West in your 
 veins — what do you think?" 
 
 Warring impulses rippled for a moment across 
 Isabel's face. As she stood there, torn by conten- 
 tions of her race, her remarkable emotions in play, 
 Julie perceived how different she was from every other 
 woman in the room. Here was a woman who thought 
 as deeply as any of them, who certainly transcended 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 199 
 
 all of them in beauty and gifts, and yet who, never- 
 theless, belonged beyond the margin. 
 
 Some resentful flame burned through her discretion. 
 " Under a master, can personality be preserved? " 
 
 " But yet a little while we must tarry, to lay down 
 the foundation stones," Matfield explained. 
 
 "Seven times seven civilizations are buried under 
 the soil of Asia. Wait till you get as crowded as 
 we are over here, till the very oceans are disputed — 
 then behold the earth running with blood, and the seas 
 on fire. You of the West struggle to expurgate from 
 the East its human passions. You strive to teach it 
 to inhabit your high altruistic plateau. But, you, 
 yourselves, shall yet at some surpreme urge revert to 
 the most stupendous of those himian passions. In 
 one concentrated hour all your elevated mankind shall 
 be at one another's throats like wolves. You will do 
 well to keep the East quiet then while you tear out 
 one another's hearts." 
 
 Barry alone after this explosion regarded Isabel with 
 impartial interest. " It's horrible, of course! " he told 
 Julie in an undertone, " but you know every time she 
 talks like that, I almost believe her. She sounds like 
 St. John, and I've always had an inkling that he was 
 dead right. The Armageddon! Toppling thrones! 
 But it won't happen in my time ! " 
 
 " You seem sorry ! " 
 
 "Why shouldn't I want to take part in the re- 
 newing of the earth? " 
 
 " It exhilarates you and depresses me. This is 
 struggle enough for me. You see, I have ten million 
 timid grandmothers back of me and it is some task 
 to give them all a jolt." 
 
 Isabel stepped nearer them. 
 
200 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " Was that the Yellow Peril you were talking about, 
 Isabel ? " Holborne smiled into his mustache. 
 
 Her olive face flushed proudly. " The peril of a 
 United East." 
 
 " And Ghengis Khan and his hordes will again over- 
 run us ? " he asked ironically. 
 
 "Ah! If only he would arise! If only somebody 
 strong, ^strong would come ! " Her gaze wandered 
 desperately to the spot where Julie and Barry stood. 
 
 " But you have another land! " Matfield Barron ex- 
 postulated. "When you lift those violet eyes of 
 yours, I have visions of long rolling uplands, with gray 
 mist upon them, and of the sun, and thyme, and quiet 
 sheep." He came nearer, and spoke in a low, per- 
 suasive tone. " We belong now to the East — the 
 East that rejects no man; nevertheless, let us drink 
 to that other land." 
 
 He led her off to the punch bowl, but Julie saw 
 that she refused the cup he offered her. Some of 
 these people seemed to have a great deal shut up in 
 their hearts. Julie remembered Ellis's warning, and 
 made a move toward Isabel; but just then somebody 
 began to sing. 
 
 Julie thrilled with delight. The Arabian Nights' 
 Tales to music ! One saw them all, Sindbad, Aladdin, 
 Sheherazade, The Calenders and the Kings float won- 
 drously by in arabesques of inconceivable tints of 
 melody. Like magic the colorful splendor of Asian 
 loves unfurled. The voice had a divine aroma, as 
 if weighted with the fragrance of the gardens of Para- 
 dise. 
 
 Then it took on a new tone, and became intolerable 
 in its play upon the soul. The girl wanted to escape. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 201 
 
 It struck too deep. It challenged the Judgment Day. 
 Her gaze traveled around those groups of faces. 
 Barry's desert face looked as if he saw the veil lifted 
 and the world in full completion of his dreams. 
 Isabel's twilight face was tense with suppressed exulta- 
 tion. The enigmatic being, Orcullu, did not appear 
 to stir, but a fire was growing in his eyes. Shell's 
 somber face stared stonily into the night; Matfield 
 Barron's sash drooped forlornly at his side; Holbome 
 looked into his hard hands, as if to read over their 
 story; Leah Chamberlain was fluttering distressfully, 
 like a bird whose wings had been caught; Chad Mes- 
 senger looked suddenly pinched and weary, while Ellis 
 Wilbur from the edge of the group caught Julie's eye 
 as if to challenge her to say that all this was not a 
 dream. 
 
 The man who counted tobacco leaves left the piano. 
 
 The throng of guests gradually dissolved. While 
 Isabel turned to speak a final word to Orcullu, Barry 
 bent to Julie from his great height. 
 
 " I'm coming to take you for a drive to-morrow, to 
 show you what's happened while you were away." 
 
 Their eyes caught in a moment of golden fire. The 
 night on the roof of his house came back to her with 
 a rush of overpowering recollections. Not until 
 Isabel thrust herself between them, could she bring 
 herself back into the self out of which she had been 
 transported. 
 
 Isabel seemed volcanically to drive them apart. 
 She stood looking from one to the other. Barry made 
 a move toward the stairs. Isabel stopped him, the blue 
 fire of her eyes ravaging his face. Julie moved away. 
 As she walked down the steps, she glanced back and 
 
202 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 saw the two figures still standing at the head of the 
 stairs. Isabel's shadowy face was lifted — the wide 
 gold bands glittering on her arms. She looked as she 
 did in her moments of vision, as if her imagination 
 perceived and was holding up to Barry the power of 
 which she dreamed. 
 
 Julie undressed in her ornate bed-chamber, but she 
 did not attempt to go to sleep. She leaned pensively 
 against one of the carved bed posts, and stared out into 
 the night, where the moon's great searchlight, exploring 
 the cities of the earth, was turned full on this Eastern 
 one. A shining city, in the realms of darkness ! Be- 
 low lay the river with the bowed sleeping foliage of 
 its shores. Riding its smooth current was a sliver of 
 a boat, in it a solitary native caroling down the stream. 
 How often had she watched other little boats riding 
 silver waters in artless celebrativeness ! Nahal, so far 
 away ! It would never be anything but her unconquer- 
 able kingdom — the dead garden of her soul. 
 
 All around her here were big deeds. What was the 
 accolade these men possessed, and which she still had 
 not found? Shell had ceded his life to it. Because of 
 it Barry grappled tirelessly with races of men. Where 
 among these architects of the future did she belong? 
 She had enrolled her spirit among them. She had been 
 so sure that there was a share for her in this splendid 
 achievement. But the Great Adventure had passed 
 her over. She was not metal for its forging. 
 
 But it was a hard way — this way of these agents 
 of the future. Could one go on laboring forever in 
 blind belief ? The great structure these men were rear- 
 ing might fall to pieces like a house of cards at the 
 stroke of Ifjabel and Orcullu, If the Americans gave 
 up the Islands, as it appeared they might do — a puff 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 203 
 
 of smoke in the cosmos, and that would be the end of 
 the whole thing. 
 
 She crept into bed, and dreamed of Barry as Atlas 
 struggling to uphold a world that was falling over her 
 head. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 JULIE spent the morning after the carnival arr 
 ranging the transfer of her effects to the Tondo. 
 Isabel remained in bed, and did not emerge till 
 Barry appeared at four o'clock. 
 
 Barry was driving a swift powerful horse hitched 
 to a light rubber-tired trap — a rather unusual com- 
 bination for, Manila. He greeted them both in his 
 radiant manner as he came up the stairs. 
 
 " I am going to take you to Father Hull's," he said 
 to Julie. " He asked me to bring you over." Then, 
 -with quick intuition, noticing the bag in Julie's hand, 
 "" If that's your luggage, we'll land you at your new 
 liome." 
 
 He swept the bag out of her grasp, and smiled 
 ^own upon her. " I am going to show you the miracle 
 ■of Manila!" 
 
 Julie, turning to Isabel to bid her good-by, was 
 startled by the expression she surprised upon her face. 
 Isabel was agitated about something. Her mood had 
 ■shot up for an instant like an angry flame. Julie had 
 .a vague idea that she might be displeased with her for 
 not accepting her invitation to stay on with her. She 
 renewed her expressions of gratitude to Isabel, and 
 said she would return soon to see her. 
 
 Isabel said they should see each other often — quite 
 often. She kissed Julie, and advised her to keep out 
 of the sun — " because of the headaches," she added. 
 
 " I wish there were something to stop them,"-" said 
 Julie. " They rage all through the heat of the day." 
 
 204 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 205 
 
 Isabel regarded her closely for a moment, then with- 
 drew her eyes. 
 
 Quite unconscious of any disturbance of the ether^ 
 Barry passed his arm through Julie's and together they 
 descended the stairs. He assisted her into the trap,, 
 and picked up the reins with vast satisfaction. " I 
 drive myself," he said, " because I can't bear to sit 
 idle behind a swift horse." 
 
 The powerful animal sprang through the streets, and 
 whirred them across towering iron bridges. The)r 
 passed the skeleton of a huge new hospital, the frame- 
 works of a new school and other public buildings- 
 Over one vacant piece of ground, Barry drew up im 
 fervor. 
 
 " Site of the new university ! " he explained- 
 " Rizal's dream. It's only a few lines on paper so far 
 — but it's on the way. 
 
 " These buildings cannot be shaken or blown dowm 
 like paper; and something more than a race of 
 columbines must come to be bom in them." 
 
 Julie peered up into his face. " I never saw any- 
 body so filled with a thing as you are with all this. I 
 don't believe you have a soul separate from it." 
 
 He smiled. "I wonder!" he said. "Well, I'm* 
 fearfully busy, and happy as a lark. Oh, but I don't 
 want them to shut down on all this ! 
 
 "It's a nuisance to be finite," he declared; "one 
 can't be in two or three places at once. I can't leave 
 here now, yet we've got to keep the wheels of the 
 Asiatic car of civilization on the tracks. Now that 
 the Assembly has cut loose, I'm holding my breath. 
 It's a grand time to be alive!" Barry declared, re- 
 lapsing, as he occasionally did, into Irish idiom. 
 " Now, when the whole world is constructive. Once 
 
206 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 when I was in DuWin, off my ship, an old woman 
 looked in my palm and said, ' It's a great destruc- 
 tion that's coming ! ' 
 
 "'To me?' I asked. 
 
 " ' To the whole earth,' she said. 
 
 '"But I didn't ask for the telling of the whole 
 world's fortune,' I said. 
 
 " ' It's your fortune, and everyman's,' she answered. 
 * But after it's blown off the globe, a glorious time will 
 be coming.' 
 
 " ' And what am I to be doing with myself until 
 then ? ' I demanded. 
 
 "'Travel Eastward!' she said." 
 
 Julie looked at him curiously. In a flash she re- 
 called the conversation with Chad Messenger. 
 
 " What do you think is going to happen ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " The shaking out of the old countries of the free- 
 dom of man; the bringing down of a few wills, and 
 the placing on top of the whole will. A change in 
 the destiny of man ! " 
 
 " Well, if as much of a change can be realized as has 
 been already realized here in so short a time, I am 
 ready to believe in anything ! Look hard at your city, 
 and wonder at the magic that has transformed a dirty, 
 insanitary Malay city to — well, almost an oriental 
 City Beautiful." 
 
 Barry's face clouded. " It shall be the cleanest in 
 the world when we get through, but many a dark enemy 
 lurks in our path. Look at those stagnant moats, in- 
 fested with pythons and myrmidons of death — and 
 at the drainage system! When will they attune their 
 oriental ears to the truths of sanitation? And the 
 cholera-infected food they smuggle in from the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 207 
 
 provinces! No, all is not well; and yet, help me 
 Heaven, they believe back home that we've finished — 
 that these people should now lead themselves ! " 
 
 " But you are here to drive the unclean spirits out." 
 Julie smiled absently to herself. " I think so often 
 of what you told me that first night, about your com- 
 ing upon this city which was to inspire your whole 
 life." 
 
 " It's true I never saw China really as she is to be 
 until I saw her in this new light. You see, I wasn't 
 always an American. I guess that's why all this im- 
 pressed me so. You people over there take your heri- 
 tage too much for granted. I was born in Ireland — 
 a racked, wretched country, like those of the East — 
 and of very poor people. My father and his father's 
 father, as far back as you can think, had been at the 
 eternally losing game of trying to make a living on 
 this earth ofif another man's land. 
 
 " It came over me when I was a lad " — Barry 
 frowned out at the land-scape — "that there was no 
 hope whatever for me. My mother — who was of 
 good family, and had married beneath her, as they 
 say — taught me out of books, and stirred the urge in 
 me. She was a wistful woman and homesick for the 
 world. So she wanted me to go out and get the best 
 luck of the gods. Mother and Father both died — " 
 He stopped, and seemed to have forgotten his narra- 
 tive in his thoughts until Julie said quietly : 
 
 "Please go on!" 
 
 " Then my Uncle James came along and took me 
 by the shoulder, and said : ' Let's go find our own 
 country, Lad ! ' 
 
 " We shipped on a vessel, and saw Russia and Ger- 
 many, Italy and France — where Uncle James said a 
 
208 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 man might live master of himself but never at all 
 <;ould learn the tongue. We crossed the ocean, and 
 ■one night we saw against the sky a great burning torch 
 lifted over a new land. 
 
 " Back of that torch life began. Uncle James made 
 anoney in truck gardening, and sent me to school. But 
 still, somehow, I hadn't found my place. I followed 
 ithe word of the old woman of Dublin, and finally I 
 struck this spot. And better than an)rthing I had seen 
 anjrwhere else, I liked what the Americans were set 
 about to do here." 
 
 Julie's eyes shone. " Another wanderer called ! " 
 she softly exclaimed. 
 
 " Many are called, but few are chosen," Barry 
 :nieditated. " You saw one side of the Colony last 
 Tiight. Father Hull could tell you about the reverse 
 side. Others chose mighty issues in this great time, 
 l)ut Father Hull took as his charge the souls of his 
 countrymen — to keep them up to their high engage- 
 anent. For this is a place and a time taking crude 
 strength to survive. Rough creatures like me are in 
 Ttheir element. The priest has many twisted destinies 
 trader his charge, people who have suffered and fallen. 
 He alone knows how to deal with them. He alone in 
 this great rough-shod, forward marching colony stops 
 -to gather up those who drop behind. 
 
 " There was Blackstone ! I helped Blackstone to 
 get the contract for the big Santa Cruz bridge — the 
 big thing that was to bring the fortune he had sought 
 for fifteen years over the two Americas; to himself 
 and his wife, who had waited all those years for the 
 Wheel to turn so she could marry him. 
 
 " But it was Father Hull who managed to save him 
 from a long sentence in a native prison, when the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 20^ 
 
 scandal of the adulterated cement broke forth. Black- 
 stone's lawyer was the Old Judge — a drunkard and 
 a ' Remittance Man,' but in spells a tremendous lawyer^ 
 Father Hull got him on the case, made one derelict rise 
 up to save another — as he did in as splendid a court 
 scene as I have ever witnessed. I don't know whether 
 Blackstone was guilty or not, neither does the Old. 
 Judge; but Father Hull believes in him, and that's^ 
 enough for all of us. 
 
 " Then the Old Judge, fearing the Blackstones would 
 starve because of the boycott put upon him, went tc*' 
 board with him. He suffers torture from Mrs. Black- 
 stone's cooking. I've stopped in there with him oc- 
 casionally, and after one frowning survey of the burnt, 
 meal, the Judge usually roars for the beer which he 
 keeps on the ice in quantities." 
 
 " But most of the Old Judge must be fine ! " Julie 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes ! He was long ago pensioned off by his 
 wealthy wife, whose pride he had outraged, and told 
 to seek other climates. He has tried the wild life 
 of the Orient for some time, but now he is getting olcf 
 and tired and lonely. He has drunk the cup to the 
 lees, and would turn back except for the fact that 
 once long ago he had a sentiment for the woman who> 
 sent him out; and this contract with her he will re- 
 spect to the end. Oh, there are any number of 
 others," he broke off. "Ask Father Hull to tell 
 you about them; he knows all about that other side 
 which I don't see so much of. 
 
 " Here we are ! That's the Rectory just ahead... 
 It's just the neglected barren outer shell that you'd 
 expect Father Hull's selfless spirit to dwell in. Evche 
 the old housekeeper is a pick-up too, the relict of a 
 
210 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 colonial who died from one of the swift illnesses of the 
 East and left her stranded on these shores a hopeless 
 incompetent whom no one else could make foot room 
 for." 
 
 It was this person who led them up the stairs to 
 Father Hull's sala, where he rose out of a long chair 
 to greet them. Julie was so st&rtled by the change in 
 his appearance that she barely suppressed an excla- 
 mation. In some strange way his personality seemed 
 already to have commenced to break its moorings. 
 To Julie, who was particularly acute to intimations, the 
 shadow of death seemed already to lie upon him. 
 
 Two other callers came up on the porch, and Barry 
 went out to join them. Julie sank down in a chair 
 and regarded the priest troubledly. 
 
 " I want to tell you how grateful I am to you for get- 
 ting me a transfer to Manila. I was so anxious to get 
 away from Nahal ! I am in'clined to believe you were 
 right about — my not being exactly fitted for it." 
 
 " Things have been happening to you," he said. 
 
 Julie smiled painfully. 
 
 " My child," he said indulgently, " you are on one 
 quest and you think you are on another. Sometime, 
 with some pain perhaps, it will be straightened out. 
 But it is people like you who help move the world. 
 Without such there would be no human history — just 
 the thoughts of scholars — and priests. You see, it 
 takes deeper forces than personal passions to carry 
 forward the human pilgrimage. It took the master 
 passion — man's love for man — to lift humanity into 
 H soul." 
 
 He broke ofif, and pointed to the glimpse of the 
 ocean that could be seen through the spaces of the 
 vines. " It's a very beautiful sunny sea, isn't it ? 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 211 
 
 And always I can see the ships on it — going out." 
 
 Julie who had been regarding him with emotion, 
 exclaimed tremulously, "Why don't you go home? 
 You look so tired." 
 
 The great calm in which he had been enfolded sud- 
 denly broke. A fire smoldered into life above his 
 suken cheeks, an alert look as at some trumpet call. 
 He squared wearied shoulders. " My place is here [ 
 Some of us will never go back. We came to see it 
 through. My camp-fire colony, full of raw life, of 
 struggle, of tragedy ! I couldn't leave it. Accoutered 
 for the wilderness, we sit around the flames — faces 
 of failure, despair, and crime turned out of the shadow 
 of the past to the hope of the new land, where the 
 slate is wiped clean. It is this hour, my child, that 
 must be watched over. A sea of struggling humanity 
 with heads stuck up out of the flood. In the New 
 Chance, the swimmer must be stronger than the cur- 
 rent. I have been a soldier," he added ; " I have fol- 
 lowed hard trails. I couldn't turn back now. 
 
 "The Odyssey of the East!" he mused. "Life 
 here has seethed down to its elements. The passions of 
 men are too dangerously on the surface, and existence 
 is wild, swift and sweet. Strong unbridled youth of 
 men and beauty in a land of no traditions or standards. 
 Sudden wealth in prodigal untried hands; princely 
 Americans living so that the poor native thinks that 
 kings have come to dwell with him. Millions of 
 dollars from home to run the Treasure Islands! All 
 magnificently, gallantly American! In conditions like 
 these ghosts begin to walk, and I must be here to lay 
 them. 
 
 " Just as you came in I was thinking of some of 
 these people. There's a lad in a bank I'm worried 
 
212 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 about. By virtue of his Americanism he thought he 
 was entitled to something better than a government 
 clerkship. Straining always toward the gilded doors 
 of the Empire's elect, he got himself made manager 
 of this newly organized bank on precisely the same 
 salary he had before. But doors have opened to him, 
 and he spends like the rest. Some day not so far 
 distant, I fear by the haggard look in his face, the 
 poor lad will vanish out of this place, to be caught 
 up by the secret service men in some great hostelry 
 in India or China to which his singed youth will gravi- 
 tate. Then the long, awful sentence in a Malay prison. 
 
 " There are some, you see, who were never to find 
 fortune in El Dorado, some who even a year ago 
 walked these streets in high hope and to-day lounge 
 seedily with vacant, staring eyes, in native booths. 
 Then there is the ghost that is particular damnation — 
 native wives. Not so long ago Chad Messenger, one 
 of those men out there — " He motioned toward the 
 door — " married Rosalie. It is already the tragedy it 
 was bound to be. Chad is a high dreamer, and he 
 ruined his life in an epic sort of way. Rosalie has 
 gone back to her parents, but Chad remains neverthe- 
 less her husband — " 
 
 " What is she like ? " Julie interrupted. 
 
 " You can see her any morning on the Escolta, 
 wandering eternally among the shops. She is a great 
 friend of your friend Isabel Armistead — and of 
 Orcullu. Then there was Jerome — When he first 
 crDssed my path, he was an Infantry ofHcer up in the 
 Bosque. He had drifted into playing for high stakes 
 — a thing prevalent over here. He was Quarter- 
 master, and became involved in his accounts. He 
 -would have been court-martialled if old Vincente 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 213 
 
 Busqua had not put a devil's bargain up to him. 
 Vincente said that if Jerome would marry Paula, his 
 daughter, to whom Jerome had paid some attention, he 
 would make good the shortage, and Jerome could 
 quietly resign. Jerome took Paula to vindicate 'his 
 Americanism; he was never criminally guilty, I be- 
 lieve — some subordinate, it is thought, took advantage 
 of his carelessness. 
 
 " But good things happen once in a while — great 
 things. Out of the lees, a few completely emerge. A 
 lady whom you will meet this afternoon was one such, 
 and her husband as well. She is coming to see me 
 about a charitable school she conducts. Two aban- 
 doned drunkards, they were — he and she. Both 
 came from very good families back home — that 
 thought it expedient to get them out of the way. Col- 
 onies are always martyred that way. Ashby was 
 a ' Remittance Man,' his wife when he ran across her 
 was a stenographer. She had taken to secret drink- 
 ing long before, through a romantic grief of her 
 youth. Through mutual desperation they gravitated 
 to each other, and after their marriage they continued 
 to go steadily, awfully down. They became complete 
 indigestibles in the social fabric, and appeared to be 
 whizzing straight through the damnation of the East, 
 when something happened, which I never completely 
 understood. A traveler through the East imbued them 
 with some special enlightenment, which they refer to 
 as the ' incontrovertible truth.' They have tried to 
 explain this new insight, as they call it to me, but 
 upon a man reared and sustained on fixed tenets, it did 
 not take hold. You see," he explained, "as I grow 
 old in far strange places of the earth, I am comforted 
 by having fixed pillars to support my consciousness. 
 
214 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Still I should like to understand what it was that pulled 
 these two, when they seemed so completely out of 
 reach, back into the safety zone." 
 
 Barry and Chad came in from the porch, bringing 
 with them a man whom they presented to Julie as 
 Doctor Braithwaite, one of their very close friends, 
 Barry said. Following them came the housekeeper 
 conducting a tall woman of slender elegance of person, 
 who Julie was startled to learn was Mrs. Ashby, the 
 derelict the priest had just been telling her about. To 
 connect the history she had heard with this distin- 
 guished looking gentlewoman was at first glance too 
 preposterous to attempt. On closer view, however, the 
 lines of the past appeared on the face, like a visible 
 under-stratum which was gradually being eroded by 
 the force of a new mode of existence. As they shook 
 hands, the woman looked very attentively at Julie, as 
 if there were something about her that she wanted to 
 remember. 
 
 Mrs. Ashby engaged Barry in conversation, all 
 having, so it seemed, a great deal to do with the matter 
 of babies. Barry promised to send her quantities of 
 condensed milk. 
 
 " We all beg from Barry," she explained to Julie. 
 " But that is what he was made for; you can't im- 
 poverish a spirit like his. You see, there is always an 
 epidemic of death among the babies over here. When 
 they can't be fed naturally at birth, they are stuffed 
 with rice, and of course they die. Mr. Ashby and 
 I have a kind of school, if one might dare to call 
 it that, and the feeding of babies is one of the things 
 we are trying to teach." 
 
 A boy came in with a tray and passed cake and tea 
 and glasses of a light cordial. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 215 
 
 " Do you realize," said Chad Messenger, speaking 
 for the, first time, " that the first representative govern- 
 ment that has been convened in the East met in this 
 city to-day and made its bow to the onlooking 
 Orient?" He held up his glass. "To the Philip- 
 pine Assembly! May it realize the fearful portents 
 it holds in its hands." 
 
 Barry's brows knit with anxiety. " It is so taken 
 up with its star part on the Asian stage that it is 
 forgetting distressing little facts like the city's drain- 
 age system. A city with bad water and worse drain- 
 age trying to lead the East ! " He smiled dourly. 
 " What is all our cleaning and scouring to accomplish 
 if we can not get it out of the Oriental conscious- 
 ness that their vile plagues are the will of God — 
 Isabel's Green God of fate ! " He drew a long breath. 
 " But we will triumph, if only we're allowed the 
 time — if only we're not halted in the thick of the 
 dust." 
 
 " I insist," Father Hull put in, " that the introduc- 
 tion of baseball into the Islands has been Barry's 
 greatest stroke. Though he come to wear the crown 
 of Asia, it shall not compare to the glory of revolu- 
 tionizing the native with clean universal sport. A 
 new national passion that is neither bloody nor bestial, 
 and in which all the tribes can unite." 
 
 " It's the schools that are getting them," Barry de- 
 clared. " Why, the children do compound fractions 
 for you before your face, sing the grandest songs about 
 liberty, and feed you ice-cream that they made them- 
 selves in a freezer in the backyard. In the Straits 
 Settlement, when I looked for schools, they showed me 
 usually an empty hut with a dirt floor, in which there 
 was no sign of pupils or teachers. That's the lot of 
 
216 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 the tribute-paying East. Do you wonder these people 
 think a wonder has appeared in Asia? " 
 
 " It appears to me," Mrs. Ashby said thoughtfully, 
 " that there is just one thing that you have not suf- 
 ficiently taken into account in your plans for the Mil- 
 lennium, Barry — and that is human nature. Only 
 when the individual, each individual comes into a com- 
 plete realization of his highest estate, can the ultimate 
 peace and happiness of the world be secured. So few 
 of us are conscious of our own mysterious possibili- 
 ties." Her glance dwelt upon Julie. " For example," 
 she said, "can Miss Dreschell interpret for us the 
 unusual intimation in her own face? There is some- 
 thing there of which she may be quite unconscious, 
 yet it is very significant." 
 
 Barry regarded Julie thoughtfully. " I noticed it 
 — a year ago," he said gravely, " but I find it indefin- 
 able. It seems to be something that one merely feels." 
 
 Mrs. Ashby asked Julie if others had remarked this 
 quality, and Julie reluctantly admitted that others had. 
 Isabel, for example, who had called it spring magic, 
 and the angel in the pillar of fire, and other utterly un- 
 intelligible bits of Eastern imagery. Nobody had ever 
 said though, she reflected ruefully, that it would in any 
 way make her great. 
 
 " To me it appears," Mrs. Ashby said, " to be the 
 reflection — or the promise of great power." 
 
 Julie glancing up found Barry's eyes blazing upon 
 her. His face wore the look it had worn that night 
 on the roof when he had told her about finding his 
 city. For a moment there seemed to be nobody but 
 the two of them in the room, which had suddenly 
 taken on magic dimensions and become the medium of 
 a whole new existence. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 217 
 
 The voices around her brought her back to her 
 surroundings. She became aware of Chad's observa- 
 tion fastened deeply upon her. When his acute ex- 
 amination lifted, she overheard him say in an under- 
 tone to Mrs. Ashby : " This quality you see in the 
 young lady's face, isn't it merely the transient magic 
 of youth and sex? Aren't we, particularly men, in- 
 clined to be dazzled by the mysteries we read into 
 a woman's form or face? She herself says she has 
 failed in all her enterprises. What is that a promise 
 of?" 
 
 " It is neither youth nor sex, but something that 
 is as far removed from them as the stars," Mrs. Ashby 
 replied. 
 
 Father Hull asked Barry and the other man to go 
 across with him to the church, to make an estimate 
 on some repairs. 
 
 "Which means," Mrs. Ashby said smilingly to 
 Julie, as the men went away together, " that Barry 
 wrill provide the lumber at no cost at all." 
 
 As she sat there watching Julie with her kindly 
 keen eyes, she seemed to throw a veil of friendship 
 around the girl, which her senses gratefully accepted. 
 It seemed to Julie, whose head was aching and who 
 had commenced to feel depressed and dispirited, that 
 she had known Mrs. Ashby a long time and that they 
 ■understood each other. 
 
 Mrs. Ashby asked her how old she was, and when 
 Julie replied, she said : " You are very young ! I 
 wonder if there is after all anything quite so tragic as 
 youth. It spends its golden years floundering about 
 trying to find land — such a lot of floundering it some- 
 times does to no purpose. It perceives nothing clearly, 
 but waits for the universe to clear — like a mist. It 
 
218 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 searches in vain for the coherence of existence that it 
 was taught to believe in, and it comes darkly to feel 
 that everything on earth and in the sky is a cruel 
 chance. It feels that it can't go on unless it can find 
 the connection throughout everything — and at last its 
 poor sad little soul comes to the conclusion that this 
 mad chaos is not worth while. 
 
 " Governor Shell told me that he had spent thirty 
 unproductive years of youth groping for the light. 
 And as for me, I had come to the end of the cosmos, 
 and was about to drop off. Why, when there was 
 no clear and perfect aim in life should I waste more 
 time in fruitless seeking, I argued. I became so sure 
 that life was a collocation of meaningless realities that 
 I felt I might as well get myself out of it as fast as 
 I could. 
 
 " I didn't dream that a tireless Scheme would cease- 
 lessly work me over until the reluctant atoms in me 
 would begin to work too to turn the Wheel. Mine was 
 a black existence, that only the worst wretches come 
 to know; but I don't regret an hour of it. Nor must 
 you despair over any experience that comes to you, 
 for after this manner, my child, do we work our way 
 into the light. 
 
 " I was a slacker, an idle wastrel in creation where 
 the Master-mind and all His minute men all over all 
 the worlds were battling toward the goal. I was long 
 in realizing it. Keep running, my friend, in the foot- 
 steps of a striving God. That's what makes these men 
 here so strong. They are battling with chaos to bring 
 law and harmony into a part of the world. Con- 
 sciously they don't know what great agents they are, 
 any more than the chrysalis understands why it breaks 
 from its shell. It's all a mighty subconscious un- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 219 
 
 foldment of life. This business of the East has got 
 to be straightened out on the earth." 
 
 Julie leaned forward, forgetful of her pain. 
 " When you and Barry talk, I step back into the old 
 enchantment of mood. I'm afraid I am not struggling 
 any more. You see, I found that you can expend 
 yourself fruitlessly." Her voice shook. " My mind 
 is chaotic — just like your picture; and dark too, at 
 times. Ever since I left the South my convictions 
 have been oozing out, like sands out of an hour-glass. 
 I meet life from moment to moment, and not in the 
 least understanding why it falls as it does. We are 
 all just a lot of ships lurching this way and that, at 
 the wanton mercy of the ocean; and most of us, I 
 think, disastrously collide. The Pilot, whoever and 
 whatever he may be is always unchallengeable. Ah, 
 when your most inspired efforts have failed, when your 
 life seems to toss beyond your control, do you think 
 you will find coherence in anything? " 
 
 Mrs. Ashby's clear eyes penetrated through her. 
 " There is coherence in the solar system, and in all 
 the system beyond ; comets, after a thousand years re- 
 appear upon a calculated day. There is everywhere 
 coherence, my child, because there is everywhere law." 
 
 " But what good does this law and order do me if 
 I can't find it? Down here on this tiresome planet a 
 being called Julie is doomed to struggle and battle and 
 hope, and gets nowhere at all. Oh, if only one could 
 get up from the Game, and turn one's self around 
 for luck!" 
 
 " Since it is ordained that everything must get some- 
 where, you too must arrive," said Mrs. Ashby. " Ah/' 
 she added gently, " if I could give you the compass that 
 would show you the direction ! " 
 
220 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 The men were returning. " Come and see me," she 
 adjured. " Remember that I shall always be glad to 
 give you any assistance I can." 
 
 The priest looked white and weary as his gufests 
 took their leave. As Chad went away in his calesa, 
 Julie noticed that he cast a thoughtful backward glance 
 at her and Barry. 
 
 Barry drove through parts of the city she had never 
 seen before, and which she found not so pleasing as 
 the others. " These are the places we haven't been 
 aWe to touch," he said. " Look at this." He gestured 
 up a narrow street into which they had suddenly veered, 
 and the aspect of which caused Julie to recoil. 
 
 " This alley is very nearly the worst abomination 
 on earth! Chinatown! We're trying to uproot it, 
 but the denizens only make more mischief when they 
 disperse. I have no government job, or I would have 
 been on their necks long ago. I've never wanted to 
 take an official position. The Governor sends me here 
 and there over the islands on errands; but I want to 
 ht free — in case I'm needed across the water. Then 
 too, I need money all the time, for a million things; 
 and I have to be free to make it." 
 
 Julie's eyes gazed startled at the street they were 
 following. " Is China like this ? " she demanded in 
 horror. 
 
 " This isn't like China or Europe. It's an abortive 
 thing of both. Men become very vile when they take 
 their vices underground," Barry declared, with the 
 resigned manner of a god before all the evil in the 
 ■world. 
 
 It was narrow, it was dirty, it was subterraneously 
 vile, like pus under the surface. White men and -yel- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 221 
 
 low men, men of all races went here to hide their 
 manhood in interims of bestiality. 
 
 " Animals sleep cleanly in holes," Barry remarked ;, 
 " but these twists of the thing called life bury them- 
 selves in the earth for their deeper degradation. 
 White women have been buried down there — live 
 corpses; and have come forth bleached lepers to the 
 light. Such holes of pestilential rats have, however, 
 been closed up, so far as we know, and now all this 
 evil pollutes before the sun." 
 
 Julie's breath caught in a little sob before the faces 
 she saw. Somewhere she had dreamed of that mon- 
 strous array of human masks; a cruel, incomprehen- 
 sible evil such as one must transcend the brute king- 
 dom to find. It pressed a shadow down on the mind, 
 like a hangman's cap. The creatures looked at her 
 with leers of the most aboriiinable intention. She sat 
 up and stared with a white face up and down the 
 cursed street. And up and down it, in their yellow 
 heads, its subterranean minds were speculating upon 
 her. 
 
 " What causes such a place? " she gasped. " There 
 must be some accounting for such a hideous blot." 
 
 " Opium, mostly ; together with the incomprehen- 
 sible in man. It's the East at its vilest pitch, a hellish 
 sub-consciousness in which murder is the cleanest con- 
 ception. White men end in such places — drug-takers 
 and drunkards, in violence usually. Chinese pirates 
 form the nucleus of these lees of the coast. I could 
 tell you true tales of them that would out-do Poe. 
 When I first came to the East, it used to grip at my 
 consciousness like a black hand. I felt in those days 
 that my life was in peril all the time. It used to 
 
222 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 worry me — till the Moros got me and led me with 
 three other ragged beggars along the tops of more 
 sun-baked craters than there are in the moon, telling 
 us every morning as the sun rose that it was the last 
 one we'd see. At first my soul just clawed itself to 
 pieces, but at last I walked right over some unseen 
 peak, and left the fear of death behind for good. That 
 was somehow the biggest victory I've ever won. 
 
 " We're out of the nightmare now," he said, as they 
 turned in a new direction. " Abandon hope, all ye 
 who enter there. The Ashbys will never cease to be a 
 miracle to me. They wormed their way out of this 
 sort of thing. They used to come here to buy the 
 •cheapest whiskey, just as others come for the dope; 
 and Ashby, I imagine, knov^s the ground floor of that 
 hell!" 
 
 Julie pressed her nails into her hands. 
 
 " Is there any place you want to go? " Barry asked. 
 
 " Yes," she said, with a sudden feverish alertness. 
 *' Go by the markets of this district. Did it ever 
 occur to you that they are shaped like pavilions — that 
 they seem to represent one great pavilion — tented 
 Asia, with throngs always moving through? 
 
 " Do you know that though I try with my whole 
 will, I can not go into one of them? I pass them — 
 and something always accuses me. Ah! Don't go 
 any nearer ! " she breathed, as they approached a large 
 market. " The beggars in their rags always come 
 sweeping out. How festering with pestilence these 
 throngs seem to be — gangrenous, leprous, polluted. 
 Even the heads of little children run with sores — 
 everywhere sores! A terrible Pavilion of mangy and 
 vitiated humanity, shaking with unnameable curses, 
 and with eyes and noses eaten away. They fill me 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 223 
 
 with a sinking terror, those brown masks' They 
 smile at me — and stare at my clean whiteness like 
 worms at a star. Oh! Why has the East been for- 
 gotten, in her blindness and her monstrous sores? 
 Think of the wars of man against man — the great 
 futile blood-lettings — and what their cost might have 
 done to banish this hobgoblinism from a part of hu- 
 manity! Nobody cares! I can't bear it! How can 
 God move so slowly ? Can you see the East squatting 
 in the dust, waiting blindly through the ages for the 
 Christ that shall come and stanch its running sores? 
 
 " You must excuse me," she said agitatedly, " but 
 I seem always to be passing that Pavilion and, for all 
 the horror of my pity, never able to go in and touch 
 their sores. Does it seem to you that we are like 
 cruelly idle and indifferent gods just looking on? Not 
 you, but me. I can't get down to their incomprehen- 
 sible and unapproachable world. I want to shove them 
 all away out of my sight, yet all the while I'm cursing 
 that some one doesn't come along and save them. 
 Look!" she shuddered. 
 
 A leper stood in the pavilion-shaped market pla,ce, 
 leaning like some fearful decoration against one of its 
 posts. Large pieces of his flesh had been eaten away. 
 Something in his appearance suggested that he was 
 yet young. A human Prometheus, plucked by the vul- 
 tures of a hideous fate. His eyes lifted to them in 
 silent unbearable entreaty. He stretched out his hand 
 less, it seemed, for entreating money than for asking 
 the mercy of God. Barry tossed him a coin which 
 was instantly swept up by the supplicatory crowd. 
 
 Julie closed her eyes convulsively. " I'll always be 
 seeing him in the Pavilion beckoning to me — but I 
 can't go — I just can't ! " 
 
224 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She opened her eyes and met Barry's gaze in awed 
 silence. It was as if some unescapable burden lurked 
 in there for their shoulders to take. 
 
 " We're in it," he said, " for good." 
 
 " I feel like a sleep-walker driven to the edge of a 
 •chasm." 
 
 " Don't be miserable," he said very gently. " We 
 all live in night mostly, helpless on our little hills, 
 watching the eternal worlds move by and wishing we 
 could move our world. Look at this side of this globe ! 
 In ten thousand years while the earth has sloughed its 
 crust, and deserts and gardens have changed places on 
 it, mail has undergone little change. It's the same 
 morass of human souls. Does it take ten thousand 
 years for the human glacier to move an inch? " He 
 flicked the reins restlessly, " Are we only picking at a 
 cell with a pin ? " 
 
 " And of all Asia's static human curse, China is the 
 worst," Julie exclaimed, " slugs cumbering up the 
 •earth, repudiating every metempsychosis." 
 
 " Ah ! Personality is infinite in its range. I think 
 you will find the Chinaman adds a little to the compass 
 of the human soul. Do you dream that a people who 
 chant their utterance have no imagination, or that, be- 
 cause they have bowed so long to fantastic tyrannies, 
 they have no soul ? / tell you that they are eating their 
 chains through with their teeth. I'd give my life and 
 my soul if Asia would set up a republic in the face of 
 those worm-eaten kingdoms of Europe with their caste 
 gradations and degradations of men, and their empiri- 
 cal divisions of the land of the earth. And there is 
 a great hope upspringing, I believe — I know ! " 
 
 A pretty olive-faced woman leaned out of a pass- 
 ing vehicle and looked at them. Barry raised his hat. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 225 
 
 " Chad's wife, Rosalie," he explained. 
 
 " That was a big mistake, wasn't it ? " Julie said. 
 
 Barry looked grave. " Poor Chad, in one of his 
 most exalted moments of national chivalry, thought 
 he was making a cementing marriage with the East. 
 But, as it has turned out, it seems that there is nothing^ 
 at all that he can understand about Rosalie — with her 
 display of adornments to the world; her laxities at 
 home, and her eternal super-abundance of rice powder. 
 He took his wife, as so many do in the East, under 
 a veil ; and now she has grown intolerable to his West- 
 ern man's soul." 
 
 They had come out onto the Luneta, where music 
 was stirring through the soft dusk. Throngs of smart 
 carriages and vehicles of every sort were moving in 
 slow rhythm up and down. People were exchanging 
 visits in the beautiful twilight. They began to stop 
 Barry to talk to him. 
 
 Ellis Wilbur, nodding to Julie from under a vivid 
 red plume, had her carriage brought up alongside of 
 Barry's trap. A member of the Assembly came along, 
 and Barry got out and fell into deep discussion with 
 him on the walk. 
 
 "I'm triste to-night!" Ellis said. "The tragedy 
 of the East has begun to fasten on me. It's time to- 
 go! Do you know, as I watch the shadows fall like 
 slow tears over those old walls, I think what a city 
 to be unhappy in! A city of the East, the weight 
 of ancient evil in its stones. The dusk drops over it. 
 like a blackness of the heart, an infinite hopelessness. 
 The petals of every gay flower shrivel, and the grass 
 grows dim. All the forces of the night to contend 
 against. Ah, I am sorry for all of you who are to 
 stay in it ! " 
 
226 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She looked closely at Julie. " Never love in the 
 East. One could be sure of going completely mad in 
 its terrible beautiful passions, in its heavy night with 
 the thick scents in them and the beat of black hearts 
 pulsing through them. 
 
 " Do you know, you and I are like Janus, at the 
 crossroad, facing two ways ; not up to going forward, 
 not willing to go back. And there we stand like 
 weather-vanes, and point no man a thoroughfare. I 
 confess that I am too selfish and too impatient to make 
 an oblation of myself. Therefore, I am definitely, but 
 not without a certain shame, you understand, about to 
 turn back. We are going. Father's been given an- 
 other job — ' in the courts of kings.' I was too weak 
 to resist the prospect " — she gave a short laugh — " of 
 marrying some one princely and distinguished on the 
 other side of the world. And I promise you, I shall 
 not return here — like so many others. You've seen 
 them in their dramatic farewells, leaving the East for- 
 ever — its corrugating problems, its intolerable hard- 
 ships. And then, after they're forgotten over here, 
 they turn up on a ship, and embrace everybody with 
 the tears streaming down their cheeks. It was no 
 good, they tell you. They had to come back, and get 
 in the game. They still don't give a rip about this 
 part of the world, its inefifectualnes^ and heat and hell ; 
 but what they are supremely excited about is the Job ! 
 There wasn't anything to compare with it back home. 
 They wanted to help finish it off before the curtain 
 was drawn, and to help show the world how success- 
 fully Asia was being vitalized." 
 
 Ellis turned her attention to Barry, and regarded 
 him attentively for some time. " Father is worried 
 about Barry. He thinks he is trying to break his ties 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 227 
 
 here. It would be like him, of course, to move on if 
 he found something bigger; but he is needed here. 
 He has a really strong influence on the people. He 
 seems to be the only white man they really like. But 
 he is always trailing off on strange errands all over 
 the Eastern seas, and the queerest people are always 
 appearing to visit him. Strange conferences are held 
 in that house of his, I'll wager. I tell him," Ellis 
 laughed, " that he must be trying to make himself 
 Emperor of Asia." 
 
 She subsided into thought, out of which her voice 
 broke quietly at last. " Does Barry McChord stir 
 your imagination as he does mine? It's only too sure 
 that there is nobody like him among the so-called 
 princes of men; but he has his way marked out for 
 him — he must beat his way alone through this black 
 hinterland. Every bit of him is needed for the work. 
 They are all agreed, you see, that he will no more be 
 Cpermitted personal passions than the Pope of Rome." 
 
 The sunset threw a golden light into the dusky caval- 
 cade circling about them, making it glow like a won- 
 drous human allegory. Suddenly solemn strains of 
 music threw a hush over this vivid atmosphere. 
 
 Barry's head, Julie noticed, was uplifted to the 
 down-coming flag — which slowly descended, the sym- 
 bol of infinite things. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 WHO is your guest ? " Julie demanded, as 
 the carriage Barry had sent after her 
 drew up at the door of the Archibispo 
 Street house, where he stood waiting for her. 
 
 " It wasn't he I had in mind so much as myself," 
 he said gravely, assisting her out of the vehicle. 
 
 " Strictly speaking," he added, " the person I sent 
 for you to meet is a king." 
 
 "A king!" cried Julie with delight. "Where did 
 you get him?" 
 
 " He's the white rajah of an island realm to the 
 south — an Englishman, and a fine chap. He's come 
 to return a visit I paid him, and to find out what we 
 Americans are up to. Ellis snatched him away as 
 soon as she found out that he was a nobleman in 
 England as well as a king in the East Indies. That 
 gave me the chance I wanted to have a talk with you." 
 
 Delphine, his corsair hair on end, came to greet 
 Julie, at the top of the stairs, and to announce that 
 luncheon was served. 
 
 " There's to be just you and I," Bariy said, " and 
 the wife of a Spanish lawyer friend of mine, who lives 
 across the way and who blessedly doesn't understand 
 a word of English. Later Rajah Payne, and some 
 people who are dropping in to meet him, will come in 
 for tea." 
 
 They seated themselves at a small table near win- 
 dows filled with waving ferns. When Seiiora Talia- 
 ferro, who was enamored of American cooking, had 
 
 228 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 229 
 
 become engrossed with the dishes served her, Barry- 
 leaned across to Julie and said abruptly: 
 
 " Sun Yat Sen has gone ! He is about to start 
 on a long march across China — on foot through 
 Manchuria and Mongolia, preaching the gospel of free- 
 dom — and revolt. He begged me to go with him." 
 
 "You'd get killed!" 
 
 " Not on a job like that. It's got to come to pass. 
 It's written in the stars. You don't think I'd trail 
 carelessly off the earth and leave my job undone? 
 Until a long time from now — " he smiled — " until 
 I've done everything I want to do, I refuse to die. 
 
 " You see, I'm torn two ways. Sometime I shall 
 join Sun Yat Sen. He needs me. But I have fires 
 to tend here. The flame over there was lit from 
 here. I'd go in a minute if I could only feel we'd 
 turned the trick here; but the newspapers from home 
 are full of dire forebodings. An enterprise like this 
 must be made to sink as a fact into the consciousness 
 of the East. 
 
 " But time is passing — by the water clock of Can- 
 ton that has kept time for a thousand years ! " he mur- 
 mured to himself. 
 
 " Why," he demanded suddenly, " do I want to 
 share all my secrets with you? Is it because of the 
 light of you, that shines like a lantern in the dark of 
 the world?" 
 
 Julie dropped her eyes. "China must be a dark 
 world," she hazarded confusedly. 
 
 " I used to think so ! I was only a lad. The peo- 
 ple weren't people then. They were flies, hordes, 
 multiple numbers in the universe ! And the faiths of 
 their souls ! ' Monstrous gods, with blood drooling out 
 of their man-eating jaws! Blood seemed a common- 
 
230 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 place, like milk. Will I ever be able to forget that 
 large crude yard of the execution grounds — running 
 with blood that stifled the nostrils and caused me to 
 reel with illness — human blood, rivers of it, turning 
 black? Terrible was the human capitulation of that 
 field! That submissively surrendered stream showed 
 the Chinaman in a new light; for not much of the 
 blood of the Execution Grounds was criminal. That 
 kind could get away with bribes. It was ferociously 
 demanded blood of sacrifice — the blood of gophers 
 offered to that figment in Pekin. Why should these 
 wet, reasonless, red spots continue on the earth ? You 
 see that something must happen over there soon. 
 
 "A flat, bare, yellow, ancient land!" he mused. 
 " The saddest land I have ever seen, with little vegeta- 
 tion to cover its old bones — just the stark drear plains. 
 Isn't nature brutal, to turn out millions and millions of 
 creatures to subsist on dead mountains and sand. 
 And, lifting like excrescences out of that land, the mud 
 huts of the living mingle with the mud tombs of the 
 dead. Grophers in mud banks, living and dead. No- 
 where else does one ache so for man. And the in- 
 tolerable sensations one experiences at first over this 
 monstrous dirt-like cheapness of human life I " 
 
 " All our lives," Julie reflected, " we have looked 
 upon ourselves as a little less than God ; but over here 
 we are just rats crawling in and out of the universe! " 
 Her face contracted in a painful spasm. 
 
 " Don't put them too far down in the abyss of your 
 pity, though they were in the beginning a hideous 
 phantom across the vision of my ideals. Pekin, of 
 course, was different. It was all that I had dreamed 
 of ancient and opulent Cathy : an oriental fantasy with 
 its great Chaldean towers, its temples and pagodas 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 231 
 
 sparkling with sapphire lights ; with its marble courts, 
 its flashing scarlet palaces; its grottos on lotus lakes, 
 its gay pailows with flapping banners, and its mil- 
 lions of rainbow-hued boxes that are the dwellings of 
 men. But, over beyond the city, cut into the clay of 
 the cliffs — the holes of the gophers still ! " 
 
 Barry's eyes had become abstracted under his mem- 
 ories. 
 
 " And the Forbidden City ! No more to be pene- 
 trated than heaven itself! From Coal Hill one gazed 
 across at that shimmering Hearsay among men, that 
 Holy of Holies protected by walls as thick as Babylon's. 
 Over there amid legendary splendor, and unparalleled 
 power on earth, in high and inviolate courts to which 
 no gopher ever crawled, is harbored a will-o'-the-wisp 
 — a myth, a spell, that governs millions of gophers' 
 fates. 
 
 " But — " he brought his hand heavily down on the 
 table — " the gopher down under the ground is eating 
 away with his teeth the foundations of those impene- 
 trable places and you yet shall witness the day when 
 he will stand up, a man at last, in the forbidden courts 
 of the earth." 
 
 " It all sounds a fantasy of mud-caked gophers, hob- 
 goblins and blood ! " Julie said. 
 
 " Listen, for sometime you will see all I say come 
 true," he prophesied. " All over the world to-day as 
 laborers, and down under the earth in tin mines. China- 
 men are slaving and groveling to make the money 
 to set China free. When the hour comes, that hoarded 
 treasure will flow forth to turn the tide. The gophers 
 under the ground are stirring to resurrection. To the 
 day, Julie," — he lifted his glass — " when the gophers 
 all over the world shall find the sky ! " 
 
232 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Julie stared at him wistfully, and suddenly the tears 
 rushed to her eyes — tears of awe, etjvy, and humility. 
 He was in the toils of great undertakings, sweeping 
 on to sacred achievements, while her sole contribution 
 was Nahal — Nahal of dismal failure and miscarried 
 efforts. What was the thing that he had, and that she 
 would never have, that brought him fulfillment — the 
 thing that his friends wished to conserve and to keep 
 her out of ? 
 
 " I like to think," she said at last, hiding her emotion, 
 " that you will be invulnerable to everything that can 
 happen in the East." 
 
 "Why the East?" 
 
 " It has a separate, harder and more cruel fate." 
 
 " And presents greater gifts and will bring in the 
 end greater strength ! Come ! " He rose. " We have 
 sat a long time, and I hear our monarch arriving be- 
 low." 
 
 " Tell me how to speak to him ! " 
 
 " We call him Sir John. In his island kingdom 
 they call him Rajah John. He is the second of his 
 dynasty. The people of the realm very charmingly 
 invited his father to rule over them. He lives in a 
 stucco palace of the most monstrous taste. He would 
 prefer to live on his estate in England, but one must 
 rule a kingdom whether one wants to or not." 
 
 "Is he married? " 
 
 " Aha ! " He turned round upon her suddenly. 
 " I see that I should not have brought you here to- 
 day. He is not, and it might take only the tiniest 
 twist of fate to-day to make you a queen in the East. 
 But please to remember that maybe some of the rest of 
 us can win kingdoms, too. I implore of you not to let 
 that prophecy drop out of your mind." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 233 
 
 Ellis Wilbur entered the sala with a pleasant faced, 
 deeply browned young Englishman. Upon being pre- 
 sented to Julie he looked at her admiringly, which 
 caused Ellis to cry out : 
 
 " King John has lived so long in polygamous coun- 
 tries that he has imbibed their inspirations, I perceive. 
 After assigning me first chance at his kingdom, he is 
 casting pleasantly encouraging glances elsewhere ! " 
 
 Isabel, Chad, Commissioner Caples and several 
 young Englishmen that Barry had asked to meet his 
 guest strolled in. Commissioner Copies demonstrated 
 an unpleasantly prophetic mood. The business pulse, 
 he said, was the sure indication of what was going 
 to transpire; the big concerns were withdrawing their 
 capital from the islands faster than ever. People who 
 had invested in the chimera would lose everything, for 
 Independence was imminent. 
 
 At this Julie saw Isabel's eyes blaze with ecstasy. 
 " Great pity ! " Sir John commented. " I'll miss 
 your Experiment to the North. I was planning things 
 myself — along the same lines. Tell me," — he turned 
 to address Isabel — " what will happen to the poor 
 tao, lumbering after his carabao in the jungle, I say 
 what will become of him then? " 
 
 " He has just about as much brains as his carabao," 
 Isabel contemptuously flashed. " It isn't necessary to 
 concern oneself with a carabao's fate." 
 
 " Doesn't it strike you, Mrs. Armistead, that these 
 dumb, blinded creatures under the new impulse here 
 have started out on a quest for manhood? " 
 
 " The dumb and blind cannot lead a country. That 
 will take a great strength! " 
 
 " But do you, Mrs. Armistead, see that strength any- 
 where about you ? " 
 
234 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 For an instant Isabel looked to Julie like one whc 
 had stepped suddenly into a dark room. Then the 
 fire of her eyes flashed across the sala. 
 
 " Exactly," said Sir John in a whimsical under- 
 tone. He had followed her glance to where it un- 
 consciously alighted. " Why shouldn't there be two 
 white kings in the East? " 
 
 Is'abel turned from him sharply. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 JULIE moved quickly, to hide any appearance of 
 having heard what had so extraordinarily trans- 
 pired. That flash of words and glances had dis- 
 turbed every cell of her mind. She was still quivering 
 when Isabel spoke at her elbow. 
 
 " Julie, I never saw any one who let herself be so 
 eaten up by things. You are as white as a ghost. 
 Is it," she turned to look more closely at Julie, " the 
 head again?" 
 
 Julie looked back at her, troubled. " Oh, yes," 
 she said, " it aches all the time." 
 
 " And have you done nothing about it ? " 
 
 The girl looked embarrassed. " The doctors might 
 want to open me up, to find out what is the matter. 
 Besides, they charge what Father Hull calls American 
 prices." 
 
 " Better keep away from them," Isabel agreed, turn- 
 ing away. 
 
 Barry's guests, with their teacups in their hands, 
 sauntered through the rooms, examining his collec- 
 tions. The object of greatest interest was a bright 
 red chair gleaming like coals of fire, with in-set golden 
 dragons. 
 
 " The throne of the East! " Ellis explained. " Red 
 lacquer, glazed all over with poison, and as ancient 
 as Solomon. Emperors have sat in it, and the devil 
 himself; and because of it execution grounds have run 
 red." 
 
 Observing Isabel staring intently at the chair, Com- 
 
 235 
 
236 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 missioner Caples playfully remarked : " Indeed and 
 you'd look very pretty in it, my dear — with a tower 
 of jewels on your head and a fringe of pearls hanging 
 down over your eyes, so that nobody could have an 
 inkling of what you were about. We'd have another 
 splendid Dowager." 
 
 The guests drifted out to the various engagements 
 evening always brought. Sir John went to his room 
 to read his letters. 
 
 Barry beckoned to Julie. " There is something I 
 Tvant to show you.! " All afternoon there had been in 
 his manner the intimation of showing his things 
 especially to her. 
 
 She followed him into a room, where he pointed 
 out a large framed picture of the Wall of China going 
 over the mountains into Manchuria. Instantly there 
 sprang before her mind the vision of it climbing in 
 the evening light the steep foot-hills, up to the dark 
 tops of the mountains, where its splendid watch towers 
 rose like a crown against the sky. 
 
 " It's a segment of the human mind, in stone ! " 
 she breathed. 
 
 He pointed to a gate tower set high upon the Wall. 
 *" The Gate of the World looking out upon Asia ! It 
 is far beyond there that Sun Yat Sen is shortly to 
 inarch afoot, secretly, on his mission — to shake an 
 empire. I'd give my soul to go ! For what other life 
 could offer a thing like that ? " 
 
 He turned on a light, and abruptly pulled out some 
 camphor chests. Opening them up, he tossed out 
 their contents. Julie dropped down on her knees and 
 watched the rare fabrics flow forth : lustrous brocades, 
 and cobweb tissues, sparkling with jeweled lights. He 
 unlocked carved and scented ivory boxes, and chains 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 237 
 
 of amethysts like drops of wine trembled out in a thin 
 stream ; then came sapphires hke blue winkitig eyes of 
 the night, and a little sack of pearls that took Julie's 
 breath wholly away. 
 
 " Am I in AH Baba's treasure cave ? " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 He smiled. " I have seen Ali Baba's treasure cave, 
 in Ceylon. There is a certain shop there which has 
 been kept by generations of a family. Indian princes 
 go to Ali Sherif for their jewels. Lots of these things 
 I got there for prices unheard of in Europe. When 
 I passed through last, Ali Sherif was celebrating his 
 son's marriage. I fell to praising some of the jewels 
 of the native prince, and, stirred by the mood of the 
 day, Ali invited me to go with him into the under- 
 ground vaults of his house. There on the floors of 
 those cellars were fabulous hills that blazed up under 
 his torch into every incredible kind of gleaming sun — 
 all garnered and stored away there by generations of 
 jewel-smiths." 
 
 Julie picked up and held admiringly in her hand a 
 dazzling medallion of white jade with a single hiero- 
 glyphic carved upon it. 
 
 " That's supposed to be a whale of a charm ! " 
 Barry explained, observing her fascination. " Be- 
 longed to the Imperial family. I got it -at the same 
 time I got the chair. Caples always insists that noth- 
 ing short of a crime on my part could have brought 
 either of them into my possession; but fleeing princes 
 will part with anything for a chance at life." 
 
 He drew a thin chain from one of the boxes, passed 
 it through the hole that was pierced in the piece of 
 jade, and slipped it around her neck. " There you 
 have a charm from the Lama's Temple in Lhassa. 
 
238 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 And there isn't a charm in Asia to beat its power. 
 There's scarcely a Mongolian that won't bow down to 
 it. I'll have a catch fixed for it, and send it to you." 
 
 Julie, seated among these riches, smiled up at him, 
 to find his whole being concentrated upon her in an 
 intense look that lifted her out of herself into a new 
 personality so thrillingly comprehensive that it seemed 
 in touch with a world of vivid inspirations. Bonds 
 seemed momentarily to be cut behind her ; she felt her- 
 self slipping on wings into high areas. All about her, 
 agitating her soul to its depths, was this great word- 
 less oflfering. 
 
 Chad and Isabel had not left. Chad, who had a 
 poetic passion for oriental art, had become absorbed 
 in some rare vases which Barry had recently received 
 from China. Isabel, between moments of fitful con- 
 templation of the red chair, stirred restlessly about, 
 contriving in her movements to reconnoiter along the 
 gallery into the adjoining room. Turning her eyes 
 back warily upon the preoccupied Chad, she every now 
 and then leaned around the wall between the two doors, 
 and obtained glimpses of what was taking place be- 
 tween Barry and Julie. Her dark head, listening 
 acutely, was stealthily thrust forward and withdrawn 
 like the head of some tropical serpent. 
 
 Chad uttered some remark, and she slipped quickly 
 back. He glanced up, and his gaze became transfixed 
 with amazed repugnance. After all, the creatures of 
 the East were black-hearted bats, he thought. Rosalie 
 had been sufficiently disillusioning, but here was Isabel 
 — who had always stood to his mind as a racial justi- 
 fication — looking like the root of all evil. 
 
 " Come here ! " she persuaded. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 239 
 
 He put down the vase and followed her, but the 
 stealth in her movements irritated him ; and when she 
 whispered tensely for him to look through .the door 
 toward which she was drawing him, he was inclined 
 to rebel. But what he saw appeared wholly to chain 
 his attention. He stared in silence for a moment at 
 the two figures beyond, then veered back with a sup- 
 pressed curse. 
 
 Isabel was breathing hard. " You know about those 
 chests ! " she exclaimed. " They are a fancy of his. 
 He has been filling them a long time — for a woman 
 — the woman ! We did not want any woman to come, 
 did we, and overturn his existence?" 
 
 He scDwled. " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean his destiny — his work," she cried pas- 
 sionately. " You know what I mean. Nobody must 
 get in his way ! " 
 
 " You don't think that Barry — and that cobweb of 
 a girl ! " Then he muttered fiercely. " Barry shan't 
 throw himself away too ! " 
 
 " And she's wrapped up in another man. She was 
 about to be married to him down South, but they 
 quarreled." 
 
 " Barry's career has no place in it for any woman — 
 least of all for her." Chad seemed to be arguing with 
 himself, or the universe. "Why should this moon- 
 lit wraith come along and attempt to throw everything 
 into an eclipse? What would he amount to after she 
 got into his soul ? " He appealed to Isabel : " Isn't 
 there any way to get her out of his path? " 
 
 Isabel's features set into a mask. " She's in the 
 way ! " she repeated vehemently. She glanced at 
 Chad sharply to fathom how deep his meaning went. 
 
240 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 "Resurrect the other man!" he hazarded desper- 
 ately. " Barry shan't be caught in this undertow ! 
 I've prayed like a Parsee that he would keep out ! " 
 
 At that moment Barry and Julie appeared in the 
 doorway. The two gazed at them, wondering. 
 
 " I'm going to drive Miss Dreschell home ! " Chad 
 suddenly announced. " She never takes the trouble 
 to talk to me, so I, am going to seize this chance." 
 
 As they drove together through the twilight, it be- 
 came clear to Julie that Chad had set himself to some 
 psychological investigation. She was aware that in 
 floating into his circle of life, she had aroused in him 
 some inexplicable distrust. 
 
 What he managed to evolve after a bit was that in 
 order thaf' Barry should meet the peculiar hazards of 
 his career, it was expedient for him to remain single - 
 hearted. Ellis Wilbur, Julie recalled, amid her con- 
 tending emotions, had said exactly the same thing. 
 Was everybody in the East a self-appointed guardian 
 over Barry's emotions? It gave her a feeling of be- 
 ing floated persistently away from his existence. 
 
 No, Barry must not be carried under by the current 
 of stressful emotions, as Chad painfully intimated he 
 himself had been. He contrived to make clear that 
 what he chiefly resented in Julie was a certain disturb- 
 ingly inefficacious flame of being, which he took oc- 
 casion to compare to a light-house open to the winds of 
 the seas. 
 
 He did not deny, now that she was under observa- 
 tion, the starry quality of her substance, but he re- 
 garded it as nothing more than an accident of soul. 
 Nothing ever would come from it, and Barry, he 
 pointed out, would be led astray by it, would follow in 
 its futile trail, a blind lopped-ofif scrap of the sun. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 241 
 
 " After a while," he continued, with the same ex- 
 traordinary frankness, " after you've dipped a finger 
 in the pie, you will go right back to the doing of end- 
 lessly inconsequential things and Barry, perhaps you 
 know, is committed to going on." Julie understood 
 that he referred to Barry's secret activities outside the 
 islands. 
 
 She regarded him gloomily. " I think you are per- 
 fectly right in assuming that nothing I shall ever do 
 will bear fruit. Once I tried to pull the fire down out 
 of the skies to light a few little clods of earth, but 
 the creatures only thought it was to burn them up." 
 
 " I think you will find that you pulled down that 
 fire to make a halo for your own head. For all your 
 hallowed way, you came into the East hunting tre- 
 mendous things for yourself." 
 
 Julie colored angrily. " I've seen for a long time 
 that you don't like me, but I find no justification for 
 an insult ! " 
 
 Chad's tone changed. " I am not trying to do that. 
 It isn't that I dislike you — but that I wish you hadn't 
 happened." A tense earnestness broke out on his 
 harassed face. " How can I make you understand 
 about Barry! What is it that fills the atmosphere 
 here? What do you feel in the air? " 
 
 " Belief — burning belief in the work," Julie deject- 
 edly replied. 
 
 " Yes, but mixed up with it, as there is mixed up 
 in every high impulse in man, you find the darker 
 strain. Read the mood of this place, and in it you 
 will find expectation — human expectation, every- 
 where high. Look at Isabel, for its greatest extra- 
 vagance ! " 
 
 " Yes," Julie agreed, " she looks and talks as if she 
 
242 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 lived in the greatest expectation of an extraordinary 
 climax for herself." 
 
 " And that's what in differing degrees they all ex- 
 pect. The high, clear strain is working for the cause, 
 and working hard, but the dark strain is using this 
 place as a training ground for personal power. Take 
 those people you met the other night at Isabel's : Hol- 
 • borne — he's a prime fighter, but do you think he'll not 
 desert the field when some other background offers to 
 set Holborne off to better advantage? And Leah 
 Chamberlain — what but a play-ground of the pas- 
 sions is this to her? And to Ellis Wilbur, what but 
 a rough struggle that she won't engage in, for fear of 
 getting hurt? I could name you a lot of others to 
 illustrate how this priceless and incol^oreal endeavor, 
 this Republic of the Sim — which is a movement to 
 take hold of the heart of the East, and not a South 
 African or Klondike gold-fields rush serves solely for 
 the aggrandizement of human personalities." 
 
 He paused, and looked at her keenly. " So when 
 you see one simple, splendid exception, you've just got 
 to hang on to it by your teeth! Outside of Father 
 Hull, there is just one person in this whole Archipelago 
 who has sought nothing, absolutely nothing for him- 
 self. He has never had a ruling prince's job, though 
 the Government has often to go and get him when it's 
 in a pinch. Though he's the best known man in the 
 Islands, he's never dreamed of making himself into a 
 political power :'^— He's just the 'Mayor of Manila ' 
 — a wholly make-believe title,* since there's no such 
 thing; but I know of no personality that by scatter- 
 ing itself freely has come into such an accruement of 
 power. 
 
 " That's what sets him apart. That's what through 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 243 
 
 » 
 
 all contingencies will cause him to survive — because 
 
 neither fate nor God can get along without an agency 
 
 like that." 
 
 To hide her emotion Julie looked out into the dusk. 
 Again Nahal, with all its eternal futility, arose like a 
 bar to the universe. In vain she tried to push the 
 vision off her horizon : there, she knew, it would stand 
 always as the total of her spirit's achievement. 
 
 Chad went on, but with less assurance now. " I 
 have heard that there is — that there might be another 
 factor in this thing. Perhaps it could happily be 
 made the determining one. I refer to — the other 
 man. Couldn't he be hurried along? This is abso- 
 lutely his moment. I offer you my assistance in every 
 way, to make it clear to him that this is the time to 
 step in." 
 
 Julie threw him a sharply amazed glance. " Why 
 should Isabel have repeated that ? How can you talk 
 about things you don't understand? I needn't an- 
 swer you, of course, but I will. The man you speak 
 of is never coming back. Nobody but Isabel would 
 have dreamed of such a thing." 
 
 " Then why sit in this dark thrall and wait for 
 him?" 
 
 Julie drew away in fresh surprise. " Could it occur 
 to you that this probing might become painful ? " She 
 put her hands to her head. " But it's because I don't 
 blame you greatly that I reply at all." She lifted her 
 head, and looked at him with a great earnestness. 
 " You found out that I was — waiting; but you didn't 
 know for \<rhat. I'll tell you now," she almost sobbed. 
 " I wanted to be- released from the dark, brutal spell 
 of failure — I wanted to recapture a last territory of 
 my soul." 
 
244 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 After he had left Julie at her gate, Chad drove to 
 Isabel's house. Isabel was one of Chad's best friends. 
 Beautiful and seductive as an houri, she was sur- 
 rounded in both his mind and Barry's with the romance 
 and tragedy of an unappeased Kundry soul. Her 
 fallen ambitions among her father's race touched them. 
 They were haunted by the cruel fact that the East 
 alone offered a destiny; and though she was their an- 
 tagonist, they courted and admired her. Her wild 
 aspirations they had credited to her natural mental 
 opulence, and her environment. Recent events, how- 
 ever, were tending to shake some of their comfortable 
 convictions. 
 
 The houses of the East are open, and there are no 
 bells. Dicky-Dicky, the dwarf, whose duty it was to 
 stand on guard at the stair case, was nowhere about 
 when Chad arrived. He climbed the stairs and, com- 
 pletely at home, sat down on the railing of the gallery, 
 and looked at the river, the view of which from this 
 point was always enchanting. 
 
 A light burned in the sala, but the rest of the house 
 appeared to be in darkness. Isabel, no doubt, had not 
 reached home. He would wait for her. 
 
 Voices from somewhere back of him floated indis- 
 tinctly at first across his thoughts. Then, as the 
 sounds became clearer, and arresting in their signifi- 
 cance, his attention focused. In his long sojourn in 
 the islands he had picked up the use of the Tagalog 
 dialect. He heard an exclamation, and recognized the 
 voice as Isabel's. 
 
 " And so this pilgrimage of spells and charms, and 
 working upon lives, goes on, Witch of Arayat ! " 
 
 Chad pricked up his ears instantly. The Witch of 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 245 
 
 Arayat had been a fantastic legend when he at first 
 came to the islands. From the obscurity of the years, 
 Isabel had evidently raised to life her spell-casting 
 mother. 
 
 " The march is long," a fainter voice replied. 
 " First I sought the Covenant in the Golden Ark on 
 the Sacred Mountain. Now I seek it all over the 
 earth. Why have you sent for me? " 
 
 " When one greatly needs, one sends for one's 
 mother." 
 
 " I gave you all when I left." 
 
 " I sent for you to vv^ork a spell for me ! I want 
 Paradise, my Mother. But my hands can not reach 
 it. So I have sent for you to help me." 
 
 Isabel was capable of reverting to the superstition 
 of her blood ! To win her aspirations, whatever they 
 might be, she had resurrected the ChamvWoman. 
 They were all like that. Rosalie had told him that in 
 order to win his love she had steadily taken magic 
 potions. 
 
 The voices died down for a moment. Chad sat 
 wondering. He fancied he saw a tremor in the cur- 
 tains that screened Isabel's apartment. Two words of 
 the droning syllables back flared audible again. 
 
 " A medicine ! " 
 
 Chad stirred uneasily. He did not wish to hear 
 about any more potions. Just then from the spot 
 where he had seen the curtains tremble, Dicky-Dicky 
 the dwarf emerged hurriedly and passed without see- 
 ing him. 
 
 "He's been listening!" Chad concluded. Eaves- 
 dropping was a common oriental pastime; but the ap- 
 pearance of the dwarf indicated that he had understood 
 
246 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 something in that interview beyond that Chad had not. 
 What mischief were Isabel and her mother up to? 
 Some new political scheming, perhaps. 
 
 Suddenly Isabel, her face like a spot of darkness 
 against the lighted room, appeared. Chad rose 
 startled, as if some black whirlwind were approaching 
 him. Here was the passion of the Levant that he 
 always veiled — that dreadful ravening primeval force 
 that assailed and overthrew his ideals. Of course, in- 
 nately, he had always expected Isabel to be like this. 
 He knew instinctively that she was a volcano around 
 which they had sat in false peace. 
 
 Something had shaken terribly Isabel's exotic uni- 
 verse. Some secret word had come perhaps of the 
 bursting of the bubble — hers and Orcullu's. What- 
 ever this emotion was, it broke from deeper sources 
 than he could divine. It took him several moments 
 to open his mouth in the face of it. 
 
 " I stopped to tell you that I have talked with the 
 girl, and I fear that there is no use trying to get that 
 other man back." 
 
 He paused, finding it difficult to refer to the sensi- 
 bilities of his own race. They appeared to lift like 
 inconsequential bubbles before this inconceivable mood. 
 
 But that fierceness continued to make demand upon 
 him. " It's too bad," he added, " The affair turns 
 out to be merely a tryst with her own soul. But — " 
 He tried to get Barry's name out, and failed. What 
 he wanted to do was to reassure their mutual fears 
 concerning Barry, and to declare confidently that Barry 
 would keep clear of the complication. Instead, he 
 found himself edging toward the stairs while that 
 gathering dreadfulness followed him. 
 
 He descended without looking behind him, but he 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 247 
 
 could see through the back of his head Isabel's image, 
 while ahead of him Rosalie's rice-powdered face 
 seemed to wave across his path; and in that moment 
 he thanked God that he had never begotten children of 
 the East. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN her school in the Tondo, Julie was required to 
 supervise as well as to teach. Her two native 
 assistants, Mariana and Clarino, however, were 
 the two most sacerdotally devout worshipers before the 
 Ark of Education that she had ever seen. 
 
 Her own class consisted of boys and girls between 
 the ages of fourteen and sixteen — maturity for 
 Malays. Reports of cholera were now steadily coming 
 from the provinces, and Julie made it her chief con- 
 cern to impress upon her pupils the precautions they 
 should take to guard themselves against it. She read 
 aloud the ominous accounts of what was transpiring 
 in the provincial districts, and strove to move them to 
 active interest. Against the River — the lurking 
 monster in their lives — she warned them most pas- 
 sionately, and exhorted them to the point of prayer 
 against all manner of uncooked food. 
 
 The answer of the ages came back to her through 
 the medium of these yoimg creatures. The River had 
 been there always — since before Abraham. It was 
 God's own river, and it could not therefore do harm. 
 And the things of the soil — they grew at His will; 
 would they then poison the sons of men ? Thereupon 
 followed the fiat, old as time, the fiat of the God of 
 the Pavilion : " If we are to die, we will die ! " 
 
 Julie's headaches had become a serious menace. In 
 fact, in conjunction with the devitalizing climate, they 
 were, she saw with trepidation, fast sucking out her 
 strength. She was now spending five straight hours 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 249 
 
 in the school-room, beginning at eight in the morn- 
 ing; then, after a short interim of rest, she went to 
 Seiior Sansillo's for the afternoon. In order to defray 
 her expenses and to meet her obligations, she must 
 inexorably keep going all the time. She could not 
 afford to be ill: she had not one cent to be ill with, 
 or any one to'tum to in this great awful East. Barry, 
 she felt, was the only creature she could lean upon; 
 but she had a pronounced aversion to appealing to him 
 or to any one else. Very vivid in her memory was 
 the recollection of a time when, in direst trouble, she 
 had put out her hands and they had closed on empty 
 space. That experience had engendered in her a bit- 
 ter resolve to stand or fall on her own resources. 
 Never again, she felt, would she completely trust any 
 one. Secretly and somberly she believed in her heart 
 that men would break any covenant, if they could do 
 so without incurring the judgment of the world. 
 
 For some time Julie had noticed standing either in 
 the road or in the stall of Pietro Poro opposite her 
 window, an old woman, who always stared into the 
 distance as if she were stone — with that fashion of 
 patience these people had when they were waiting for 
 something to come to pass. She was withered and 
 darkened, as if she had traveled through endless hot 
 winds. She always carried in front of her a flat bas- 
 ket like a tray, which was supported by a cord bound 
 round her head. 
 
 When Julie asked the native teachers what the old 
 woman was waiting for, Mariana, the more imagina- 
 tive one, replied that she was not waiting for any one. 
 that she was " watching the world go by." Mariana 
 thought she was a caster of spells; but male common 
 sense asserted itself in Clarino, who explained that 
 
250 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 she was a herb-woman. Julie had not before seen a 
 vendor of this type, but she remembered odd Httle 
 bundles of dried leaves that had been sold as medicine 
 in the fairs of Nahal — for it was only at such cele- 
 brations that Guindulman had displayed an open 
 market. She recalled how Gregorio used to bring 
 these mysterious bundles home and munch at them as a 
 remedy for some impalpable disorganization which he 
 professed to feel in his gorilla-like frame. When one 
 day she had asked him their utility, his reply had been 
 a vigorous pass across his vital organs and a gustatory 
 declaration, " Mucho bueno!" She also knew that 
 most of the ladies of the garrison had used a highly 
 efficacious soapy bark for shampooing; it had saved 
 more than one head of hair. 
 
 One afternoon when Julie descended the steps, she 
 found the old woman at the door. She held up a 
 small bundle, and murmured something to Mariana and 
 Clarino, who were behind Julie. She had said some- 
 thing to the natives, that put her goods in an adventur- 
 ous light, and they bent interestedly over her basket. 
 While she flung monosyllables at them, she looked 
 keenly at Julie. 
 
 Something that flashed out of her glances startled 
 Julie; a glimpse of a myriad of human things leaped 
 out of this herb-vendor's face as out of a well — dark- 
 nesses, cruelties, sublimities, and a kind of burning 
 thirst, as if this old thing were a traveler on the deserts 
 «of the universe hunting for a spring. 
 
 Mariana and Clarino passed on, and the old woman, 
 whose eyes were upon Julie in their distant yet riveted 
 gaze, spoke to her in Spanish. She asked Julie very 
 soberly if she knew where the Covenant could be 
 found. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 251 
 
 Julie was stupendously amazed, but before she could 
 reply, the old woman went on to say that she had 
 sought the Covenant on the tops of high mountains and 
 across strange lands. She said that Julie had a light 
 in her face that would lead to it, and that if she would 
 come with her they would find it together. 
 
 A fantastic little thrill of exaltation shot through 
 the girl. It was the strangest, the most unaccountable, 
 and the most preposterous offer she had ever had made 
 her. She smiled as she shook her head a little pen- 
 sively — the youth in her a little sad at refusing any 
 mystic adventure. 
 
 The old woman was watching her. Standing in the 
 beating sun, her brows had contracted spasmodically. 
 
 " You are bad in the head? " 
 
 Julie nodded. " The sun did it, some time ago." 
 
 The herb-woman caught up something which she 
 opened to Julie in the palm of her hand. " It will 
 take away the headache." She pressed the modicum 
 upon the girl, in the insistent native way. " Try it, 
 Senorita. Never has it failed to stop pain." 
 
 Julie hesitated. 
 
 " Look — this I give to you to try. I give it with- 
 out payment, knowing that when you have tested it 
 you will want more. 
 
 Julie's hand closed slowly over the gift. The old 
 woman and hqr basket dropped away. 
 
 On her way home, Julie passed through the Escolta, 
 where Rosalie Messenger invited her into' her car- 
 riage. Julie had met Rosalie at Isabel's; and in the 
 Escolta she met her casually and often, because Julie 
 frequently took that route home from Senior Sansillo's, 
 and Rosalie was always flitting restlessly up and down 
 the street like a tired butterfly. Rosalie usually 
 
252 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 stopped her carriage to take Julie in, then up and down 
 the narrow ancient thoroughfare they would move, in 
 the human current of new and old races, before Rosalie 
 drove her home. 
 
 To-day Julie was more grateful than ever when 
 Rosalie picked her up, for the heat was fearfully op- 
 pressive. Julie dropped back in the seat, and pressed 
 her hands to her aching head, while Rosalie, a tropical 
 person who appeared to have passed through a magic 
 immunity at birth, craned her small head at the 
 passers-by. 
 
 On a corner they caught a glimpse of Barry, his 
 tall form lifted energetically above the heated proces- 
 sion, the grasp of the colony in his face. He was 
 visualizing, Julie thought, far-oflf peoples marching 
 under many banners beneath the sun. As they passed 
 him, a bitter look flashed across Rosalie's oriental face. 
 
 Noticing Julie's attitude of discomfort, Rosalie with- 
 drew her attention from the street. " The headache 
 still ? You suffer from it always ! " 
 
 Julie nodded. " It's getting so now it seldom stops. 
 That horrible sunstroke blistered my brain. Listen, 
 Rosalie " — she sat up — " an old woman has been com- 
 ing to my school selling herbs. She has a medicine 
 that she says will stop my hea'daches. Do you think 
 there is anything in such remedies ? I am getting des- 
 perate; for, you see, I'm not like you who can drive 
 around in a carriage all your life." 
 
 " What was the old woman like? " Rosalie asked. 
 
 " Oh, in the distance she's just any old woman, but 
 up close not like anybody at all. She seemed very 
 anxious to have me try the medicine — in fact, she 
 gave me some of it to try. Do you believe in such 
 things?" 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 253 
 
 The mestiza shifted in her seat, but did not at once 
 reply. At last, looking abstractedly at the horses' glis- 
 tening backs, she said, " There are wise old women — 
 who effect cures." 
 
 " She says odd things." Julie hesitated. " She 
 talked about a Covenant — and a high mountain." 
 
 "Ah!" Rosalie breathed. Then she turned about 
 abruptly. " And will you try the medicine ? " 
 
 " Have you ever known people to take such reme- 
 dies?" 
 
 Rosalie nodded with conviction. "If you under- 
 stood our people, you would know that nearly all buy, 
 and believe in them. I have known these herb prep- 
 arations to help greatly. Why shouldn't they? Most 
 of the specifics of the Pharmacopoeia grow wild 
 here." 
 
 "It sounds interesting," Julie reflected. "I'll try 
 her cure, anyway. Then if I don't get better, I'll go to 
 a doctor — and have more debts to pay ! " 
 
 A few days later, she stopped Rosalie's passing car- 
 riage and said to her: *'I have been taking some of 
 the old woman's remedy. It really helps me. One 
 can learn a lot from the East." 
 
 Delphine appeared occasionally at the school, to see 
 his Maestra; always diplomatically choosing school 
 hours for his visits. He reported that he was getting 
 on very well, that the Setior Barry had bought him 
 beautiful new clothes, and that Dicky-Dicky was his 
 sworn friend and guardian. He was teaching the 
 dwarf English — out of the very books which his 
 'Maestra had used with him. Dicky-Dicky learned 
 thirstily, because he believed that some day this knowl- 
 edge would help him out. They talked much, Delphine 
 said, of Nahal, and the dwarf always seemed troubled 
 
254 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 about the Maestra's treatment there, and took great 
 satisfaction in the thought that his sister had upheld 
 . her in her trials. 
 
 The carelessly generous remuneration of her pupil, 
 Seiior Sansillo, aroused in Julie the vision of paying 
 off the debt with which she had come saddled into the 
 New World, and which had been the source of so many 
 of her misfortunes. 
 
 Senor Sansillo lived in one of the most pretentious 
 mansions of the Walled City. He was a lawyer of 
 large interests ; in fact, out of sheer adventurousness, 
 he was interested JSnancially in almost every large 
 commercial enterprise in the islands. A large suite of 
 rooms in the entresuelo, or downstairs portion of his 
 residence, served as his offices. These were palatially 
 furnished with the elaborate acquisitions of many pil- 
 grimages throughout the East. 
 
 He was of a splendid family in Spain, whose im- 
 poverishment had driven him out to seek his fortune 
 in the colonies. At some time or other in his history, 
 he had been attached to the court of a Spanish princess 
 of the royal family, and he had a manner in keeping 
 with that distinction. It was the fact of his having 
 been forced to disclose the existence of his mestiza 
 wife that had kept him. back, like so many others, in 
 the arms of the tolerant East. Seiiora Sansillo had 
 been one of the richest " hijas del pais," and it was 
 upon the foundation of her wealth that his great in- 
 sular fortune had been reared. 
 
 In appearance he was the most carefully correct man 
 Julie had ever seen, his endless varieties of apparel all 
 being obtained from a famous tailor in Paris. He 
 was tall, as sharply slender as the blade of a knife; of 
 almost ferocious activity, with a face on which emo- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 255 
 
 tions seethed as in a hot lake. Among the crude, blunt, 
 sweating figures of the Colony, the Senor's personal ex- 
 quisiteness stood strangely forth. Why, in such un- 
 amenable surroundings, he should still care to pre- 
 serve this high fineness of existence, Julie often 
 ■wondered. He would step forth from his great car- 
 riage, with its jingling silver harnessing, upon the 
 pavement of the crowded, heterogeneous Luneta pre- 
 cisely as he would have emerged upon his favorite 
 Boulevard. He carried this fasti<iious grace with him 
 into his business, and was actually noble in his refusal 
 to lower even here his aesthetic attitude. Rather than 
 take off his coat of dignity and get down and struggle 
 in the dirt, however metaphorically, he would lose any 
 amount of money, and snap his Castilian fingers after 
 it. That did not mean, however, that he consistently 
 lost in his enterprises. He was much too brilliant and 
 too versed in the refinements of mental strategy for 
 that. 
 
 He was, Julie soon discovered, inordinately fond of 
 telling " anecdotas." These recitals were usually of a 
 delicate double meaning, and Julie could hear his clients 
 in the law office adjoining her room constantly break- 
 ing into gales of laughter. The Sefior would appear 
 for his lesson with the tears of appreciation standing 
 in his eyes. While wiping them reverently away with 
 a large silk handkerchief, he would assure Julie con- 
 dolingly that she had the sense of humor of a Pil- 
 grim Father. When she could not understand his 
 stories in Spanish, he turned them, wickedly twink- 
 ling, into French; and when there, happily for her, 
 the point missed her, he would twirl his delicate fingers 
 toward the window and appear to beckon the whole 
 world into the joke. 
 
256 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 The Seiior had the Latin's abysmal contempt for 
 English — a clumsy language, he declared it, without 
 science or charm; and his lessons were like so many 
 brief, reluctant plunges into a cold bath, they were 
 really the last thing on earth that concerned him. 
 English! Yes, he was resolved to learn it, but any 
 detestable time would answer. As there were no suit- 
 able books that Julie could find for the instruction of 
 adults, she brought a few from school. It was the 
 Seiior's practice, while she was trying to teach him 
 and while he wanted to tell stories, to pick up gingerly 
 between thumb and forefinger an offending First 
 Reader that had been pored over by many a browilie, 
 and, shaking its leaves contemptuously, exclaim : " Is 
 it within the limits of reason as conceived in your ad- 
 mirable head that a grown man in complete possession 
 of his senses can endure a thing like this : ' The cat ate 
 the rat : Spell cat, rat, also bat, hat, and mat ' — Bah ! " 
 
 At four o'clock, in deference to her Anglo-Saxon 
 nationality, tea would be served. It was of such an 
 extraordinarily reprehensible character that Julie at 
 first had to be told what it was. Nobody in the Sefior's 
 house was familiar with tea-making, and least of all 
 the native cook. From what Julie could gather from 
 the Seiior, a handful of tea-leaves was boiled, like 
 spinach, to pulp and added to a mixture of condensed 
 milk and brown sugar. The Seiior sipped his tiny 
 glass of cognac and watched in wonder while Julie 
 heroically made away with the concoction. " The 
 English are an enigmatic race," he reflected. " The 
 Bank of England, the bank, of the world, you under- 
 stand, stops work every day in the calendar in order 
 that every soul in it may of this fearful fluid imbibe." 
 
 Upstairs his family lived. Seiiora Sansillo was a 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 257 
 
 sweet-faced woman of the stout mestiza type ; dressed 
 when she went out in screaming brocades and plumes, 
 and when she stayed in scarcely dressed at all. Her 
 husband referred to her in a respectfully disinterested 
 way as " Eustefa " and as of " heavenly temperament." 
 Why of her own free will she should wish to be so 
 good, he could not think. " As for me — I am a 
 diablo!" he would thoughtfully add, twirling his 
 Mephistophelian mustaches. 
 
 His children were attractive and intelligent, but they 
 had upon them the indefinable Malay stamp. Along- 
 side their father's sharply defined frame, they looked 
 as if they had somehow been cast in wax. Children 
 of the sun ! Columbines of a tropical garden ! Some- 
 times Julie would see the Seiior pick up the youngest, 
 a little brown will-o'-the-wisp, and after looking her 
 over searchingly thrust her down with an inarticulate 
 exclamation. 
 
 In time, the herb-woman's medicine seemed to have 
 proved for Julie to be a veritable panacea. It helped 
 her to work and to sleep. At night when her whole 
 body quivered with fatigue and rivers of weariness 
 coursed over her frame, it was an agency of relief. 
 It was not only a refuge from suffering, but it was 
 also a reserve against over-strain; it helped her to go 
 through the second part of the day, which was the in- 
 tolerable part. Rising from inadequate rest with the 
 dragging sensation of coming up out of the water with 
 the weight of the world about her neck, and facing 
 the compulsion of crossing the scorching city to battle 
 with the intractable Setior, she gained from the medi- 
 cine fresh spurts of strength. Sometimes, even, she 
 seemed to come alive to a new world, from which 
 armies of doubts and despairs had fled, and which was 
 
258 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 invested with the rosiest plans for her drab and clearly 
 indeterminate future. Sometimes she rose to a su- 
 perb tolerance of mood in which mere human happen- 
 ings were but traceries on dust. 
 
 With hard work and increasing bad health, Julie 
 , gradually saw less of the acquaintances she had made. 
 Isabel and Ellis were the Empire's more fortunate 
 women, claiming its brilliant and leisurely phases, 
 whereas she was drifting farther and farther into in- 
 significance. Father Hull was in Hong Kong making 
 an attempt to rehabilitate his health. Barry, as things 
 were drawing to a crisis for the Americans, was off 
 Over the Islands ever3rwhere, striving desperately to 
 stir up sentiment against evacuation and feverishly at- 
 tempting to finish off some projects before the end. 
 
 A building era had struck the centers of the Archi- 
 pelago and he was egging the natives on to materialize 
 their aspirations. He always came to see Julie at once 
 upon his brief returns to Manila, bringing with him 
 some little trophy of the trip. They would sit to- 
 gether under the fire-trees in the Reredos' garden, with 
 the little flames of blossoms, lying about them in the 
 grass while he recounted his adventures. Other cities 
 beautiful, he said were springing up. Legaspi had a 
 regular citadel of imposing public edifices tinder way. 
 San Fernando, Pampanga, had voted a splendid public 
 square of modem cement buildings. Solano, sepul- 
 chered dust of the Conquistadores, was being rapidly 
 lifted from its tomb; an earthquake had come along 
 and by spilling part of the ancient city had greatly 
 aided Orcullu in his attempt to rear a new commercial 
 port. 
 
 An earthquake had in fact shaken the whole archi- 
 pelago; there was a great eruptive attempt to join in 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 259 
 
 the march of modem progress. The Americans, Barry 
 informed her, had made over waterways, harbors, and 
 cities, developed vast tracts of forest, established new 
 trade routes, roads, a railway, organized industries and, 
 in a manner of godlike benevolence never attempted 
 at home, were supervising the health, morals, educa- 
 tion and welfare of the entire race. The big things 
 were chuggling through. One corner of the East any- 
 way, after a great deal of phenomenal pushing, was 
 beginning to stir. Imperishable cities were beginning 
 to rear their heads, not alone at the instigation of the 
 Americans but at the incentive of the natives them- 
 selves, out of whose local resources and exuberant good 
 will, the new cities were being built. 
 
 While Barry pondered expansively under the fire 
 tree, starting up sometimes to tread the grass as if it 
 were springs, Julie sat quietly rapt and listened. She 
 loved terribly these big things in which she could have 
 no part. She would clasp and unclasp her hands in 
 suppressed emotion while this splendid, transported 
 Odysseus, his desert face glowing like furnace gold, 
 his great youthful frame energizing the dusk as he 
 moved, recited the achievements of the Argonauts. 
 Always there was some burning agitation in his soul. 
 As he walked and talked he would stir his hair wildly 
 in his characteristic fashion. Julie loved to watch him 
 in moments like this, for at such times only she was 
 completely happy. Her soul seemed to ask for nothing 
 more, as if for the moment it were filled with realized 
 dreams. 
 
 " Ah ! " she once exclaimed, in a glory of satisfac- 
 tion. " You never could get pinned down to the dust 
 like the rest of us. You could stay in this Lions' Den 
 forever and come out unscathed." 
 
260 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " If I did get down, remember, Julie, I should look to 
 you." 
 
 " Because I know so much about the earth — the 
 hard ground floor of it? It seems somehow to have 
 a natural affinity for me." She reflected ruefully. 
 
 He stared off a while at the starry horizon. " We're 
 agents of the inevitable. America, like Christianity, 
 Julie, is one of the biggest things in human history. 
 The two of them are victories of the soul of men." 
 
 " Even old China," he went on, " caught from Amer- 
 ica the reflection of democracy. But what she gleaned 
 sank down crosswise into her poor old brain, and she 
 broke out into a muddling chaotic geyser that she mis- 
 conceived as a revolt. 
 
 " But, howsoever muddlesomely, Asia has made a be- 
 ginning. She has kicked up, never afterwards really 
 to settle down. The habit of mind of ages has been 
 thrown off. You think I am a wild prophet, but I 
 have read secret tumults in the souls of men that later 
 shall take sure shape. The underground fire will 
 spread, and you will some day see China break out 
 through every crack of her blistered, old surface. 
 ,Then we shall be able to say that we have done our 
 >vork!" 
 
 Barry's manner suddenly altered. The triumph of 
 his mood faded. "Julie, the end will come here 
 though, if these people persist. They dare to risk so 
 soon the human republicanism we've sweated for. In 
 this black chaos of famine and plague they want to 
 stand alone. Have they forgotten the big brute bulks 
 that shadow this horizon ? the lions and the panthers 
 coming out of the dark to devour them? The work 
 pf our hearts — in the dust ! " He clenched his hands. 
 
 " Congress will pass the Bill. It will be lights out 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 261 
 
 here before long — our carefully trimmed lights. We 
 will have to move to new beats in the East." 
 
 He caught her hand and walked with her to the 
 gate, where, turning about to face her, he said with 
 deep emotion : " The cities of my heart may pass, the 
 fires that my life has lighted die, but you will remain 
 in my soul the one eternally abiding thing." 
 
 Long after the gate had closed behind him, Julie, 
 the light all about her, stood pondering those words. 
 Like a prophecy of fire, her soul saw them — like a 
 glowing handwriting on the walls of fate, burning 
 characters predicting a future — a future in which far 
 desert peoples were concerned, and shining human 
 deeds. An immortal experience was about to offer 
 itself out of her frustrated land of dreams. 
 
 She felt, as she sat there alone in the moonlight, as 
 if she had been summoned off her futile earth to oc- 
 cupy a finer planet, of Asian gardens, pervaded with 
 an ineffable fragrance of soul. This planet did not 
 hold China, full of black blots; it had nothing to do 
 with the terrible Pavilion with leprous beggars leaning 
 out of it. Julie did not know what this land was or 
 where, but it was full of the accumulated and expur- 
 gated glories of the East. 
 
 However Barry might succeed or fail, if his projects 
 collapsed at his feet or if he won heroically, he alone 
 was wonderful, splendid, inspired; the Excelsior man 
 struggling upward with the banner of humanity. He 
 burned upon Julie's dreams as everything bright and 
 fine. She recalled the night they had first shared their 
 virginal dreams — before the sinister obstacle had 
 come. Why had they been separated to take ever 
 widening roads of destiny? Near him she felt a sense 
 of tingling peace, of vivid harmony with even the un- 
 
262 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 conscious stones, so contrasting with all the other 
 gloomy emotions that had warped her life. She could 
 have gone on forever in the atmosphere he created of 
 fluid golden good-will. Where he was, was always 
 light. Even the dusk glowed pretematurally, with a" 
 promise hid. A' sense of him pervaded the garden 
 now, its lighted lengths, its drifting fragrance. His 
 presence was still here, touching every pulse. 
 
 All about were the mates of the garden. She knew 
 their little dramas: the male Papaya Tree peering 
 across in dark discomfiture at a private little miracle 
 — a comb of incandescent mites of blossoms that his 
 mate had proudly on display! The lovely lady Sun- 
 Tree dancing like an houri in the breeze, waving her 
 delicate plumes and swinging her gay bells with their 
 hairs of tongues, while her coarse mate, rooted by his 
 heavy frame to the earth cursed and groaned. 
 Haughty, green women of the garden! They had 
 things better than their human sisters! Above her, 
 pure as the heart of Mary, without ever an earthly 
 love in it, the white cadena trailed snowily along the 
 walls, while orchids quartered on fern trees watched the 
 night with uncanny eyes ; and close at Julie's hand the 
 glowing grail of the hybiscus sadly held forth to a 
 darkened world the blood of Christ. 
 
 Beautiful sacred garden! If only by some magic it 
 could be carried on to flower forever in all the cycles 
 of her uncertain future ! Here in this never-to-be-for- 
 gotten garden, they two had sat with the alamanders 
 gleaming upon them like a galaxy of golden moons, 
 and had proclaimed the promise of a new earth. 
 
 For once the sense of her weakness, her incon- 
 sequence, left her — the burdensome sense of herself as 
 a bungling, unsuccessful instrument of life was swept 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 263 
 
 out of her consciousness by new visions. The very 
 night shimmered with great dreams. Glowing gates 
 appeared to her imagination, and vast still deserts with 
 men waiting watchfully beneath the stars. It was that 
 watching and waiting that thrilled through her, caused 
 her to start up in wonder and awe, as if from some- 
 where a summons had throbbed : a vision of far ques- 
 tioning places and of waiting watching men over 
 against the Wall that crowns Cathay, 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 BUT if there were nights in a moonlight garden, 
 there were also broiling days in an equatorial 
 city with streets hot under foot and an atmos- 
 phere like waves of fire. Julie was moving dizzily 
 and heavily through life, sleeping badly, dreaming 
 strangely, and forgetting her food. She sat ab- 
 stractedly over her meals, staring out beyond her. 
 
 " That is the way with you Americans ! " Seiior 
 Reredo remarked. " You bum yourselves out at once, 
 forgetting that it must be a slow wick and a long one 
 that lasts in the hot wifids." 
 
 " You are ill ! " the Seiiora would declare. " All 
 the fine little bones in your face are beginning to 
 show." 
 
 It was just as well, the girl thought, that the taste 
 for food had left her, since the fare of the Reredos 
 was almost completely unpalatable. Julie supple- 
 mented it at great expense in an American restaurant. 
 They sometimes served her cardbao's milk, and besides, 
 during the meals, it was the habit of Chiquito, the pig, 
 to whimper around the table for titbits, sticking his 
 fore-paws beseechingly on the children's laps. Chi- 
 quito was a clean pig and a very clever one, but Julie 
 had her prejudices. 
 
 She was forced to walk great distances through the 
 hot streets. Livery carromatas were too dear, and she 
 would not get into nondescript Tondo vehicles. Once 
 in desperation she had resolved to attempt one of these 
 conveyances that carried the imdercurrent of the city's 
 life. The rat-like remnant of a horse, whose eyes 
 
 264 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 265 
 
 begged for death, had stopped its unsteady motion, and 
 the coachman, the veriest dust of the streets, was 
 signaling the occupancy of the crazy coadi, when a 
 dreadful tmconcemed face with small-pox ulcers all 
 over it, and a cigar stuck in the comer of its mouth, 
 thrust itself out at her. Death abroad on a jaunt ! 
 
 The streets with their unfathomable misery of life 
 were an eternal curiosity to her. It was incompre- 
 hensible that men would take the trouble to go on 
 breathing on such terms. Poor, tawdry, human pro- 
 cession, with its occasional holiday of soul, when, like 
 ants from far trails, its units met and rubbed noses tm- 
 intelligibly. It was good not to be a gopher or an ant, 
 but to be something that counted very acutely in the 
 universe. Gophers were bom gophers, ants were bom 
 ants — and Julies, by a comfortable decree, were bom 
 Julies. It had all been arranged that way definitely 
 and succinctly by thoughtful forces and there was no 
 use of aching over it. Gophers and ants must go on 
 nibbling ardund the careless feet of the gods. One 
 single human fleck of pity could not fan the East 
 into life. It was all too big a proposition for one in- 
 effectual soul. 
 
 One day walking home by a new route, she saw in 
 the aperture of a broken wall, a forlorn old man sit- 
 ting, looking out with half blind eyes. Poor old her- 
 mit, pondering perhaps with all the hopelessness of 
 the East, on To-morrow. She stopped to speak a few 
 words to him, and saw stretching beyond her an alley 
 of broken turns, between lines of battered old walls. 
 Moved to curiosity, she followed the alley and came 
 suddenly upon a savage fastness, at the edge of the 
 sea, a hideous retreat of tattered beggars, who at the 
 sight of the chance invader came leaping up out of the 
 
266 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 sand, where they had been ferociously gambling and 
 matching cocks, and closed about her — a jeering, 
 threatening crew, followed by a pack of horrible dogs. 
 Out of their filthy huts made of scraps of tin, boards, 
 old rags, nipa, more tatterdemalion creatures appeared. 
 The dregs of the city cornered here ! On the shallows 
 of the sea, lay a flotilla of blood-red sails. What, hor- 
 ribly, did they catch in this nightmare retreat ? 
 
 Never had she seen human existence in quite so 
 grotesque and satirical a setting. This was not a 
 picture of the usual native, contentedly at sea in the 
 universe, nor of the gophers in their sad mud em- 
 bankments, nor yet the settled evil of Chinatown, but 
 of a crooked, grimacing sort of comer where the in- 
 digestibles of an Eastern city found haven. Human 
 grotesqueries ! The ordinary panorama of the native's 
 futile life was disheartening enough, but this blur of 
 savage hobgoblins jeering at the sun, seizing like 
 Maebeth's witches on the prey of the Alley was terrify- 
 ing. She ran precipitately back, tearing her garments 
 from the women's greedy clutches, with the howls of 
 the Alley in her ears and their blood-red sails burning 
 on her brain. The horror of the East ! The Pavilion 
 of imreclaimed human waste for which not even God 
 cared! 
 
 Stumbling blindly home in the sun with an aching 
 head, she felt that this hot cosmos into which her life 
 had fallen was a furnace that was going to consume her 
 altogether. But the medicine, she remembered, would 
 help this miasma and dull the sick weight of the world. 
 She climbed upstairs, picked up a box and took a 
 powdery, pellet from it. 
 
 On the table lay a long, official envelope. She picked 
 it up abstractedly and broke it open, wondering why 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 267 
 
 the red-haired man was moved to send out so man^ 
 meaningless, uninspired messages. She glanced it 
 over, then suddenly for an instant not a thing stirred 
 in her. At last her breath broke out of her throat in 
 a sob. Another blow out of the East! 
 
 The Department was very brief about what it had 
 to say. It gave no specific reason, nor did it go deeply^ 
 into explanations. It merely announced that after the 
 end of the current month her services would no longer 
 be required. It took not more than a line to intimate 
 that the failure of her efforts in the Southern Islands 
 was responsible for this decision. If she desired 
 transportation to the States — the Department was 
 beautifully benevolent about this — it would arrange 
 it at an expense to her of one himdred and twenty-five 
 dollars gold. 
 
 All such savings as she had made had gone at once ta 
 Mrs. Morris. She had no money, so what did trans- 
 portation to the States or to the moon mean to her? 
 When she had embarked for these Islands she had 
 assumed the complete responsibility of herself. But 
 to be pushed out without a hearing at court — or a cent 
 to depend upon! The red-haired man had bided his 
 time. Miss Hope who was now in Manila had fur- 
 nished him with the weapons of retaliation for that 
 scene in his office long ago. 
 
 The East was trying hard to cast her out — and she 
 had asked only to struggle along and fumble for the 
 end of the rainbow. But never, never, could one be 
 secure here. In the E^st, one was like a nation tremb- 
 ling always on the verge of war, quivering before a. 
 catastrophe that would surely fall. But she would not 
 leave it — till things had happened. She would not 
 be driven out before her time. She was not beaten 
 
268 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 yet. She was not beaten yet. She would not beg, nor 
 starve, nor explain. If Nahal had done nothing else, 
 it had stiffened her pride. The Senor had several 
 times spoken of how useful she would be in his office in 
 the morning to attend to the English aspects of his 
 practice. She could have employment from him for 
 the whole day. 
 
 If they had not spoken of Nahal, if they had not 
 employed that particularly fatal word failure concern- 
 ing the work of her heart, she might have risen to give 
 them battle. But the Department had touched vitally 
 and cruelly the quick of her soul's pride. Nahal — 
 the single sacred endeavor she had to her account in 
 the New World — had betrayed her finally and openly. 
 -Barry, the colossus, stood with his feet on two soils; 
 Shdl held in his grasp a savage empire; and Chad, 
 and multitudes of others, struggled to shape the new 
 ■existence; but she, stripped of her pretensions was 
 blowing like a scarecrow to the winds of the East. 
 Not for worlds would she have had Chad know that 
 his intuitions concerning her, his resentment of her in 
 bis universe, had been justified. Nobody should ever 
 know this final humiliation — that she had been 
 "weighed in the scales and found wanting. 
 
 With that paper on the table her connection with the 
 Builders in the East had snapped like a cobweb to a 
 star. The Great Experiment had thrust her out. 
 Henceforth hers was a separate lot, a mere grubbing 
 for existence. Julie laid her head down on the table 
 and wept inspired youth's disillusioned tears. The 
 fragrance of the golden jessamine floated up across the 
 seas from that far, relinquished kingdom of the soul. 
 A poor, desolate and bewildered spirt mourned ouside 
 the gates of its shining memories. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 269 
 
 " My island ! " The girl wept after its vanishing 
 outline. 
 
 But Julie knew that, though she might bid Nahal 
 farewell forever, it would still remain an abiding 
 dbstacle of soul — a dark enigma lying heavily across 
 her life. 
 
 The Sefior was completely satisfied with the new 
 arrangement whereby she gave her whole time to his 
 service. He was the only person with whom she was 
 wholly candid concerning her break with the Educa- 
 tional Department. 
 
 Barry, she found hard to satisfy with explanations 
 on this score. She confessed to him that for a long 
 time she had owed a large debt which had ridden her 
 back like a nightmare, that expenses were too high to 
 save anything on her salary and that the Senor's emolu- 
 ment was in excess of anything that she could expect 
 elsewhere. He looked at her hard but said nothing. 
 His silence troubled Julie at night. She knew that 
 he was disturbed that she should have abandoned 
 even her small part of the Cause, which in these 
 days was in urgent need of the whole strength of its 
 £^dherents. 
 
 His own business affairs she knew were disintegrat- 
 ing. People said he had been losing money for some 
 time. But he stuck to what now commenced to appear 
 as a losing cause. Julie thought miserably of the time 
 when he would cease to appear in the character of a 
 prince of the East. He was grappling now with tre- 
 mendous forces at home and abroad. The agitation 
 for independence for the Islands surmounted for the 
 moment every other national concern. The natives 
 awaited almost hourly its promulgation. 
 
 " We're six thousand miles away — in the other half 
 
270 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ■of the globe, and they can't visualize our problems. 
 They don't understand that they must hold this thing 
 -off for a while. The whole course of history will be 
 changed. Oh, if they could have one ' look see ' 
 into the Pavilion, Julie! or one glimpse at the holy 
 foundations of the new Asia! I tell you I can't bear 
 to see this project cut adrift in the universe alone. Ah, 
 ■well, I'll be going to China soon, and I promise you 
 I'll raise every foot of its ancient dust." 
 
 Julie adored Barry in his spurts of white wrath, but 
 lie was wretched now as well as angry. 
 
 " Cleopatra's barge will not stay afloat. It will sink 
 with its Eurasian captains in Eastern seas ! " Julie 
 ■prophesied. 
 
 He glanced up quickly. "Isabel!" he muttered. 
 ■" She must be in a fine frame of mind. Perhaps the 
 :grandiose title we gave her may yet come true. Re- 
 publics over here will be sadly unsteady things. A 
 strong hand can too easily twist them into the one-man 
 power the East understaiids. It's the effect on China I 
 fear the most. She was drawing life and encourage- 
 anent from this experiment, and just at the crucial mo- 
 ment the whole thing with its far reaching results, is 
 ;about to topple into dust! 
 
 " The day is near," he told her, " when we must pick 
 ■up our packs and move on." 
 
 Julie tried to realize it, tried to plan toward such an 
 eventuality, but a spiritual as well as a physical inertia 
 enveloped her like a super-added sheath of being. She 
 «xerted herself to the utmost to hide this new condi- 
 tion from his observation for she knew in what a 
 desperate struggle he was engaged for the life of the 
 ISTew East. More than any personal emotion that 
 could ever seize him, she believed, this passion gripped 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 271 
 
 his heart. And for one who had achieved nothing ia 
 this issue, who had actually been flung out of all its 
 purposes, no legitimate appeal remained. Her dazed 
 being still responded acutely to all his problems — but 
 the greatest of them all had left an agony in her souL 
 
 Once he looked at her very troubled. " What's the 
 matter, Julie ? " he begged. 
 
 And Julie seeing that in that moment he had for- 
 gotten everything but her, grew frightened in spite of 
 her exultation. 
 
 "Oh, it's just the effects of the sunstroke!" she 
 exclaimed, drawing herself defensively up. 
 
 " I'll take you to see Braithwaite," he said. But he 
 was summoned away on another of his critical errands, 
 and the visit to Dr. Braithwaite did not take place. 
 
 Nevertheless Julie was stirred to concern by the ab- 
 normal agitations within herself. She scrutinized her- 
 self in the glass one day, and was startled by what 
 she saw. The delicate outlines of her face, whick 
 looked like sculptured crystal, reflected a disturbing: 
 inner ravage. Under her lower lip a singular bluish, 
 shadow, which for some time had been dimly sug- 
 gested, had become definitely marked, as if some 
 menacing malady were revealing its first sign. 
 
 She was puzzled and a little alarmed. She resolvecf. 
 to go and see a doctor, only to remember that in her 
 present unstable state she dared not risk the complica- 
 tion of the cost. She consoled herself with the thought 
 that if she were really ill more malevolent symptomsi 
 than these would have declared themselves. 
 
 Her mind skirted lightly an under-current specula- 
 tion concerning the medicine she had been taking. Be- 
 cause it had become so indispensable, she did not ac- 
 tually attempt closely to question it. It was unquestion- 
 
272 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ably, peculiarly and irregularly derived ; but it certainly 
 was not poison, as her use of it had proved. And it 
 did work; it took pain away; — whatever abnormal 
 after-agitations it might produce — and just now that 
 was what overwhelmingly counted. Back of that fact 
 she was not disposed to go. Rosalie had been perfectly 
 tight when she said that a large part of the valuable 
 drugs of the world were to be found wild here. Julie 
 herself had walked through pungent jungles and forests 
 and felt that she was traversing some universal phar- 
 macopoeia. The natives of Nahal through the use of 
 herbs, which were the only medicinal aids at their dis- 
 posal, had learned how to exist quite without doctors. 
 Julie had a consciousness that clung to any sort of 
 panacea.^ She manifested always an inability to stand 
 upon her own spiritual powers. This particular 
 panacea, she was however aware, had caught upon 
 some vital fiber. On blistering days when ifhe heat 
 hung in the air like a stifling blanket and all the forces 
 of her being refused to go on, the old crone's nostrum 
 dropped a soothing veil over her blinded, quivering 
 senses and freed her awhile from her intolerable bur- 
 den. 
 
 It helped also in another struggle, the struggle to 
 keep from understanding, as the days passed in the 
 Senor's office, why her services were so valuable to a 
 pupil who paid so high a price to make no progress at 
 all. Subconsciously she had sensed for a long time 
 at what this artistically indirect method aimed. As the 
 Senor's vocabulary of gallantry began to come out 
 more clearly from behind its Spanish ambush, the girl 
 sometimes felt as if she were hanging by a hair over a 
 precipice. She cursed devoutly her knowledge of 
 French; for though she pretended not to understand, 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 273 
 
 the translation would too often come out on her burn- 
 ing face. She dared not be angry; she could not 
 revolt : were not her last bridges cut behind her ? Be- 
 tween her and the most desperate extremity, this sit- 
 uation alone interposed. This slow, creeping Spaniard 
 was the rope on which she must balance across the 
 cataract. So when opulent emerald rings and rare 
 rubies were discovered lying casually upon her desk — 
 for her to admire — and were waved back silently upon 
 her when she tried aghast, to return them to their 
 owner, she could only employ the foolish subtlety of 
 remarking how much Senora Sansillo would appreciate 
 these intended gifts of her thoughtful husband. 
 
 It was a silly strategy, executed by a crude man in 
 the crudest way. There was no spirit in it ; the lovely 
 stones stood for nothing but an ignorant man's mis- 
 apprehension of the human soul. It would have been 
 laughable to the girl had she been in other than a 
 desperate plight. Nor could she laugh at anything 
 that caused her so to despise herself, her own ignoble 
 clinging to such a rope of life. 
 
 But she would not retreat from her individual stand. 
 Barry alas, had troubles enough now. And this place, 
 which had monstrously and unjustly, and without a 
 hearing, cast her out, should receive no appeals from 
 her. One must make a final stand on one's own in 
 this shattering world — and not if she were to die 
 to-morrow would she come out and declare her failure. 
 She was still desperately, so she conceived, the mistress 
 of her own fate. 
 
 Then at the climax of these over-head emotions, 
 would come an engulfing ennui, as if all this stir were 
 but an eternal pouring of water through a sieve. To 
 keep alive in this fearful foreign whirlpool, one had to 
 
274 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 struggle every instant. Something seemed to be 
 thrusting her gradually toward the edge of a dark and 
 fatal pool, and there was creeping over her an appal- 
 ling weariness of life. 
 
 One day she received word that Isabel wished to 
 see her. She had not seen Isabel for some time. 
 After having been discarded from the real life of this 
 colony and forced to her present anomalous mode of 
 livelihood, she shrank from encounter with the bril- 
 liantly successful ones whose rival she had once essayed 
 to be. As the outcast from the Great Project that 
 Chad had predicted she would become, her despair at 
 seeing those who had entered the race when she had, 
 became sometimes more than she could combat. The 
 -wretched queerness of her being lately had made her 
 ■morbidly acute. 
 
 Isabel most of all had seemed to press this superior 
 "fortune pitilessly upon her, had even, so the girl 
 thought, demonstrated a hint of hatred on their meet- 
 ings. This thought troubled Julie ; but she could not 
 bring herself to ignore the summons, for not only had 
 Isabel's friendship more than once been turned to ac- 
 count, but Isabel sending for her in this unexplained 
 way, showed that she had something vital to say. Out 
 of this infinite restlessness Julie wondered, as she set 
 out for the house of the caliphs, what was to develop. 
 
 Everything appeared unchanged. The old keeper, 
 ■with the withered face like a Chinese nut, who had 
 told her the first time she had seen the place that this 
 was the dwelling of a " daughter of the country," came 
 forth from his lodge and ushered Julie into Isabel's 
 domain. Absolute stillness pervaded the house. The 
 dwarf, who had watched her acutely as he conducted 
 lier up the stairs, disappeared. The pensiveness and 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 275 
 
 inertia of the tropical aftejmoon had fallen like a sad 
 mood over the exotic world. Julie looked about her 
 and sighed. She felt a desire to get out of this age- 
 less Asian splendor down into the sun of the street. 
 To-day the teak wood called up visions of distant 
 sweating bodies. The shining dark floors stretched 
 like black waters beneath the feet; the heavy golden 
 curtains stirred as under Indian magic; and the ivory 
 Buddhas dozed in a changeless Nirvana. Perfume 
 hung in the air: the smell of myrrh and aloes and 
 cassia out of ivory palaces, mixed with the odors of 
 dying flowers. Back in the next room, in a comer 
 where she could just glimpse it, was the gilt shrine of 
 the Green God, who from time immemorial had in- 
 spired in the hearts of men the fear of fate. 
 
 Abruptly at an invisible warning, Julie's eyes 
 swerved sharply. A sinister brown face gleaming 
 like an evil star from a chaotic mass of black hair ap- 
 peared half concealed among the potted palms. Julie 
 rose almost defensively. 
 
 "Isabel!" she exclaimed, with a tremulous voice. 
 She did not wish this changeling, who could assume at 
 will the soul of either of two races, to see how dis- 
 turbed she was. 
 
 The Malay woman" bore down upon her in stormy 
 silence. 
 
 "I haven't seen you for a long time," Julie said, 
 agitatedly casting about her for a means to meet this 
 mood. " I lead a hard, busy life." She spoke of the 
 difficulty of her existence as if the fact of it might 
 somehow appease Isabel, who drew nearer and fixed 
 upon Julie a gloomy concentration. 
 
 There was something almost thirst-like in this ex- 
 amination. Isabel appeared to be straining for some- 
 
276 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 thing that lay beyond the girl's own consciousness. 
 The sun had given Julie a glow of color, and when she 
 essayed to smile the old miracle of look transfigured 
 her like a sudden star lighting brightly the weariness of 
 earth. Isabel waved a demolishing hand before it. 
 
 "Futile, futile .flame! I knew it would burn itself 
 out. You want me to believe," she went on fiercely, 
 " that you are in a deep struggle — that you are giving 
 your soul to be ground up for some fine cause. But 
 you can't deceive me. I know that you are a ma- 
 lingerer — and that, whoever's bones may be broken 
 by the wheels, they will assuredly not be yours. In 
 the vigil, the peril, the anguish of this fool's dream, 
 you have had no part. You have sat and waited — 
 like an imbecile sphinx — for something to come along 
 and solve your foolish riddle. The very stars have 
 sung in your ears, and you have not heard. Nothing 
 has touched you — nothing can! " 
 
 In sullen challenge, she swept on. " Why were you 
 not content with your little hillcock, and your wretch 
 of a man-ant? Why have you to stretch out your 
 foolish disastrous hands to pull a world to pieces? 
 You know," she rushed on, fiercely, " that our friend 
 Barry along with the rest of them — stands on the 
 brink of complete catastrophe; that the great struc- 
 ture he believed he had created is about to fall about 
 his head; you know too what the love of these things 
 is to him — yet you thrust yourself between him and 
 a single saving chance; you who could blow away out 
 of the world like a feather, without consequence to 
 any one ! It is always exasperatingly weak things like 
 you who plant their feet in the course of fate. I have 
 sent for you to tell you that you had better take your- 
 self out of the way." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 277 
 
 Julie stared with a beating heart at this being to 
 whom she was as a kindling to a flame. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by my being in the 
 way," she stammered weakly. Isabel stood somberly 
 glaring at her. What was in this woman's mind? 
 What was it all about? Her eyes turned to escape this 
 dark distorted vision, and ran along the wall's stream 
 with an armory of poisoned weapons, each of which 
 was forged to deal death in a particularly monstrous 
 way. 
 
 Her mind struggling with its fears caught at the 
 vague intimation of hope for Barry in Isabel's wild 
 utterances. " Oh, do you mean that he could be saved 
 
 — out of the wreck? You could do it, Isabel, of 
 course. Oh, don't," she pleaded desperately, " let him 
 be driven out ! " 
 
 " Do you think you have to plead with me, you little 
 wastrel? The East will requite those who truly give 
 themselves to it. There will be a place in it for Barry 
 
 — but there will never be any place for you — that is 
 what I want you to understand. When the hour comes 
 to requite him, I warn you not to intervene." 
 
 Julie's spirit asserted itself. " What is going to hap- 
 pen to him ? " she demanded. 
 
 Isabel flung at her a contemptuous glance, and ex- 
 claimed in a sudden abandon of revelation : " The 
 finest thing that ever happened to a white man in the 
 East." 
 
 The girl's head sank. Upon her memory had 
 flashed the new portentous words exchanged in Barry's 
 house between Isabel and the white Rajah of Ramook. 
 Her whole being felt suddenly borne down. Her lips 
 slowly paled; the light swept out of her face, leaving 
 it a chill, ghastly white. 
 
278 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Isabel strained forward, her eyes riveted on the 
 blue blur which stood out now under the girl's lips. 
 " Ah ! — " she said, and sank back, while Julie moved 
 unsteadily to the stairs. 
 
 She went through the down-dropping dusk of the 
 garden, in utter hopelessness of mood. The choice of 
 the starry ways cut off forever. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 BARRY hurriedly presented himself one after- 
 noon at the Sefior's offices. Father Hull was 
 fatally ill, and Barry had come to get Julie. 
 
 Outside the priest's room, in the Military Hospital, 
 they found a hushed motley assemblage — officials of 
 high standing, prominent natives and poor ones, many 
 of those Father Hull had called his camp-fire colony, 
 grouped there waiting for news. A nurse flitted oc- 
 casionally in and out; in those days of over-crowded 
 hospitals, nurses were forced to disseminate their ad- 
 ministrations. 
 
 Barry and Julie stepped softly into the room where 
 the priest's emaciated form lay stretched upon a bed. 
 They bent down, and watched tremulously for his 
 fluttering breath. The stern, make-shift surroundings, 
 the absence of any one near to him, brought the tears 
 to Julie's eyes. While she had been giving all her 
 thoughts to herself and her own vicissitudes, the priest 
 had hung on his cross suffering. His outstretched 
 wasted arms seemed to be offering the final oblation of 
 life. He was going out after a hard march. The 
 camp fires were dying, and he who had urged the souls 
 of men along rough trails was being extinguished with 
 them. 
 
 His eyes opened feebly and rested on the door. 
 Some yet living sense that stood on guard over his 
 earthly mission must have affected this flickering re- 
 turn. His lips moved urgently. Julie understood 
 
 279 
 
280 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 that before he shpped out there was some token his 
 spirit wished to pass to his colonist children. She 
 tiptoed to the door and summoned them in. 
 
 As they entered, the priest turned upon them the 
 helpless solicitude of a dying father. He was leav- 
 ing in their faltering hands their unguarded destinies. 
 The old Judge grasped his inert hand in helpless sad- 
 ness, murmuring under his breath something about 
 " giving it up for good." The Blackstones, shabby and 
 broken, held up a thin frightened baby before his glaz- 
 ing eyes. Jerome's somber, worn, dissipated face 
 ■worked with emotion. Mrs. Abernathy wept softly at 
 the foot of the bed. 
 
 But it was to the shining serenity of the Ashbys that 
 the priest turned for his last vision of life. He kept 
 his eyes fixed upon them, as if, in this final extremity, 
 they helped. 
 
 Julie glanced curiously at Mrs. Ashby, who now 
 stood beside Father Hull holding one of his hands. 
 Her lids, drooped downward, appeared closed. By her 
 blank outer aspect the girl knew that she was with- 
 drawn into some mammoth struggle. It seemed to 
 vibrate about her in excitations of the atmosphere, as 
 if an atom sought to stir all space. " She is trying to 
 save him," Julie thought. 
 
 There should of course be a way to do it. Death 
 was a mistake that had crept into creation. That 
 was shown by the fact that never yet in all the eons 
 had man accepted it naturally. Life itself, in its 
 sundering battles, had perhaps evolved this malevo- 
 lence, which darkened the whole universe. Never had 
 she looked on this irremediable mystery without ex- 
 periencing an insensate revolt and an unaccountable 
 conviction of its unnecessariness. She looked around 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 281 
 
 at this circle of wretched human helplessness, at the 
 supreme helpilessness on the bed, and felt unreasonably 
 that they had still not turned the last stone. 
 
 She turned to Mrs. Ashby to see if she might un- 
 accountably have demonstrated an answer to the 
 struggling things within her mind. But she too had 
 clearly only grazed the great secret — for the priest 
 suddenly was dead. Over the city that he had left 
 forever, the sunset gun boomed. 
 
 In a silence that weighed like lead, Julie and Barry 
 rode home. Julie broke it at last. " He should not 
 have gone ! " Then to the dusk she murmured 
 absently and f ragmentarily : " The things I do — ye 
 shall do also ! " 
 
 " What are you saying, Julie ? " 
 
 " One Person solved the mystery, you see." 
 
 He stared at her blankly. Then she roused her- 
 self. " It's unnecessary — this dying," she broke out. 
 
 " In this instance criminal. A filthy disease to con- 
 quer so great a human force!" Barry declared with 
 bitter passion. "If death didn't break one's heart, it 
 would make one insane with anger. He had good 
 doctors, too," he reflected gloomily. 
 
 " But doctors can only go so far. Then you strike 
 the dark border where unfathomable mystery lies ; the 
 door-step of the unknown, where accident, chance, the 
 turn of a hair — and, yes, miracle intervenes. No- 
 body can penetrate there. If only one could! " She 
 leaned earnestly toward him, the light coming into her 
 face. 
 
 "Yes," he meditated gently, "all life hangs on a 
 miracle. Yet," he exclaimed somberly, "I think he 
 is to be envied in passing out before the great debacle. 
 You couldn't have turned his footsteps from these 
 
282 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 shores, and he couldn't have borne to sit among the 
 ashes of such big hopes." 
 
 Julie had never seen Barry look so worried, as if a 
 blow had been struck across a vital part of him. Other 
 people were always weary in spots, or altogether; but 
 he had been undaunted in harness, campaigning joy- 
 ously against the obstacles of the East. Soul-stirring, 
 world-overturning Barry, who had set his tireless 
 shoulder to every load ! His heart must not break ! 
 
 Often lately in their evening drives over a moon- 
 enchanted city, a city with all her sad secrets hid and 
 along the great ocean lying like a sector of eternity 
 against poetically silvered mortal shores, she had seen 
 him strain about and look over it all and sink back 
 with a bitter sigh. She had read all the heaviness that 
 lay in his soul at these times. 
 
 " I say, and I will continue to say to my last breath, 
 that we were winning Asia step by step. Over in 
 China, they are beginning to strew the dynamite that 
 will blow the old order of things off the globe. It 
 makes me too angry to speak of it! And I ask you, 
 Julie, if the Gods have given me a square deal? 
 Isabel's Green God will win the day, curse him ! " 
 
 Julie looked at him searchingly. " Isabel is a great 
 friend of yours, isn't she, Barry?" 
 
 " She works against me, and tries to upset every- 
 thing I do; but she still manages to convey the inti- 
 mation that she means well toward me." 
 
 " But what do you think she finally does mean 
 towards you ? " 
 
 Barry glanced up wonderingly. " She is an old 
 friend of mine, and does not want, I imagine, the best 
 of her friendships broken. In a way, you can 
 scarcely blame her for seeing things as she does." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 283 
 
 " She is beautiful — very ! " Julie added, with a trifle 
 of severity toward herself. 
 
 " She is justly the Queen of the East." 
 
 " Suppose," the girl broke out feverishly, " she 
 should find something splendid to offer you!" 
 
 " There is no splendor left to me here, that I can 
 conceive of." 
 
 " But if you could still serve in the East — would 
 you do it — at all hazards?" 
 
 " I will serve the East till I die," he said between set 
 teeth. " It may revile me, trample on me, repudiate 
 me altogether, but it shall not, I say, utterly cast me 
 out — as this place is about to do." 
 
 He looked at her in despair. " The cholera is in the 
 city, Julie. A just judgmient on the blind. Lord God 
 of Hosts, after our labor and sweat, the eternal 
 plague! It seems to have brc4ten out in nearly every 
 province; and if it keeps on at this gait, it will rot 
 the Archipelago. It looks like a holocaust this time> 
 to sweep away this blind beggars' caravan. 
 
 "The Peste!" he muttered. "You haven't heard 
 that wail of the lost over the devastation of their little 
 lives, as I have, nor walked at sunset through the blood- 
 red light into their poor hamlets and found them dying 
 darkly behind their rush wdls, with the fiat of God 
 written on their foreheads, as they'd say. Isn't that 
 the human soul of it — conceiving the curse that its 
 blindness has brought down upon it to be a splendid 
 decree of God? If a thousand years were as a day — 
 as they are to Him — we'd win over here. But look 
 at these creatures now, tearing everything away, and 
 shouting out across the seas that they can stand alone, 
 their bewildered souls on their splendid feet ! " Barry 
 relapsed into his native idiom, as he often did when 
 
284 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 he was greatly stirred. " And here they are at last in 
 the power of the Plague, with their splendid feet 
 a-fleeing, and their bewildered souls going out to God, 
 who never asked for them in such a hurry. 
 
 " That's the soul-splitting East ! You may take its 
 highways barefooted, your veins bleeding all over 
 them at every step, you may hand its people from a 
 high mountain the kingdom of God, but they'll never 
 he caring a bit. It's not in the nature of any of them 
 to give thanks to God or man. Sometime far hence, 
 when I'm through with the East and wish to go up 
 into a cloud to rest my soul of it, they may try to 
 persuade me down with a mountain of gold, but I'll 
 Icick the whole thing over and go on my way up." 
 
 He dropped his fervent fantasies, and fixed upon 
 her a passion of solicitude. " Take care of yourself, 
 Julie, mind! You have a shining bit of light on you 
 that I never saw on another mortal woman — and 
 which will hold me through all the dark places I shall 
 pass through. What does it matter whom else they 
 •say you are waiting for! Never, to the end of time, 
 will I believe the soul of you stands waiting for another 
 man ! In all these days, when my heart has been going 
 out to you, you've had this will-o'-the-wisp in your 
 train. It can't be anything more — just a screen down 
 the path, hiding for a little while the light." 
 
 " Who," Julie asked, turning white in amazement, 
 "told you that?" 
 
 " Chad and Isabel — my friends who do not see 
 your fairy light. They want me to let you pass on — 
 as though I wouldn't go on following after you across 
 all the tracks of the universe!" 
 
 Often the portals of her spirit had started to spring 
 — to loosen her imprisoned emotion, but the con- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 28S 
 
 viction of her unworthiness, the fear of mischievously 
 or malignantly encroaching upon his life, had dammed 
 it back. Sometimes even in her despair, she had felt 
 that his eyes were looking for something the confines 
 of her gates did not contain. Now, almost overpower- 
 ingly the impulse to disregard the consequences, to fling 
 open her soul, to disemburden it to the bottom on that 
 instant of all the pain that had habitation there, flared 
 up in Julie. The very citadel of her soul had been 
 struck. 
 
 Then sweeping over her again came all that Isabel 
 had said — the terrible, almost inconceivably terrible 
 calamities she had threatened. Once more she re- 
 membered the prophetic flash of look between Isabel 
 and the Rajah of Ramook — the king of Ramook^ 
 after independence Barry was to have a high place — 
 the highest they had to give, perhaps. She swept out 
 her hands distressfully, as if to clear away this mam- 
 moth bewilderment. Suddenly she found resolve, even 
 with the suppressed tears choking her. 
 
 " Chad and Isabel are right ! " she declared huskily. 
 " I am not fit to come in your path — not at all worthy 
 of ideals and energies like yours. Chad said I was a. 
 wastrel — and so did she. The woman who should 
 touch your life, Chad said, should be one of concen- 
 trated fine forces. I have never concentrated anything. 
 I have moments of inspiration, moods of fervor, but 
 never have they — never perhaps will they knit into- 
 anything abiding. I tried in Nahal. I gave it the 
 best in the compass of my being. If anything was 
 to be fulfilled, it would have been fulfilled there. 
 Nahal was my Chance. I can't think why it turned out 
 as it did — I wonder if I shall ever know. My catas- 
 trophes there have made me stagnant. You see, every- 
 
286 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 thing mattered so terribly then. I was red-hot iron to 
 be struck to any shape of the future. I couldn't make 
 you understand — not even by opening up a whole 
 train of luckless experiences and abasing myself in the 
 telling of them. Sometime, perhaps, a reckoning will 
 ■come. 
 
 " Why did I have to go South — after we had met 
 that night on the roof ! That is when our spirits really 
 met. But something took me on and on in another 
 direction. Perhaps I wouldn't have been — / — the 
 sum of me — without all that has come to pass. I 
 don't know what the answer is going to be. I won't 
 be a marsh light to you, luring you along false paths — 
 but I can't bear, Barry, dear " — her voice broke — " to 
 have you desert me altogether. Go on holding me in 
 your thoughts ! " she entreated with a little sob. 
 
 The sight of his bowed shoulders and hopeless face 
 overwhelmed her. Atlas crushed under his load, 
 ■struggling tragically against destruction. 
 
 " I'll do anything to save you, Barry! " she cried, 
 clinging wildly to him. " You mustn't drop down. 
 Something is going to happen to you. Some one is 
 going to help you out ! " 
 
 After he had left her at the Reredos' gate, the uni- 
 verse seemed to have widened fatefuUy between them, 
 leaving her alone — all alone, in fearsome areas of 
 space. She crept up the stairs to her room. But not 
 €ven the medicine brought her any sleep that night; 
 never had her being been so hideously disturbed. 
 Isabel had promised mysteriously tremendous things, 
 for the fruition of which she had been ordered out 
 of the way. Everybody was ordering her out of the 
 way. Out of the vague plots that seemed everywhere 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 287 
 
 about her, but one thing emerged, but one thing counted 
 — the possibility of a turn in Barry's fortune. 
 
 If the Islands should now become independent be- 
 fore they were prepared, almost anything might come 
 to pass. There was a leaven in men's thoughts, Barry 
 had said, that was bound to turn things frightfully 
 about. Humanity was urging on to the pass where 
 it would accept the most portentous challenges of fate : 
 the old structure of its existence, handed down through 
 the ages, would no longer answer for the framework 
 of men's lives. Dissatisfied with the ancient edifice,, 
 it would overthrow the world, and rear a new. " A 
 new heaven and a new earth, my dear, for these blind 
 human bats is on the way," Barry was wont to de- 
 clare. Barry's enthusiastic fancy was fired by this 
 magnificent mood, which he claimed to discern all 
 over the earth. There would be an explosion, of 
 course, to blow away a lot of mediaeval rot — and there 
 would be loss of life : to get the message of the stars, 
 one had to bleed. They could have his life — oh, yes, 
 a dozen of them. He had flung away a dozen im- 
 possible lives with an indifferent Olympian wave. 
 
 Which all went to prove to Julie's mind that Isabel's 
 speculations might not prove so startling, after all. 
 Well, if through the instrument of Isabel's uncertain 
 hands, his dream could be saved, nobody at all must 
 stand in the way — certainly not a mere Julie with her 
 knotted web of life. But how was one to make sure 
 of the vivid, veiled Isabel? 
 
 At dawn, Julie rose, and pressed feverishly. She 
 summoned a carromata, and set out in an agitation of 
 anxieties for Santa Ana. Mrs. Ashby had told her to 
 seek her out when she was in trouble. Everybody 
 
288 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 "was in trouble now; not one in these stressful times 
 knew where to turn; Julie herself, least of all. Mrs. 
 Ashby had managed' to convey to her the intimation 
 of a certain exceptional strength, which she now felt 
 a desire to draw upon for extrication from her dif- 
 ficulties. 
 
 The Ashbys inhabited — that being a term for the 
 state of life which they shared under the same roof 
 with a community of other people — a large Spanish 
 house not far from the river. The surrounding fields, 
 enriched by the stream, looked in the distance like the 
 work of an impressionistic artist rather than of an 
 orderly nature. The house stood alone, sunk in the 
 lush depths of the rice fields, where workers pictur- 
 esquely clad in red in a seemingly jocose attempt to 
 terrorize the birds, were cutting the young rice to the 
 music of a rough guitar plied by a recumbent artist 
 tinder a huge umbrella. The house itself, painted 
 green, jutted out of the surroundings, of a piece with 
 them. 
 
 The institution was called the Free School of Prac- 
 tical Arts — the words " free " and " arts " making a 
 direct appeal to the native, whose graceful inclination 
 of mind construes freedom as leisure, and Art as a 
 •casual expression of leisure. 
 
 The principal instruction was concerned with the 
 habits of civilized living and thinking. The male 
 aspirants were taught to design furniture and join it, 
 to care properly for the universally abused domestic 
 animals, to farm, to tailor their own garments, to con- 
 struct simple nipa houses, and to practice sanitation. 
 The girls and women were taught to manipulate the 
 native stove to better and more varied methods of cook- 
 ing, to do sewing, and to make fine embroidery — from 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 289 
 
 which industry, as well as from the bureau of domes- 
 tic employment in connection with which house serv- 
 ants were trained, was derived some revenue. The 
 care and feeding of infants, whose mortality in these 
 parts was startling, had also an important place in their 
 instruction. 
 
 As Julie entered, she was struck by the happy and 
 trustful atmosphere of the place. Mr. Ashby's 
 spectacled eyes lifted to her from the planing of some 
 boards. A flock of keen, merry-eyed boys, let loose 
 from concentration, burst argumentatively into Eng- 
 lish about the work in hand. Just at the present mo- 
 ment back in the city, her own former pupils, Julie 
 well knew, were attempting to explain to Clarino — 
 who had sat up till midnight to discover it — the dif- 
 ference between the reflexive and the passive verb 
 forms. 
 
 Mr. Ashby led her on till they discovered Mrs. Ashby 
 engaged, with that air of glowing serenity, which had 
 at the first caught Julie's eyes, in her own peculiar 
 bright activities. 
 
 Mrs. Ashby looked at her soberly. Something ia 
 the girl's appearance held her thoughtful attention. 
 
 " I have come to see you — as you asked me to do," 
 Julie told her. 
 
 She led the girl to a sunny sala overlooking the 
 tinkling fields. Julie, as she followed, was thinking 
 that since Father Hull had found in this woman a 
 strength to die by, she might, in these evil times, dis- 
 close a strength for living. She had pulled herself 
 out of very dark places. People who could so marvel- 
 ously help themselves must possess force for other 
 lives. 
 
 As they sat down, Julie exclaimed: "You see, I 
 
290 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 am unhappy! And I have a notion that I may be ill. 
 Last night I scarcely slept at all. Something in me 
 is wrong, and certainly everything outside of me is. 
 Things are so black ! Oh ! What is to happen to all 
 these people who have worked, and hoped? I have 
 worked and hoped too, but it hasn't counted — noth- 
 ing counts; I am very nearly sure of that. I've lost 
 my position — though I haven't told anybody that I 
 was thrown out — because of Nahal. It was a cut to 
 the heart," she brooded. " Then — I am working for 
 an odious man. 
 
 " And Barry," she went on restlessly. " What is 
 to happen to him? I've never seen him down before. 
 It frightens me. Are we all going down under some 
 avalanche? Some of us have no place else to go. I 
 •don't understand — but that's my eternal, foolish cry. 
 I've blistered my soul praying about everything. I 
 thought you would understand. Oh ! You must, for 
 I have come to you for light. You are not blind, you 
 are not floundering; you are safe and sure. What is 
 it that makes your life so strong? " 
 
 " Tell me," Mrs. Ashby said, bending toward her, 
 "' what you prayed for." 
 
 "For Barry's safety through the world!" Julie re- 
 plied simply. 
 
 " And for nothing else ? " 
 
 Julie started a trifle. " Well, for a number of things 
 — at different times." 
 
 Mrs. Ashby reflected a moment. " I used to pray 
 ■when our money was getting short that more would 
 •come so that we might buy a fresh bottle." 
 
 Julie gave a shiver of repugnance. 
 
 " We were both, weren't we, praying at cross-pur- 
 poses ? " 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 291 
 
 Julie frowned slightly. " What I want to know is 
 why I am rolling always to disaster; why I can't call 
 a halt — why I can't see clearly? " 
 
 " Do you know how hopeless I was — Dick and I, 
 drowning together, in this oriental maelstrom? We 
 expected to finish in one of the hells of the East. We 
 knew that time was fa,st overtaking us. And there 
 would come to me, when I awoke sober in the night 
 with the whole universe clutching at my throat, the 
 terror of those black pits. 
 
 " Many people tried to help us. I recall their futile 
 efforts wafting across our heedless lives. Then there 
 came across our path the Little Gray Woman, as we 
 call her. I don't know what she was doing away over 
 here. She said she was just a joyous old traveler of 
 the world. She -was not actually different from any- 
 one else, you must understand, but she found us blind 
 things in her path calling out from the highways for 
 sight. It would be difficult to make you understand 
 just how she came to help us break the bondage of our 
 flesh." 
 
 Mrs. Ashby paused thoughtfully, then went on. 
 " You remember how, in divine contempt. He picked 
 up clay and, mixing it with spittle, laid the bandage of 
 the earth across the eyes of those who all their lives 
 had understood in terms of clay — and tearing it 
 away, revealed to them the miracle of sight. So it 
 came to us. We were summoned, poor Lazaruses, 
 from our tombs, into the day." 
 
 Mrs. Ashby lowered her head. " This is a strange 
 language to you, and these are not revelations for a 
 laughing world, but for those who are going out in 
 darkness — for men stricken in agony on the battle- 
 field, for all who like you are in the throes of terror 
 
292 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 and destruction. These truths are the springs outside 
 your reach across the thirsty desert. 
 
 " When you come at last upon the light, the grave- 
 clothes the mind has worn so long drop away; the 
 false garment man has spread across the face of things 
 dissolves, and you find that you are not in the world, 
 for a day, but that you are in the universe forever. 
 
 "Oh! If you only knew it, you could walk free 
 through the earth, fearing nothing. When I found 
 that I was not thonged by crucified feet to an inexorable 
 world, that the world was only a snowdrop on the face 
 of the eternal, a mood of the universe; and that I 
 was greater than all of it, could shape it with my will, 
 touch the widest reaches with my thought — that of all 
 creation, God and my kind alone could will — then 
 the light of Paul broke ! 
 
 "The light of Paul, Julie! A golden light, beat- 
 ing on the soul, revealing its far country, the kingdoms 
 of the unseen whose invisible marvels can be brought 
 to our own threshold. 
 
 " It was in the knowledge that it was not death he 
 was facing, but a new direction in God's areas, that 
 Father Hull passed out." 
 
 " Why did he die ? " the girl asked abruptly. " I 
 felt queerly to blame for being so weak that I couldn't 
 do anything. Doctors have told me that they have 
 had the same feeling, even when they have exerted 
 themselves to the utmost." 
 
 " Ah! There you are touching upon the kingdoms 
 of the unseen. All their powers can be brought to 
 our threshold," she repeated, " as Franklin brought 
 the lightning out of the blank sky. We don't know 
 half the forces that move through the universe. An- 
 other generation will understand. We are but poor 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 293 
 
 jugglers tossing glass balls, when we might be moving 
 stars." 
 
 " But — you tried," the girl stammered. 
 
 Mrs. Ashby cast upon her a new look. " You saw 
 that ! " She brooded in silence for some time. At last 
 she said : " We are in mystery still. It will take a long 
 time. He did not understand, nor did I — enough. 
 You have to be very strong for that! " 
 
 The girl rose. " Alas ! I am used to things as they 
 seem. I see the shapes and the obstacles of the world 
 very plainly. I am traveling a longer road than to 
 Damascus, and I don't see the light. But I shall al- 
 ways remember what you have said to-day. 
 
 " I can only grasp at the tail of your ideas ; but 
 that one thought — that I am not of the world, but of 
 the universe — that is sweet and splendid. It carries 
 me on wings into regions I've never dreamed about. 
 To be timeless, spaceless, to wear a garment of the 
 Indestructible, and to share its miracles ! 
 
 " I was sick of the pettiness of this little earth, 
 and hideously afraid of the universe; afraid of its 
 sinister unexpectedness, its souUessness towards the 
 microcosm Me, and its imminent threat to break me 
 so that I never could be put together again. You have 
 made it all seem different — and wonderful. Just as 
 if I had found that there were fairies again in the 
 world, and that I was one of them, instead of a 
 trampled little atom not worth bothering about." 
 
 Julie went away shining in the new mood; but as 
 she moved back into the material, exotic world, she 
 felt her glorious immunity wearing away, and herself 
 forced to battle to keep her conviction against the old 
 calamitous universe with its desperately insoluble prob- 
 lems. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ON her way home Julie happened to pass her 
 former school. The old crone to whom she 
 still came for medicine was standing outside 
 the stall. The girl stopped to speak to her. 
 
 The old creature passed her brown bones of fingers 
 over her uncanny face and, staring into the face of 
 the sun, began to mutter strangely again about the 
 search for the Ark. A fantastic being, the girl 
 thought, trudging over the earth after a chimera. 
 
 Julie told her that the medicine drove the pain away, 
 but that, because of the heat, perhaps, she could not 
 eat or sleep well, and that there came to her the 
 strangest dreams in the world. In them the earth be- 
 came transparent — she could see clearly through it. 
 She could see people grow, bit by bit, under her eyes ; 
 and the forest, by some deep instinct, knew her, and 
 the flowers laughed and cried like children. 
 
 The old woman said that all this was true; that in 
 the old days when she lived in the splendors of the 
 world the jungle used to be very hostile to her and 
 would tear at her with its teeth and sprinkle her with 
 its poisons and set its reptiles against her; but now 
 that she had made friends with it she could go through 
 the heart of it and never be hurt. She described how 
 she plucked her herbs, male and female in equal pro- 
 portion, out of jungles where no man's foot had 
 touched, when the benign forces of the air preponder- 
 ated over the malign. 
 
 Julie said that the body was a stupid abiding place 
 294 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 295 
 
 after these dreams, which put upon her soul marvelous 
 new moods, like a moon forever at the full. 
 
 The old woman clutched at the wheel of the car- 
 romata and stared at her with unfathomable eyes. 
 " Why did you not come with me when I asked you? " ' 
 she entreated. " You and I could have freed ourselves 
 from the wickedness of the earth, which is a heavy 
 bkck bundle tied to the back of mortals. We would 
 have searched for the lost Covenant between God and 
 Man." 
 
 For an instant a weird vision rose before the girl 
 of the places those footsteps would lead to, down dirty 
 by-ways of the East, catching one's food where one 
 could, brushing skirts with lepers and thieves, in hazes 
 of furnace heat. Thank heaven, not all the incar- 
 nations of the East could bring her to a thing like 
 that! And yet for an instant the preposterous invi- 
 tation had sent an odd thrill through her. This non- 
 descript old woman had touched her soul. 
 
 She smiled sadly, and shook her head, and the 
 fwitch, dropping back from the wheel, moved away, 
 muttering, " Adios ! " 
 
 And that was the last of her that Julie ever saw. 
 
 A few days later, she returned this way from the 
 Senor's, to obtain a fresh supply of medicine. Only 
 one pellet lay in the box at home. But from the shack 
 opposite the school, the old woman had disappeared, 
 without leaving a sign behind her. Because of the 
 manner of her going, the Stall-keeper was positive that 
 she would never come back. 
 
 In frightened dismay, Julie inquired of Mariana and 
 Clarino, both of whom had secretly bought amulets of 
 the old woman — Mariana, to enable herself to with- 
 stand the attraction of an imusually eligible lover; and 
 
296 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Clarino, to become the principal of a school, to which 
 honor he fearfully aspired. But neither knew any- 
 thing about her : she was a wandering witch, no doubt, 
 who had perhaps gone away on a broomstick into the 
 sky. 
 
 It was through Delphine she received the only light 
 she ever had on the old woman's going. Disturbed 
 over her disappearance from school, Delphine had 
 sought her out at her quarters. She explained to him 
 that she had been ill, and mentioned that she had not 
 been able to procure any mtore of a medicine which had 
 brought her great relief, and which she had been in 
 the habit of buying from an old charm- woman near 
 the school, who had mysteriously disappeared. 
 
 " Dicky-Dicky sent her away ! " Delphine exclaimed 
 excitedly. " I saw him come out suddenly upon her, 
 a few squares from the school, and tell her over and 
 over to go away — that danger threatened several peo- 
 ple if she were seen around any more." 
 
 What did the dwarf mean ? Delphine did not know, 
 he did not ask Dicky-Dicky questions because he got 
 severely slapped on the head for such efforts. 
 
 Gone, taking her secret off with her ! That was the 
 way with these people — always under your feet, until 
 some day, at some mysterious signal, they took them- 
 selves finally off ! Julie thought with terror of all that 
 lay ahead of her, to face unrelieved — the relentless 
 hot season, her perilous hold on a disorganizing com- 
 munity, her bad health. With the aid of the medicine, 
 she had managed to endure and to go unsteadily on, 
 but the thought of trying to continue without it caused 
 her limbs to grow cold. There was not fire nor force 
 enough in her to fight the rest of the way. To her 
 other trials it was impossible to add ceaseless and gril- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 297 
 
 ling pain. In a f^w weeks she might have to go out 
 of this country — and the passage money was nowhere 
 in sight. Something might yet happen to turn her 
 fate. Until then she must find a way to get the 
 medicine. 
 
 Old Kantz, the chemist on Calle Alean, had been 
 in the East for forty years. He would be bound to 
 know what the medicine was and to be able perhaps 
 to get more of it. Julie preferred him to Seiior Reredo 
 whose shop was not far distant. So when Sefior 
 Sansillo went to Los Bafios on business she seized the 
 half holiday to go and see Kantz. 
 
 As she entered the Botica a native clerk slumbrously 
 uprose behind the counter. It was a hot day. No- 
 body was about in it but tired, driven Americans who 
 take account of neither day nor night. Julie made clear 
 to him, however, that she rtiust see Kantz at once. 
 
 The old chemist was finishing his siesta upstairs, but 
 as he was accustomed to act as an emergency doctor 
 to his neighborhood he came down, clad in white 
 trousers and an undershirt that covered his fat person 
 like his skin. This attire was not really unconven- 
 tional in a land where attire might follow almost any 
 persuasion of the mind. 
 
 He adjusted his huge lenses and nodded profes- 
 sionally to the girl. Julie, wondering at her own pre- 
 cipitancy and unable to set forth any explanation of 
 it to Kantz, began in an uncertain voice. " I have a 
 medicine here — that I have been taking for some time 
 — for very bad head-aches. I can't get any more of 
 it and I want to see if you can." 
 
 "What is it then?" He poked the pellet with a 
 fat finger. 
 
 "I — don't know ! " she stammered imeasily. It 
 
298 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 seemed so foolish a reply to make in the face of this 
 array of bottles confronting her like so many incon- 
 trovertible facts and to Kantz who looked like the big- 
 gest bottle and the most absolute fact of all. 
 
 "Where did you get it?" 
 
 Unable to escape, Julie replied in a lowered voice, 
 " It was given me by — a — a herb woman who had 
 helped people I know — of. She has gone away. I 
 can't find her. I need the medicine" — with rising 
 spirit and an attempt at dignity — " it's a native spe- 
 cific." 
 
 " Wait, I will try and analyze it." He turned into 
 his tiny laboratory, the pellet, the last one, stuck peril- 
 ously on his moist thumb. 
 
 Julie sat down and studied respectfully the irre- 
 futable bottles. The clerk mixed himself a surrep- 
 titious drink behind the counter, and fell into gentle 
 extinction. 
 
 Finally Kantz's great shape moved in, and Julie, 
 glancing up, found him looking at her very hard — 
 a stare which even before he opened his mouth, threw 
 every cell in her into turmoil. 
 
 " Ach ! I have hved in the East for forty years, 
 and do you think I do not know all the tricks of your 
 kind?" 
 
 The girl tried to be sure that she was not confronting 
 a maniac — but he was so monstrously calm. " What 
 do you mean ? " she quavered in fright. 
 
 " That you will not get any more of that medicine, 
 here or in any other drug store unless the keeper wishes 
 to go to Bilibid." ^ 
 
 He employed a threatening, familiar tone. Once 
 she had heard a man speak to a drunkard like that. 
 
 1 Bilibid — Native prison. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 299 
 
 "What is the stuff?" she cried wildly. "Is it 
 poison? Tell me at once." 
 
 He turned to his bottles. "These dope fiends!" 
 he muttered exasperated, to them. 
 
 " Dope fiends ! " the girl repeated stupidly. " A 
 drug! Oh, don't tell me," she cried agonizedly, 
 "— it's — " 
 
 " Since the new laws, you will find opium impossi- 
 ble to get. So I tell them all — and they go crazy ! " 
 
 Julie stared with wildly dilated eyes, her bloodless- 
 lips parted as if to protest. Then she fell against 
 the counter. There was a dead hush in the deserted 
 place. Not even a fly buzzed through the scorching 
 silence. Julie tried to lift her paralyzed arms to ward 
 something off. She was dreaming. She had takea 
 too much medicine. Things like this didn't happen 1 
 
 But there, blistering her, was the chemist's cynical 
 gaze. Day by day she had been moving towards this, 
 wall — a blind dupe. She had had a sunstroke on, 
 Adams's grave, and an old woman had offered her 
 some medicine for it, and out of this simple sequence 
 destruction had appeared. The avalanche of final 
 ruin swept over the girl's fevered mind. She had 
 been dragged down — clear down. The slow but in- 
 evitable juggernaut of the East had pulled her under 
 at last, " grist for the mill — you and I," Adams had 
 said long ago. Out of a clear sky had fallen this 
 final, cruel joke. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " The piteous question seemed, 
 to fall on rather than be directed to the chemist. 
 
 " Why then did you begin ? " 
 
 She repeated her story lamely, disjointedly and in 
 tears, conscious of its futility — Kantz was so fatally- 
 incredulous. 
 
300 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " After a time," he told the bottles, " they cannot 
 tell the truth." 
 
 The girl looked at him with terrible despair. 
 
 " You do not believe me — nobody will believe me. 
 Oh ! " she caught at her throat and stared at him with 
 the eyes of a caged animal. She clutched at his 
 arms in frantic pleading. " You are as good as a 
 doctor. Give me something that will cure me. I 
 would offer you a lot of money, but I haven't any. 
 I will not go on always wanting that horrible stuff! " 
 
 " It is a long hunger. Sometimes it lasts as long 
 as life." 
 
 " I didn't mean to get into it — that must count. 
 Help me ! I am afraid. You must believe me — I 
 am not a liar! There is a cure for everything — 
 ■everything,'"' she cried wildly. " Mrs. Ashby said so 
 — Oh!" 
 
 Her head dropped on the counter and she wept un- 
 controllably. 
 
 The chemist stared down at her uncomfortably. 
 " Just stop ! " he said. " There is no other way." 
 
 Julie lifted herself up with a dizzy lurch and plunged 
 out of the botica. A strange being in her form walked 
 the streets, wrhich had become a phantasmagoria of 
 horror. Black shapes of doom seemed haunting the 
 avenues of life — she, the blackest shape of all, grop- 
 ing through under-hells for light. She belonged now 
 to the East forever and forever. It had set its stamp 
 of hopelessness upon her. She moved along staring 
 with desperation and repugnance at this dark race 
 with whose fate she had become allied. 
 
 She walked without direction, on and on, not know- 
 ing where she was going, goaded by an immeasurable 
 despair. She wandered half way across the city, hat- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 301 
 
 less, the sun scorching her head; what goal could there 
 ever be again? All their lives even the few cured 
 struggled, Kantz had said. A cursed pilgrimage the 
 world, to these Wandering Jews of souls! And she 
 wasn't made for struggle. For a fearful fight like this 
 in which she had only one small, slim chance — she 
 knew in her soul she had not the force. She might 
 struggle a little while, but it was not in her being to 
 combat to the end. It was easier to die — but one 
 didn't die, that was the worst. 
 
 She stood still on a street comer staring blankly 
 about her. There was no use in going on. There was 
 nothing ahead ever, however far she went. She stood 
 there dully and thought of one thing, the flaky thing 
 that had hung to Kantz's careless finger. Only that 
 would lift a little while this madness of sun, and pain 
 and strangling despair. As she gazed tormentedly 
 about her, her mind suddenly made clear the sig- 
 nificance of her surroundings. All this wandering 
 had been a subconscious hunt upon which some dim 
 urgent sense had been leading her — to the one spot 
 where there was a chance of getting what she desired. 
 Chinamen always had it. 
 
 The girl paused horror-struck. But against the 
 visions she desperately set up, visions of her youth's 
 high quest, of a splendid new Empire of Mankind. 
 — of a Prince of the East, a throbbing insistence that 
 had never been denied arose and claimed every atom 
 of her being and wiped out every thought. Dim, 
 distant visions they were now. Not one of them 
 could help — or save her. The Hunger consumed 
 every fiber. 
 
 Yet the anguish, the urge of her memories assailed 
 her all the while — visions that had stirred her spirit 
 
302 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 terribly accused ; voices, very dear voices pleaded with 
 Tier wretched soul. 
 
 Once that lane had been for her the evilest channel 
 in which she had seen life move. Now her torment 
 swept her onward into its currents. She must get a 
 little — secretly — ever so little, to help her through 
 the woods. 
 
 She moved like a sleep-walker, a glazed look on her 
 haunted face, among the little stalls, muttering what 
 she wanted under her breath. Nobody must see her 
 on such an errand in such an unspeakable place. The 
 yellow half -shaven heads leered at her like grinning 
 skulls, and pretended not to know what she wanted. 
 They were uncannily wily, exercising their super-evil 
 intuitions. The laws were very strict. They must 
 make sure of her. 
 
 /She feared them terribly. The old shadow, like 
 the hangman's cap, pressed down over her mind as it 
 liad done before. She knew what a welter of evil 
 desires her youthful body evoked up and down the 
 street — but she had forgotten her body, everjrthing 
 but this goading of the furies. 
 
 She pursued her way among the stalls. It was here 
 and they should not outwit her. The yellowed skulls 
 thrust themsefves upon her, their fishy eyes intimating 
 all the wickedness in the world. At one shop the 
 Chinaman appeared to understand. She had put a 
 paper bill upon the counter. He lifted the board that 
 barricaded him behind the counter, and beckoned her 
 tp follow. The rear of the shop was black and musty. 
 The Chinaman opened a trap door, and ducked down 
 tinder the ground. He emerged in a moment with a 
 small package which he held out to her. Julie started 
 forward to get it. The creature's arm swung out 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 303 
 
 and clutched her. She screamed, but one of the yellow 
 paws dropped over her mouth. Her whole life seemed 
 to go out of her in a final wave of fright. She knew 
 what would happen to her down in that black cavern. 
 
 She wrestled against him. He put his hand upon; 
 her throat. She could feel to her spine the chill of 
 those yellow fingers compressing her throbbing breath. 
 As she fought away from him, the jade medallion 
 jerked out of her dress. She could feel it on her 
 bosom dancing about wildly. The hold on her throat 
 relaxed. The creature had caught at the amulet with, 
 one hand. The girl took wild advantage of his dis- 
 traction to wrench herself out of his grasp. Diving^ 
 under the counter she hurled herself into the open, 
 street. Nobody was following her, but she fled, with 
 a sobbing cry, through the dust down the center of 
 the street, the denizens of the stalls thrusting out 
 their heads like cobras to stare after her. 
 
 She continued to run even after she had gotten inta 
 safe districts, on and on like a mad thing. Natives. 
 stopped to stare at the white woman run amuck. In 
 her tumult of brain she saw but one vision. Down 
 under the floor of this city, where its black beating^ 
 heart lay filled with the monstrous passions of men, 
 where a motley evil crew from all the coasts of the 
 East trafficked in human life and flesh, down there 
 she was fated to sink. She had seen her end writ- 
 ten on every one of those opium-devastated skulls. 
 Even now she would have been hurled to a rung below 
 hell if the Chinese charm had not diverted her assail- 
 ant. She had not been saved by her own will nor yet 
 even by an oriental fetish, but by the emblem of one 
 man's love. She remembered the things she had swept 
 aside to go into that horrible street. Nothing had 
 
304 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ■weighed in the madness of the moment — a moment 
 of hideous impulse that had twisted in devastation every 
 fiber of her being and left it a wrecked thing whose 
 Toots a tornado had splintered. 
 
 " They that go down to dust ! " ran in her fevered 
 brain. 
 
 She hurried along, her body shivering, though it 
 was a hot day. Suddenly she saw she was nearing 
 her objective, and stopped to run her feverish, trem- 
 bling fingers through her pale hair. As she stood 
 in front of Senor Reredo's drug store her heart beat 
 so loudly she feared that he might suspect what was 
 in it. 
 
 The Botica, after the native fashion, was broadly 
 open. No barrier must interpose between the native 
 and his passion for the street. The Seiior, his slim 
 legs, terminated by red slippered feet, curled around 
 the rungs of a high chair, was reading El Progresso, 
 a native organ. He rose when he saw Julie and 
 asked how he could serve her. 
 
 She wanted some more of that lotion for tan that 
 he had put up for her. It was more efficacious than 
 anything else she had ever used. She complimented 
 him upon his ability as a chemist; if he should go 
 into business in Spain that ability would be recog- 
 nized. The Seiior, gratified, admitted that here among 
 the " Indianos " was no sphere for a man's brains. 
 They expanded into a discussion of different panaceas. 
 Julie suddenly put her package down on the counter 
 and soberly regarded him. 
 
 " Seiior, my friend Barry says that an epidemic of 
 cholera is breaking out in this city. He says it is 
 spreading like wildfire and that it will be the worst 
 plague, perhaps, that the Islands have known." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 305 
 
 " The plague we have with us always," the Senor 
 replied. " The Americans take it too seriously." 
 
 " It rages in the provinces and it has come heavily 
 to many districts here. Barry is greatly worried. 
 He warned me vehemently — and I am afraid. The 
 water, the food, every mouthful, every swallow means 
 danger. More than anything conceivable I fear the 
 Peste. One suffers horribly and cannot die at once. 
 If one could carry always with one something to bring 
 death quickly! I had a friend once who traveled 
 much on railroads where one is in danger of terrible 
 accidents. Once he was buried under the wreckage 
 of a coach and there came an awful time to him, when 
 he feared they would not get him out. After that 
 he carried tied around his neck always a little sack 
 — three grains of morphine — and he was insured. 
 If you would give me the means — to go — quickly 
 in case I were hopelessly stricken, I would not fear 
 any more." 
 
 The Sefior stared disquietedly at the counter. 
 " Perhaps, I should have left sooner, I have many chil- 
 dren!" 
 
 " A teacher who came over on the boat with me 
 has just died of it ! " Julie shivered. 
 
 "I will tell Sofia!" he muttered, "that it is just 
 as well to go at once. Sefior Barry knows." 
 
 " But I must stay, Sefior," the girl pleaded, " in 
 this terror I have no place to go." 
 
 He meditated. " Well, if it makes you feel safe ! '* 
 He turned to his drawers. " Three grains! Yes," he 
 reflected, "that should be right." 
 
 The girl picked up the little box nervously. " Thank 
 you, Seiior," she said. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 JULIE walked back into her room, and stared 
 heavily about this shell of her old existence where 
 day by day the rope had been tightening inex- 
 orably around her throat. The room looked like a 
 place she had never seen. 
 
 On the bed, suggesting her own spent mortal frame 
 stretched helplessly prostrate, lay a worn evening 
 gown. It brought the room back to familiar propor- 
 tions. The recollection swept over her that to-night 
 Isabel was going to have a party, and that she had 
 put the dress there this morning — a time which seemed 
 now to have no connection with her existence — to 
 determine whether it could be made to hold together 
 for this one night. Isabel had sent her a note, begging 
 her to forget their last meeting and to come to the 
 party. Nothing, of course, could change that ex- 
 plosion of hatred. Yet this morning she had decided 
 to go. 
 
 She stared out at her Asian garden. She seemed 
 to see a quick-stepping figure moving down there 
 among the sighing trees. She turned away wretch- 
 edly. That was over forever. Soon, when the Rere- 
 dos went away, the forsaken garden would revert to 
 the jungle. Nobody would remember it. Yes, her 
 soul would find a way to come to this spot of beauty, 
 where the most splendid visions of her life had been 
 evoked. 
 
 She began to gather up her belongings. They made 
 just one trunkful, — everything that, after nearly 
 
 306 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 307 
 
 twenty-one years of sojourn on the planet, she owned. 
 She wondered if there were not something very wrong 
 with a person who could not accumulate more than 
 that after such a long time. The Senor had advanced 
 her a week's salary, which must be returned. She 
 counted the money out of her purse, and laid it on 
 the table. Then she fumbled in her trunk for her 
 letters. The first one she came upon was the noti- 
 fication of dismissal from the Department. The next, 
 Adams's letter, still crying forth its bitter loneliness. 
 
 Then she sat down and wrote a letter to her uncle; 
 and here at last her dulled heart was able to bleed. 
 She had tried very, very hard, she told him. She 
 was terribly sorry that things had turned out as they 
 had. But the East was like the Bank of Monte Carlo 
 — with the odds always against you. Of that final 
 catastrophe that had come to wipe out her last chance, 
 she found it impossible to speak. To his Western 
 consciousness away off there, on the other side of the 
 world, in a secure and ordered scheme of life, such 
 monstrous happenings would be inconceivable. A 
 pitiful, incoherent document, that accounted for noth- 
 ing really, splashed all over with Julie's tears. 
 
 She aroused herself feverishly, and examined the 
 dress. The anger of that last meeting with Isabel 
 stood out forcibly before her mind. Isabel hated her 
 because of Barry. And Isabel did not hate fruitlessly. 
 AH her emotions found vital expression. 
 
 Something kept welling up from the depths of the 
 girl's sub-consciousness — something that was like a 
 wavering clew. Quite without reason, a face rose 
 before her vision — a face looking up stealthily above 
 Isabel's staircase. It turned, and revealed — the face 
 of the old medicine crone ! Not till this moment had 
 
308 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 memory welded these two associations. The old crone 
 had some identification with Isabel. In her bent shad- 
 owy shape, Isabel's hatred took form. Isabel had 
 wanted terribly to get her out of the way. She had 
 not dared to kill her, but she had selected a method 
 of elimination too subtle for its agency to be traced. 
 And Dicky-Dicky, the Dwarf, who had had a place in 
 his heart that was called Nahal, had known, and be- 
 cause of it had frightened the Old Woman away, and 
 attempted to save her — too late. Yes, it was clear 
 enough now. 
 
 Qiad and Rosalie had been her accomplices, no 
 doubt. But though Chad had been hostile, he had 
 been openly so. Julie was reluctant to accuse him of 
 any complicity in so Oriental a plot as that Isabel had 
 woven. But against the whole white race, Rosalie', 
 would have lent herself as an instrument of destruc- 
 tion. Julie could see how Isabel would work upon 
 the fury of her jealousy, set up before it everything 
 American that Rosalie might believe was responsible 
 for the abstraction of her husband's love. 
 
 Soon, they had plarmed, she would be nothing at 
 all but a bundle of flesh, with an appetite — a thing 
 that no human passions could ever reclaim. And 
 when she was wiped out — the shame and horror of 
 her — Barry would be elevated to the place that Isabel 
 was preparing for him. Julie remembered the talk 
 of a paradise. She began to cry again. 
 
 She had not seen Barry — for an eternity ! She 
 must see him — if only to attempt to make clear to 
 him the things that were in her soul. In the urgency 
 of this desire, everything else was swallowed up. 
 After all there was nothing more that Isabel could do 
 to her. She would go to the party. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 309 
 
 While dressing, she studied herself in the glass. 
 An image rose before her — the image of herself that 
 had confronted her on that distant, transported day 
 on the other side of the world, the day she had stepped 
 into life and had offered herself with such magnificence 
 to its designs. Who was to blame ? If the Nahalites 
 had had the grace of God — if Isabel — the East — 
 had not hunted her down ! 
 
 As she was about to leave the room, she turned 
 back, and laid on the table an envelope with some 
 money in it, addressed to Senora Reredo. She picked 
 up her uncle's letter to mail, and the money for Senor 
 Sansillo, glanced agitatedly around the room for an 
 instant, and hurried out of the house. 
 
 Sefior Sansillo was upstairs when she reached his 
 house, but he came down immediately when he heard 
 who it was that wished to see him. Julie, pale and 
 tense, stood waiting for him in the doorway of his 
 office. 
 
 " I've come to tell you that I shall not be here any 
 more! " she said. 
 
 He gave a start. " But why ? " he asked. 
 
 " Because," the girl flung out, " I am weary of earn- 
 ing my living listening to questionable stories, and 
 having horrible jewelry thrust on me. Here is the 
 money you advanced. Thank you ! " She held a 
 roll of bills out to him. 
 
 An angry flush swept over his face. "You are 
 suddenly independent, Sefiorita Dreschell ? " he satiric- 
 ally exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, my independence came suddenly to me ! " 
 she agreed, " therefore I shall never come again." 
 
 He darkened volcanically. "You must not — do 
 that ! " he commanded, in a shaken voice. 
 
310 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 He did not attempt to speak again for a moment, 
 but broodingly studied her face as if to find the key 
 to his new behavior. He must have come to realize 
 the unalterable nature of this new purpose, for he 
 said in tones so strangely humble the girl could scarcely 
 recognize them as utterance of his : " If I promise 
 that I will do these things no more, will you stay? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I beg of you to remain ! " he insisted in a low 
 voice. " I will ask only that you sit at that window 
 where you have always sat — only that, no more." 
 
 She was startled to perceive that tears of emotion 
 had gathered in his eyes. Suddenly he burst into a 
 torrent of speech, as he paced agitatedly to and fro. 
 
 " Do you think then that I have had so much in 
 life?" he demanded turning round fiercely upon her. 
 " Know then that I have been thwarted in all that I 
 ever desired ! Fifteen years ago I came to these colo- 
 nies, penniless, alone. My family had lost everything 
 in Spain. Like many another Spanish youth, I set 
 out with hopes that towered to the skies, for I was 
 young and full of hope. El Dorado would bring me 
 my fortune, I believed, just as you believed it would 
 bring you yours. 
 
 " But I found myself a stranger without affiliations 
 in a strange land. My illustrious name counted for 
 nothing in such a country. I was a lawyer, but' there 
 were plenty more of my kind who were woven into the 
 network of the Blood, you understand. Shall I tell 
 you how I starved in this land, how my heart ached 
 to breaking because of it! One way of salvation 
 opened to me, the way of most of my desperate coun- 
 trymen. It was a dark way to me, but it opened the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 311 
 
 closed gates of the East. I, too, entered this free- 
 masonry of blood. It was smooth traveling after that, 
 but" — he tore ferociously at his immaculate waist- 
 coat — " if the years could be swung back, and 
 I could walk these streets destitute — but free and a 
 youth again — yes, for that .1 would toss Satan my 
 soul ! " 
 
 He put his hand up to his throat. " You came ! 
 I used to dream of one like you on that old ship, I, 
 a poor lad on the way to the East to find my fortune : 
 I have tried everything with you, I admit. I was 
 a devil, as you say — but am I not bound in a web 
 whose threads are as strong as the tentacles of the devil 
 fish ? This place will turn black as hell after you are 
 gone ! " 
 
 He paused with hands appealingly outstretched. 
 Another darkened soul ! A feeling of pity swept over 
 the girl. . She turned upon him a commiserative face. 
 
 " I am sorry for you. I am sorry for all of us 
 who sought fortune in the East. We are a pitiable 
 lot, Sefior. Drive around the Escolta any night, and 
 you will see us in our several unhappy stages of decay. 
 Some of us were not big enough for our task. Oh, I, 
 too, would have given an)rthing to have succeeded ! " 
 
 " But what is to become of you? " he cried, in gen- 
 uine solicitude. " You are ill. You have no money 
 and without money one cannot live one instant in 
 this terrible land. Reverse your mad decision, and 
 stay here. You shall havevnothing to fear from me." 
 ' Julie shook her head speechlessly. She and her 
 concerns had sunk into a /whirlpool of despair, but 
 there remained the one passionate satisfaction of be- 
 ing able to sweep her/soul clean at last. So much. 
 
312 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 much money that she had not earned — the thought 
 of it burned hke fire. She put out her hand. 
 "Good-by, Senor!" 
 
 Isabel's house twinkled from a distance with fiery 
 lights. The strains of the orchestra playing, like a 
 band, loud chords of revel, tore open the peace of 
 the night. Julie ascended into an atmosphere in which 
 the note of triumph seemed everywhere proclaimed. 
 Isabel had decorated the place amazingly with palms 
 and tropical flowers. Dark faces flowed about in 
 currents of festivity, wearing, Jttlie thought, an ap- 
 palling aspect of victory. Isabel conveyed this im- 
 pression preeminently. She appeared to be in the 
 throes of some delirious celebration of soul. It was 
 as if there blazed forth from her personality the 
 triumph of many cities and multitudes of islands made 
 glad. She terrified Julie. 
 
 All this exultation fell like the weight of doom on 
 the girl's aching spirit. She herself seemed to repre- 
 sent the living defeat of her countrymen. Few of them 
 were here to-night. Their absence made a haunting 
 void in the throng. The charge had gone out of them, 
 the force : almost as if something had taken God out 
 of the universe, and left it to stumble on by itself. 
 Her weary mind dwelt with a great effort for an in- 
 stant on the tangled threads of their disappointments. 
 America wished to withdraw from her position in the 
 East; from all the potentialities of her presence there. 
 The Eastern problem was not, she held, her responsi- 
 bility. Perhaps the comer of it she had lifted appalled 
 her. Perhaps she had attempted a too ambitious' job. 
 No group of men — not even the dauntless ones who 
 had grappled with the tremendous difficulties here — 
 •could make over the East in a few short experimental 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 313 
 
 years. At any rate, after successive agitations, the 
 country, divided on the question of colonial posses- 
 sions, seemed now to have come to the point of re- 
 linquishment; and the unclosed scaffoldings of the at- 
 tempted structure of enlightened government in the 
 East would be left to rot before the gaze of the Orient. 
 Julie knew that that was what her countrymen hated 
 — not the going, but the failure left behind, the judg- 
 ment pronounced upon them in the courts of the world. 
 
 Julie was watching with every nerve for Barry. 
 Once more to have the old fire thrown over her. But 
 after all this fearful waiting, what would there be to 
 say? Even if she poured forth the tale of her wholly 
 wretched situation, there was nothing ever, ever, that 
 he could do. If she had been before unfit for him, 
 she was now utterly removed from him. Certainly 
 he could not move through life with such a thing as 
 it was fated she should become dragging around his 
 neck. They had been too near to each other for her 
 to inflict upon him a brutality like that. Fright at 
 this picture of ruin for them both turned her faint. 
 Perhaps after all, she had better not wait. 
 
 Chad passed, his face pale and abstracted. He 
 -nodded at the spot where Julie stood rooted. She 
 gazed after him with a piteous absence of ill-will. His 
 had been such a tiny contributory force to the ava- 
 lanche. She forced herself to. move on towards Isabel, 
 who intolerably radiant and shining, wavered across 
 her path. Isabel came down abruptly out of her glori- 
 fied mood, and searched the girl's broken and disinte- 
 grated being with a passionately curious gaze. 
 
 Julie knew that Isabel was waiting for the signal 
 of complete capitulation, and she struggled with all 
 her force to withhold the surrendering sign. As she 
 
314 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 looked on the triumph and terror of this woman, one 
 of the dark lusts of this land that had surged all 
 about her heretofore without touching her, suddenly 
 took possession of her. She wanted to strike Isabel, 
 to beat her out of existence. She had borne enough 
 in this black land, and this woman was not only her 
 enemy, but her destroyer — the very symbol of the 
 country which had twisted and thwarted and wholly 
 wrecked her life. She stumbled toward Isabel, whose 
 purple eyes must have fathomed some mad intent, for 
 she stepped warily back till the crowd interposed be- 
 tween them. Julie's impulse failed — a poor aveng- 
 ing instrument she. As she wheeled away, she saw 
 Isabel's countenance assume an expression as if some 
 godly satisfaction had been handed down to her. 
 
 Her desperate eyes still searching in every direction, 
 Julie rambled unsteadily on. Everything looked 
 strange, as if she had never belonged to the pageant 
 of human passions. Oh! To be back again in the 
 rich moving of human passions ! 
 
 She came upon a group talking in hushed tones. 
 The ejaculations of dismay sounded an odd note in 
 this hard festal blare. Major Holborne was knitting 
 his brows; Chad's face wore a queer arrested look; 
 a woman uttered a soft cry. 
 
 " When did you hear it ? " somebody asked. 
 
 " This evening, while people were on the Luneta. 
 The police telephoned me to get her husband. He 
 wouldn't go — so I went," Holborne said. 
 
 " What has happened ? " Julie demanded. 
 
 Nobody replied at once, then Chad said heavily: 
 " Leah Chamberlain threw herself out of a window 
 of the Oriente — and dashed out her brains." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 315 
 
 "Ah!" The girl was still for a moment. "But 
 why? " she demanded. * 
 
 The men said nothing. Mrs. Burke, a little English 
 woman drew her aside. " It's never safe to ask why. 
 Locroft was called home, he had come into the title; 
 and — well, I suppose it was all impossible ! " 
 
 Another impasse ! Leah, the will-o'-the-wisp — 
 who, every one had said, had never had a serious 
 feeling in her gossamer existence — displaying at last 
 a supreme, deadly seriousness. It was inevitable that 
 one who had so completely held her life in her own 
 hands should herself have destroyed that life. Leah 
 would never consent to live or die except on her own 
 terms. 
 
 Julie glanced up from where she stood frozenly 
 considering Leah's fate, to behold Barry coming in 
 her direction. His invmcibly lifted head quickened 
 her. Every human thing about him sent a thrill 
 through her deadened senses — the desert face full 
 of visions, the ardor of life that ws^ in him. For an 
 instant it seemed as though she were being brought 
 back into sanity and safety again, as if through his 
 presence a loop-hole of escape must open up. 
 
 But immediately following these sensations there 
 rose before her brain a vision of a horrible street 
 with bleached faces thrust up out of the bowels of the 
 earth. Her fingers clutched the spot where the stolen 
 medallion had hung, the token of his spirit that had 
 intervened between her and a monstrous fate. The 
 chain remained intact ; she thrust it down in her dress 
 so that he might not notice that the medallion was 
 gone. 
 
 " Julie! " he exclaimed coming qtiickly towards her. 
 
316 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She replied with an articulate sound of joy and 
 terror. 
 
 He took both her hands in the joy of meeting and 
 drew her out of (Observation to the gallery. 
 
 " I've been sick for a sight of you — in a desert 
 abandoned, choked with sand ! " The tone of his 
 voice brought the tears smarting to her eyes. " I 
 used to have a thousand things in my life — a million 
 — and now all I've been thinking about is you! " 
 
 The blood came back into her face and life into her 
 heart. 
 
 " What do I care for the world without you in it ? 
 I wouldn't walk the sick old place without you." His 
 voice broke. " You're still following some disastrous 
 mirage! Ah, Julie — when our souls have the same 
 dreams in them — and have beckoned each other across 
 the world! " 
 
 He put his arms about her, and kissed her. She 
 burst into agonized tears and clung to him. " There," 
 he said, " isn't that the miracle ! " he cried in radiant 
 tenderness. " In this moment we've become endowed 
 with a hundred lives ! Henceforth we'll take the rough 
 paths together. China, Julie, old China — the won- 
 der of it. You and I and Sun Yat Sen, up and down 
 the plains and highways, touching the gophers into 
 fire!" 
 
 "The gophers!" she shuddered away. "Oh! 
 How can you bear to stay in this brutal place? It 
 hates so bitterly. It takes revenge so monstrously! 
 It has eaten up our dreams, torn our hopes from us, 
 and rolled our lives in the dust." 
 
 " But the wonder of it, Julie," he argued, with 
 glowing eyes. " The mystery of it, and the unend- 
 ing struggle beating about you like wings of the 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 317 
 
 invisible! The battle of light and darkness — God's 
 own dear battle. The human strain at its utmost, 
 the heights and the depths! Why, I'd be in it for- 
 ever. I'd not miss it for anything. I would keep 
 on tramping in it with a sack at my back." 
 
 Julie's teeth bit at her white lips. " And the terror 
 of it," she cried fiercely; "the cruelty, the evil of it; 
 the plagues that are even- now eating up the city of 
 your hopes — Oh, the death that waits in all its 
 paths ! " She leaned back weakly against a post. 
 
 " It's a hard path truly," he conceded. " Many's 
 the time I've starved in the East, and come close to 
 its bottomless pools. It is only a short while since, 
 that I thought I was on the high places for good, with 
 the universe at my back; but I'm down on foot again 
 in the dusty road, along with the rest of the world. 
 But I never think of those times — for what cocoon 
 remembers his worm's body? We are going on — 
 to-morrow, or next day. You haven't seen China. 
 We're refugees, but she'll find us our place. Nobody 
 that has ever won a foot of the world turned, back." 
 
 Her white face stared mutely at him for a moment. 
 
 "I'm not up to your — golden journeys, Barry," 
 she said painfully, her lips quivering. " I'd have to be 
 made all over again for that I You must gO' alone — 
 or with some one that can help you. But — perhaps 
 you won't forget me, even if I was such a futile thing. 
 When the sun sinks on your deserts, call me up out of 
 the mirage, and we'll plan together — as we used to, 
 the overthrow of the old order of things." 
 
 "We'll follow the road together!" he insisted vig- 
 orously, " and sometime, a long while hence on the 
 journey, I'll wake you one morning with the shout 
 that the Millennium has come ; and you will come out, 
 
318 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 trailing yourself in morning-glories, to welcome the 
 ■world at your gate ! " 
 
 He drew back aghast at the look in her face. 
 
 Somebody back of them spoke Barry's name in- 
 iquiringly, as if not sure, in the dim light, that it was 
 he. They turned around, and Isabel came toward 
 them, amazingly changed. 
 
 She had discarded her splendid raiment, and ap- 
 "peared in a short, diaphanous garment that flared about 
 lier like bloody flames. Her black hair swept like 
 Si wind-blown scarf to her firm white heels. 
 
 Julie slipped suddenly back into the shadows, while 
 IBarry stared at Isabel in strange silence. 
 
 " I'm going to dance ! " she announced. " You have 
 often asked to see me, so come. Ah; to-night I am 
 mad for wings! I have something afterwards to tell 
 you — something of great importance." 
 
 She plucked Barry by the sleeve -and drew him on. 
 Barry put out his hand to draw Julie along with him ; 
 but Isabel soon contrived in the crowd, to separate 
 -from him the indeterminedly following girl. 
 
 One end of the sala had been thrown into a softly 
 xadiant dusk. Under the streamers of one high lamp, 
 Isabel stood and stretched out her arms like radii of 
 light. Then in a whirl like a sun tumbling through 
 the sky, she was in motion. Julie who had wandered 
 up to the wide crowded circle of onlookers stood fe- 
 A^erishly watching. Every movement of that mad, ex- 
 rultant whirl of limbs was an intolerable stab. Those 
 feet twinkling like pearls out of the wind of motion 
 looked as though they might kick down the stars. 
 Julifi herself had been one of the obstacles they had 
 liicked out cJf their path. Yet she could not take her 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 319- 
 
 eyes away from this dusky sorceress spinning in fire^ 
 this houri of terrible loves and hates. 
 
 An emotional stir vibrated through the crowds 
 Eyes exchanged messages. Julie looked around to 
 find that a young Spaniard had pressed in next to 
 her and was regarding her with all the ardor of his. 
 eyes. Through the wide open galleries the moonlit 
 vision of an intoxicating night appeared, and subtle 
 vows seemed to whisper all down the reaches of the 
 tropical dusk. The young man's glance seemed ta 
 say, " Let us go — and follow the night ! " 
 
 When the palpitating circle broke, Julie crept away 
 in search of a small stair-case, which she remembered 
 to have seen when she had stopped with Isabel. It 
 was quite impossible for her to escape unseen by the 
 main stair-case. 
 
 She came out upon a small gallery somewhere at 
 the remote end of the house. Ther^ were others upon 
 this gallery. Their figures, very near her, were clearly 
 outlined in the silver tones of the moonlight. 
 
 Julie stared hard, then quickly dropped back into 
 the shadow. She waited stiller than the night itself, 
 for she knew she had stepped into a critical moment 
 of a life so deeply allied to her own that her being 
 palpitated to every developing turn of it. 
 
 Long before Barry could have done so, JuHe divined 
 what was to happen. 
 
 The two were standing looking beyond the garden, 
 that seemed to sing in its creation, to the spires o£ 
 the city frosted under the rising moon. Isabel was 
 pointing to it : " How can you bear to give it up? " 
 
 Julie, watching, saw the spasm that contracted 
 Barry's tired features. 
 
320 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 " I don't see how, exactly, we can help ourselves ! " 
 he replied. " I am not a State, you see, I'm only an 
 individual, very small after all." 
 
 " And thus ends the grand scheme to democratize the 
 East." 
 
 " It looks that way." 
 
 " My poor friend," Isabel commiserated, " who 
 tried to put a rope of sand around eternity! But no 
 dreams are lost — some time inevitably they take form. 
 Dreams are the souls of things that are about to hap- 
 pen. If only we could make these particular ambi- 
 tions take real shape, you and I ! 
 
 " Orcullu and I have worked hard, and we are about 
 to win. Arturo, his brother in Washington, says it 
 is sure. You can see that it will be so. It is a dizzy 
 moment that is coming our way ; we have found rapa- 
 cious Eastern enemies not far off, where we expected 
 to find friends. We must not be swallowed up, just 
 as we become free. An American protectorate of 
 some sort is at first imperative; we have the wisdom 
 to comprehend that — and, at the helm, an American 
 
 — with the power of that nation back of him — Presi- 
 dent of the first modern republic in Asia. 
 
 " You are to be the Captain of that coming republic 
 
 — the greatest honor the East ever conferred upon a 
 white man. We have decided it — Orcullu and I — 
 when the hour strikes. Our neighbor Japan will not 
 dare touch us then. You can go on, and do what you 
 please. Ah, did you think I would desert you ? " she 
 cried. 
 
 " Did you not give this land the bottomless devotion 
 of your heart? Well, then, the land will reward you, 
 as it knows how to reward all those who truly serve." 
 
 Julie fell back abruptly. Though in a measure she 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 321 
 
 had dimly comprehended something like this, the tre- 
 mendousness, the reality of it all overwhelmed her. 
 Barry was to see fulfilled all that he had wanted in 
 his soul. 
 
 And she was wiped out utterly — so consummately 
 had Isabel contrived. There was something almost 
 justifiable in the way Isabel — and Fate — had gauged 
 her quality, her triviality, and had flung her aside. 
 She had a blinding vision of herself as too weak and 
 purposeless to survive in this cosmos, where one's metal 
 was tested at every turn. Back there in the old world, 
 she might have muddled along; but here one must 
 quickly win, or irretrievably lose — step on or out. 
 Ellis had dropped out, but she had tagged on in a 
 struggle for which she had in nowise been fitted. 
 
 And now, though she hated Isabel impotently, hope- 
 lessly, she saw at last, as almost an inevitable thing, 
 her own brutal removal from all paths whatsoever. 
 Even if she had not already been damned, she could 
 not have offered Barry, ever, anything so splendid as 
 Isabel had achieved. She acknowledged herself com- 
 pletely beaten. 
 
 She must get away — as hurriedly as possible. 
 Groping her way back, she found the small staircase 
 she had started out to seek. In the garden there was 
 not a soul, just the stillness of impersonal space clos- 
 ing cruelly around her. The whole tropical world 
 quivered with a passion of human futility. Pain, 
 panic, despair, swept her on in a current of darkness. 
 
 The old cinder of a gate-keeper held open the gate 
 to let her out. Gate-keepers, she thought, were fatal 
 people; they were always opening disastrous portals. 
 As she passed out, she snatched up, with the instinct 
 for something to cling to, a blood-red hybiscus flower. 
 
322 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 She stood and looked about her In hopeless uncer- 
 tainty of soul, debating which direction of the compass 
 she should choose. A carromata came drowsing along 
 the street. The horse came to a halt before the gate. 
 The driver insinuated a somnolent head in her direc- 
 tion, but without any real expectation in his manner. 
 
 Julie stared hard at the thing. There was one thing 
 about a carromata — it could keep on going. She 
 climbed into the vehicle to the cochero, who wanted 
 to know where he should take the Sefiorita; she re- 
 plied, "Just drive!" 
 
 Familiar with the city's nocturnal habits, he nodded. 
 If this woman wished to ride in the night with her 
 own soul, it was her own concern. To see nothing, 
 say nothing, and to keep on — that was the code of 
 the Manila Jehu. 
 
 Horse and driver moved in slumber through the 
 moonlight. The city passed by all silvered, like one 
 of God's cities up in the skies. It was perfectly still, 
 as if there were no mortals in it any more. 
 
 Pedro, the cochero, drove semi-consciously over the 
 endless bridges, and streets — a great distance, clear 
 to the moon, it seemed. He and Disgusto, his horse, 
 in their perpetual slow movement had gone several 
 times round the earth to be sure, but never had they 
 gone so far in one journey in the dead of the night, 
 when the spirits were out. 
 
 Once he had looked round to see what his fare was 
 doing, and had discovered her looking very hard at 
 something she held in the palm of her hand. The 
 other hand, he had noticed, grasped the fading flower. 
 She did not see him. She saw nothing at all. Her 
 face wore a strange, fixed look. It was not within 
 Pedro's powers to fathom the things that concentrated 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 323 
 
 look contained. They had gone on roaming. Once 
 or twice into his inconsecutive dreaming a soft sound 
 had broken, but his subconsciousness had virtuously 
 reminded itself of the cochero's code, to mind one's 
 own concerns. 
 
 At last he sprang up out of his seat with a cry. 
 Something had fallen heavily against his sleeping back„ 
 Pedro was used to almost all the startling developments 
 of a vagabond's career. He could have told strange 
 tales of fares, but never before had one fallen dead 
 in his vehicle. He knew at once what had happened. 
 For a couple of hours, Disgusto had been carrying a 
 dead fare over the city. Strange journey, indeed! 
 
 Pedro was deeply perturbed. He did not at all 
 want the police to get after him, but he did urgently 
 want to see what riches the lady had had upon her when 
 she died. He directed Disgusto to a dark corner of 
 the street, fastened up the rubber rain shield of the 
 carromata, which concealed the body very well, and 
 also his investigating activities. 
 
 The woman had a face like a cold star. There were 
 moments when, his eye falling upon it, Pedro found 
 it hard to prosecute his search. But she had rick 
 raiment, and a gold ring with a fine stone in it on the 
 finger of the hand from which hung downwards the 
 red flower. Wasn't that like a woman, Pedro thought, 
 to drop dead with a flower in her hand? God had 
 stricken her right in this vehicle. Undoubtedly a very 
 wicked woman, though beautiful! Too bad one 
 couldn't sell a creature as lovely as this. Such splendid 
 beings seldom rode in Pedro's cart. He passed his 
 dark paws over the body to see if there were anything 
 more precious to bring to light, and discovered the 
 gold chain. This delighted him and whetted his appe- 
 
324 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 tite for gain. He searched the carromata absorbedly, 
 and unearthed out of the corner of the seat a small 
 round box such as is used for medicine. It contained 
 a number of small silver coins. His fare! He emp- 
 tied it greedily out into his palm, counted the silver 
 with devotion and slipped it into the pocket of his 
 frayed cotton trousers. Then he smelled speculatively 
 the inside of the box, turning it in every direction. 
 His fare's indefiniteness as to direction came, with a 
 trail of suspicions, back to his mind. In matters like 
 this, Pedro, who had lived all his life in the dregs of 
 existence, had quick intuitions. This white creature 
 had thrown herself away; nobody at all wanted her; 
 therefore she and all about her were legitimate loot. 
 
 He knew a place, providentially, not very far away, 
 where he might strike a good bargain. He propped 
 the body up in the seat and secured it there by means 
 of ropes and a halter. It glistened in the moonlight 
 like an archangel, and made him afraid. He made the 
 ragged storm-curtain fast in front of it, and crossed 
 himself. Never by any chance would anybody at all 
 know that he had a beautiful lady back there, a dead 
 lady who had killed herself in his carromata, and 
 whom he was going to sell in the place without a name 
 where they trafficked in all things under the sun, even 
 the dead. 
 
 He stopped at a spot where some old walls joined. 
 No opening could be perceived in the darkness, but 
 Pedro knew this spot better than the world which 
 passed the walls daily but never stopped to think what 
 might lodge back of them. He uttered a low whistle 
 that pierced with a peculiar cadence the stillness of 
 the night. Soon a shadow and then another shadow 
 shot out from some invisible apertur^ Pedro gestured 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 325 
 
 to the carromaia, flinging upon them an ejaculation. 
 The shadows advanced stealthily to the cart, tore away 
 the curtain with savage haste, flung it about the body, 
 with which in an instant they had disappeared behind 
 the darkness of the walls. Pedro, after having given 
 Disgusto an admonitory kick, flew after them down 
 the narrow crooked alley made by the turns of the 
 broken walls. On the sandy beach not far from a 
 crooked row of distorted dwellings the body had been 
 deposited, and over it, the grease of their streaming 
 candles falling upon it, knelt a brutal crew sweeping 
 over it heavy, appraising paws. 
 
 Pedro snatched up in his hands a strand of the long, 
 shimmering hair, and fingered it admiringly. 
 
 " She's through with the earth, this one — killed 
 herself with poison; but she must have had a fine time 
 in the world, in this beautiful body. There was an- 
 other this evening, at the Hotel Oriente. Zip, boom ! 
 Disgusto and I saw her come tumbling out of the air, 
 her brain splashing blood all over the pavement! Do 
 white women sin so terribly? This hair, we'll sell to 
 the fair ones of Sampolac to catch more game with. 
 This one leave on the sand — and when the tide comes 
 up — 
 
 " Where is my price ? That ring is worth much, the 
 chain also — and even the dress and shoes. I must 
 have good money, hear you, to close the mouths of the 
 police, if anybody searches this far." 
 
 The creatures, without pausing in their work of 
 hacking off the hair in great streamers, made a muffled 
 retort. 
 
 A bulk was projecting itself toward them from 
 one of the hideous huts. It came writhing across the 
 sand ; the ghouls, in furious dispute now over the pos- 
 
326 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 session of the ring, stepped on its groping, shuddering 
 hands. Too weakened and blinded to move aside, it 
 collapsed next to the body of the girl. One of the 
 spasmodic hands caught and clutched in its hold the 
 red flower that clung to her dress. Then with a long 
 shiver, this creature subsided in the sand. 
 
 Pedro stared at it with eyes of horrified appre- 
 hension. " My money, quick ! " he yelled. 
 
 The outlandish group derided him. " Get it from 
 him ! " they cried, pointing to the dead man. 
 
 .Without one backward glance, Pedro fled. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 DARK stretches of emptiness! The rush of 
 chaos through endless space! Nothing any- 
 where that knows. . . . An equation without 
 a sign. . . . 
 
 Off in dark Eternity, a gleam of light — dividing 
 all space — where minus changes to plus, is not to is. 
 Towards it struggles, battling with all its little strength, 
 a mortal consciousness. 
 
 Up out of the void, voiceless utterances sweep, like 
 the drone of far-off, undiscovered seas : " Minus 
 5. ..4. ..3... Minus 3 ... 2 ... I. .. . 
 Decimal point! . . . 9 . . ." 
 
 Back around an infinite circle the Soul sweeps to 
 strike again for being beyond the Point! 
 
 " Minus — Point ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 .. ." in- 
 tones the judgment from the deeps. 
 
 Over and over, the drifting consciousness hurls it- 
 self through the wilderness of the Lost — and over 
 and over, the awful voices measure throughout infinity 
 the losing fight. Swept to the pits of zero — Eternal 
 Silence — the Soul, with its last desperate knowing 
 force, sends through the terror of the wastes its ago- 
 nized appeal : " God, life ! " 
 
 That other planet had been one of light — light that 
 streamed over the world, and into the faces of its be- 
 ings. Here, in this . . . sphere, black animate shad^ 
 ows — possibly . . . very doubtfully, human — crawled 
 in and out of the holes of the universe. 
 
 Again, in that unfathomable fashion, two worlds 
 
 327 
 
328 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 convulsively changed places — and there was no clear 
 mark between the real and the unreal. 
 
 Pushing at the mists did no good! One moment 
 you were zero; the next, you were minus. . . . The 
 horror of it was too much to bear ! 
 
 At last the pall of those dark, terrible outer places 
 lifted. The girl came fearfully back into conscious- 
 ness, her being shaken to its foundations by the terror 
 of the thing it had passed through. It had touched 
 awful and unknown areas. 
 
 Memories broke through indistinctly, f ragmentarily. 
 She had suffered — been fearfully ill : Something had 
 been agonizedly sensible of that. How many beings 
 were there in her to be aware? She had known things 
 before her complete awakening — but had not known 
 herself. 
 
 It was not an unpopulated world into which she 
 had dropped : she knew now, somehow, that dim, fear- 
 ful people were in it — she had heard and felt them 
 . . . their passing through the air . . . and even the 
 silences that fell dreadfully down upon them. 
 
 Over and over her dim, sickened wits repudiated 
 her mind's claim to this self . . . denied that any- 
 thing that was she could find lodgment in this ragged 
 figurement. The personality ofifered for her accep- 
 tance was distorted out of the slightest semblance of 
 credibility. Some time her real self would come back 
 to her — all gathered together, and decently clad. 
 
 Thirst obsessed her every faculty! 
 
 She dragged herself up, and found that, though so 
 weak she could not hold one idea long, she was not too 
 ill to move. She felt that if she could get her mind 
 wholly to come back and to grip hard, her limbs would 
 not shake so. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 329 
 
 She stared around her in astonishment, her mind 
 fluctuating uncertainly before what she looked out 
 upon. Another chimera! A toppling crazy world, 
 patched together. She gave a mad little scream. 
 How could one live in a world in which there were 
 so many holes? One would be always falling out of 
 them. What incredible kind of senses must one have 
 to exist in those moon-struck huts? 
 
 She fled unsteadily out of the hovel where she had 
 found herself. Before what confronted her, her 
 mouth opened again to cry out, but closed gulpingly 
 without a sound. That crooked coast, that retching 
 mouth of a bay, those blood-red nets ! 
 
 She pressed her hand across her head, as if to hold 
 the recollections that came flitting disjointedly through 
 it, trying fearfully but futilely to make coherent con- 
 nections. A vision came suddenly shocking before 
 her — revolving, ribald human groups, clawing and 
 jeering about her, only to take flight. 
 
 It was indeed in an outrageous form and surround- 
 ings that she had found life. They had looted her 
 dress, her shoes, stockings — her hair, which her grop- 
 ing fingers had been so long trying to find. Some 
 one, in saturnine mercy, had flung a filthy rag over 
 her, which automatically she clutched about her. Hav- 
 ing picked her clean, it was inconceivable why they 
 had let her live ! 
 
 Too stupefied to be afraid, she moved about in the 
 nightmare. Strange sounds came from the huts. She 
 stopped and listened, and commenced to tremble in 
 fresh terror. She stimibled quickly away across the 
 sand. 
 
 Suddenly her foot struck a bimdle of rags. She 
 stopped and gazed down. Something ghastly lay there 
 
330 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 in the sand : a child struggHng hideously with its last 
 pinch of strength — so futile an atom against the 
 forces of the universe! As she stooped closer and 
 stared, horror swept over her in a chill of ice. She 
 Jcnew now why there was no roar of moving here, no 
 devil's laughter; the place had been stricken with the 
 plague — the creatures were dying like rats in their 
 trash-made huts. 
 
 She waited to run, but in her terror could not com- 
 tnand her muscles to move. The child's head, crusted 
 Tvith sores, lay convulsed upon the sand. She regarded 
 it in horror, repugnance, and pity. Before her shak- 
 ing vision rose a Pavilion — an Eastern market-place, 
 and from it a leper stretched forth a supplicating 
 hand. 
 
 Pestilence-stricken hordes, unstaunched running 
 sores! Day by day she had passed the Pavilion, had 
 shuddered at the leper's bleached face turned, empty of 
 hope, to the pitiless sun, and had rim away. In what 
 <iream had she seen those tortured masks ? — faces, 
 praying for death — 
 
 Always before she had fled — there had come a 
 moment of violent contention with herself, when it 
 had become inevitable that she could not always go 
 round, that sometime she must go through, clear 
 through. She had always run away — failed com- 
 pletely: the cycle of those past failures seemed now 
 to burn like one of their sores within her. And now 
 she was facing again this crisis — her soul finally 
 would no longer let her off. She closed her eyes and 
 put forth trembling fingers. The clutch of the leper 
 closed chilly around them. The circuit at last was 
 complete. 
 
 The moment her eyes opened, she uttered a piercing 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 331 
 
 cry. Locked in her grasp lay the hand of the plague- 
 stricken child. The rigid fingers clutched around hers 
 in a last hold upon slipping life. Spasm after spasm 
 of agony tcrre the puny frame. A great throb of 
 answering human pain shot through the girl's heart. 
 She sank down in the sand, deliriously clinging to this 
 scrap of life as if it were the last in the world. The 
 child shivered into stillness. Julie stared resentfully, 
 indignantly about her into hot space. Hopeless — 
 hopeless! everywhere! She began to cry weakly, 
 dropping her head in the sand. 
 
 Her thirst was overwhelming. She gathered her- 
 self up, and crept cautiously among the huts. It was 
 early afternoon, and the denizens of the place were 
 either absent, ill or dying. A few men were fishing 
 out on the bay. Nobody in this hole of death cared 
 anything about her. She moved on, peering stealthily 
 through the apertures of the huts. What she saw 
 staggered her, but she went doggedly on till she came 
 upon some blackened water vessels. She knelt down 
 to drink — the water was afloat with skating insects 
 — joyous, horrible things, dancing on the water of 
 dying men ! 
 
 She picked up one of the vessels, and went searching 
 till in one empty hut she found some matches and a 
 pot of rice. With her spoils she wandered down the 
 sandy coast to the shelter of a great rock, where, after 
 much diffused effort, she contrived to make a fire of 
 driftwood. 
 
 Drowsing upon the sand, she waited for her meal to 
 cook. The thought of leaving this ill-omened spot had 
 already occurred to her, but vaguely and accompanied 
 by the presentiment of obstacles facing her. First, 
 she had no clothes; one could not walk out into the 
 
332 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 city in an underskirt with a rag over one's heg-d. 
 Then, she could not reason out where she was to go 
 or what she was to do, if she did go out. Last, hid- 
 den in the back of her brain, and not yet presenting 
 itself fully to light, was an insuperable obstacle. Some 
 unknown fettering chain was binding her — she knew 
 that she could not go. 
 
 She drank thirstily of the hot boiled water, con- 
 sumed a part of the rice, and dropped asleep on the 
 sand under the rock. 
 
 Again came the torture of the same dream, the hard 
 wrenching out of drift land; it was morning when 
 she awoke — dim morning, before the sun. The first 
 thing her eye lighted on was the vessel of rice. She 
 reached out and ate heartily of it. Then she rose, 
 and walked through the gray shadows of her mon- 
 strous world. 
 
 Confronting her lay that sordid bit of doomed 
 coast, those crazy huddled huts shaken by the winds 
 of devastation and hiding the terror of death. Across 
 her path a human body lay stark, like a dead fish on 
 the sand. The creature had died there in the night, 
 and no one had come to bury it. She was seized with 
 the frantic impulse to get out of this malevolent place 
 as quickly as possible. She walked past the huts, and 
 heard again the moaning sounds. She stopped in de- 
 spair. Why had these people been abandoned to their 
 destruction? Where was the Board of Health? No- 
 body had come to help — nobody was coming. 
 
 She leaned back against the wall, beyondi which 
 she had meant to escape. She understood now how 
 far beyond control the plague had swept. She gazed 
 back at the thing on the sand, at the livid face, and 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 333 
 
 empty mask that fixed with its hopeless stare. Every- 
 where somebody was staying to see it out. 
 
 Suddenly the complete chain of her life's circum- 
 stances came sweeping back into her consciousness. 
 She remembered why she was here — the stupendous, 
 inefifectual effort she had made to wrench herself free. 
 And here she was bade once more in the old insoluble 
 conditions, with nothing changed — up against the 
 same uncombatable odds, dumped here on this spot 
 by a leveling, inconjectural fate, lost among the lostt 
 Her constant use of that odious drug had insured her 
 against the full fatality of the morphine dose. She 
 should have remembered that she would need far more 
 than any one else. 
 
 It did not occur to her to try again. The horror of 
 that Outside Struggle still darkened her mind. There 
 was no chance in the world she would not take rather 
 than risk again those unnameable terrors. It had been 
 made absolute that she must go on — even though 
 there was no hope: to struggle and still struggle, to 
 the end. She stood there against the wall, and tried 
 to face once more the relinquished battle. 
 
 The moment when resolution came engulfed the 
 world. 
 
 Before it these creatures and their tragedy grew 
 dim and the Plague was wiped out. She shook away 
 the tears that had fallen on her face, and walked back 
 to the huts. 
 
 A glance through the holes that answered for win- 
 dows sufficed to reveal the extremity her life had 
 touched. But before the decision at the wall, she had 
 already embraced the plague ; before reason had found 
 the courage, an inner self had already stretched forth 
 
334 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 her hand. And thus began the sojourn in the Pavilion. 
 — among dying men. 
 
 In sheer surrender beyond belief the creatures gave 
 tip to die. The girl did what she could : boiled water, 
 cooked food, cared for the sick, attempted to clean up 
 the wretched community. The bodies were buried 
 along the shore, till Julie managed to get a frenzied 
 appeal through to the Board of Health. 
 
 Finally, native servants of the Board came and took 
 charge of the bodies, assisted half-heartedly in clean- 
 ing out the dirt, left medicines and food, and prom- 
 ised a doctor — who never appeared. They stood 
 themselves in deadly fear of the cholera, and knew 
 that in the general panic they would scarcely be held 
 to account for this wretched spot. They told Julie 
 that the cholera suddenly, like smoldering fire fanned 
 to flames, had broken out from end to end of the city. 
 Always in cycles of time the Plague had come to sweep 
 them to destruction but never before as now. Terrible 
 was the will of God over his little men. The Ameri- 
 cans were taking it too, they said. There were not doc- 
 tors enough to cope with the pest; certainly — when 
 honest men were stricken — none were to spare for this 
 xogues' nest. The Americana who was so singularly 
 situated — ought, they thought, to be looking out for 
 herself. It did not matter what happened to this spawn 
 of Beelzebub, to whom not even Mary in Heaven would 
 stoop. 
 
 Julie's mind burned with the fierce rage of defeat — 
 a pygmy battling along the sands of creation, she 
 seemed to herself. At times the cold horror of it 
 seemed about to crush her; a big, hideous game where, 
 in ceaseless opposition, she moved, and the Plague 
 moved, and the Plague took the pieces — a low, one- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 335 
 
 feided contest in which the pieces had never a chance. 
 iThey were trash, floatage on the current of life, but 
 they were human. They — who were in the posses- 
 sion of the miracle of thought — to be swept away 
 like straws by this filthy, insentient thing! At times, 
 she too dropped into their mood of apathy and capit- 
 ulation, but roused always to fight. She pressed into 
 the struggle her every faculty, conjured from pas- 
 sionate depths forces that had never before seen light. 
 Away back in Nahal, she had cast her soul into the 
 beginnings of this struggle, and it seemed as if the old 
 fervor had come to life and was being put to its cruciaJ. 
 test. 
 
 Along with the Plague, she fought the Hunger.. 
 The fire of the old desire burned often in wild spurts.. 
 Sometimes she would pace the sand, crying and clench- 
 ing her hands, hour after hour. When the deliriunt 
 of the Hunger was at its worst, she would run madly 
 out into the surf and let the water break over her. 
 There was nothing to lean on, nothing to help ! 
 
 Then the Plague, with its monstrous fatality, would 
 sweep over her senses, and submerge her personal 
 struggle. With so much misery always before her 
 eyes, she began to lose track of herself. The Plague 
 swallowed up everything ; it came finally to stand as the 
 real antagonist of her existence, for it sought to rout 
 the supreme stand her spirit had taken. Deep in her 
 consciousness she cherished a dream of eventual con- 
 quest, of a time when inconceivably she should win. 
 Just to beat it back once ! For so long it had snatched 
 everything from under her struggling hands. Of this 
 she thought incessantly as she made her rounds dog- 
 gedly, combating each hopeless moment. 
 
 But her creatures continued to die as under a doom 
 
336 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 of God. Julie felt as if she had come up against the 
 wall of the universe, where against its insensible 
 strength her human will was being shattered. 
 
 Her charges, terribly broken, had accepted her as a 
 partner of their dark fate. They dug into their mis- 
 erable stores, and those of them who had still esc-aped 
 the Plague went forth on errands of industry or dep- 
 redation, and returned to pour their spoils into the 
 common fund. What marvel of loyalty always 
 brought them back to the accursed spot, Julie coidd not 
 fathom. 
 
 At night she would steal out in the street, to claim 
 her own soul back for a moment. The streets were 
 the universe. Even the grotesqueries had a way of 
 stumbling out toward the open, as if at the last their 
 wretched beings sought egress to freer spaces. She 
 would stand knitting her brows at the darkness, as 
 if trying to claim some solution out of it. Some time 
 she meant to go away — but where? The silent, 
 empty streets troubled her. Up and down them the 
 gay light of the sun had poured upon brightly passing 
 people; the perfume of baskets of flowers being borne 
 to market before the dew was off the day; the cheery 
 grind of ox-carts milling the golden dust of earth; the 
 lilt of the water-carrier's song; the rhythmic beat of the 
 washer-women's bats upon the stones; the flash of 
 paddles, and the swish of glad little boats making down 
 the river to the sea — all this had been part of the 
 immortal stir of life that had made this place for them 
 a paradise of the sun. 
 
 Terrible days these were! Sometimes peering out 
 in the daylight, she caught glimpses of the dejected 
 funeral processions, the bearers and mourners bowed 
 down, as if the fate of man were too heavy to be borne. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 337 
 
 The inconsequence of these lives made them more 
 than ever tragic : they were so humble ; they never re- 
 belled. Julie thought that if God had been responsible 
 for such things as these, man would have rebelled 
 against Him ages ago; but it was because man saw 
 his own ancestral mistakes made manifest that he 
 bowed his head without protest to their consequences. 
 
 There had been heavy toll taken in the Tondo dis- 
 trict. In old newspapers that drifted into her retreat, 
 Julie had read familiar names ; and, as the black hearses 
 had dragged wearily by, she knew that they carried 
 many of her old pupils. As she watched them pass, a 
 vision would rise before her of big boys in cheap drill 
 suits and barefooted maidens pondering at the black- 
 boards — poor blundering things, eternally wistful 
 over the courtesies and the wisdoms of the West; 
 Julie wept. 
 
 Then she would remember that Chad had called her 
 ,the little lady goddess of the East. Standing in her 
 ragged camisa, gazing from her walls across the streets, 
 a desire would sweep over her to go and reveal to 
 Chad the heart of the East that she had found far from 
 his haunts. 
 
 Where was Barry? The query arose a thousand 
 times in her mind. One of the papers had reported 
 that he had left the city. Isabel, too, she gleaned, had 
 taken herself away. Julie recalled the visit Isabel 
 had made to some secret Island, and the paradise she 
 had conjured up. 
 
 Her own disappearance, Julie saw, had apparently 
 not caused a ripple of concern. In this hour of stress, 
 her absence from her own world was not noted. Who, 
 after all, was there to remark it? From the Depart- 
 ment, from the Senor, from Barry even, she had cut 
 
338 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 herself adrift. She had gone away from the Reredos 
 without explanation: but not even had they troubled 
 themselves to discover what had become of her. 
 
 When the pain of her isolation struck too deep, she 
 would steal back behind the broken walls to the oblivion 
 that inevitably lay there. Here where the worms were 
 being trodden out, one was forced to forget one's own 
 despair. Gradually she forgot everything but the de- 
 sire to find somewhere a power to conquer the Plague. 
 In its struggle, the girl's soul seemed to be reaching 
 out toward something which, though she could in no- 
 wise define it, began to appear accessible. 
 
 One night, with the old sense of futility and wretched 
 helplessness, she was standing over the body of one of 
 the poor creatures who was taking too long to die. 
 Through the tremendous stretches of space above 
 her great bolts of lightning intermittently flashed. 
 Power! Ever}rwhere, great and invincible power. 
 She wondered passionately what a man must think or 
 feel in his soul to touch the source of it. 
 
 The man's body before her commenced to take on its 
 final repose. His eyes lay open to the sky. Julie, 
 bending over him stared in sudden awe; for from 
 under the dirt and grime of that abandoned thug, a 
 mystery was emerging. Suddenly the Veil pulled 
 apart; down there in the dust — the Common Soul! 
 The Soul that was through all things. She and the 
 "Worm and God — in one unbreakable bond ! 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SUPPLIES were becoming very hard to procure. 
 Indeed, Julie had for some time felt urged to ga 
 and seek assistance from the outside world. 
 Not the Plague alone, but starvation threatened what 
 was left of these people for whom she had been strug- 
 gling. The time had come when she must somehow 
 face the outside world. 
 
 But how without rational clothing could she under- 
 take such an errand ? It was forced upon her that she 
 must first of all present herself to the Reredos, and get 
 her clothes. She remembered now, too, that she had 
 left a little money in the pocket of a dress, — not much, 
 but it loomed tremendously to her eyes. It was prob- 
 ably safe, since she had hidden the key to her trunk 
 among the cadena de amor trailing the window-sill, 
 where no muchacho would have dreamed of searching. 
 
 Looking herself desperately over, in the darkness, 
 with full appreciation of her fantastic appearance, Julie 
 found it an almost insuperable business to thrust her- 
 self beyond the walls. Quite impossible, on the other 
 hand, was it to remain here longer. Gathering her 
 courage, and consoling herself with the thought that 
 nobody in the city longer remembered her, or was con- 
 cerned about her, she set forth, her head covered by an 
 old scarf against the terrors of the journey. 
 
 She was not really too tall to pass for a native wo- 
 man, nor, in this light, too white to be taken for a mes- 
 tiza, — and Eurasians in native costume were not un- 
 common; but there was in her movement a rhythm 
 
 339 
 
340 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 that would have revealed her at once as an outsider 
 to the curious observer. Fortunately, few such were 
 abroad; and by selecting a round-about way through 
 tin frequented streets, she contrived to pass unmarked 
 through the dusk, though every nerve was a-quiver 
 when at last she crossed the bridge near the isolated es- 
 tate of the Reredos. 
 
 Approaching the huge iron gates, she saw that in no 
 part of the house within her vision was a light to be 
 seen. She knew that there was in the rear wall a 
 breach, which the children had enlarged, by much chip- 
 ping and hacking, to enable Chiquito's increasing di- 
 mensions to pass through. This aperture would serve 
 lier particularly well just now, since she could not bring 
 herself to appear in this fashion at the front door. 
 
 She waded through the lush growth along the old 
 stone walls, wormed herself through Chiquito's egress, 
 and hurried across the grounds toward the house. 
 
 The garden had commenced to take on the covertly 
 wild look of a thing that no longer acknowledges a 
 master. All its lovely blooms had, with the wayward- 
 ness of tropical foliage, betaken themselves to the tops 
 •of walls or trees. The snowy cadena shone timidly in 
 silvery filagree high against Julie's old window. 
 
 The shell shutters were all closed fast; not a sound 
 ■came from behind them. The house was totally dark. 
 Gaining courage, the girl tried the door, knocked, and 
 finally boldly shook the heavy framework. 
 
 Across the door sill and over the floor of the trel- 
 lised porch, sun-faded newspapers were broadly scat- 
 tered. The Senor had taken his family off to Spain, as 
 he had said he would do. He had doubtless gone hur- 
 riedly at the coming of the Plague to his district, with- 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 341 
 
 out stopping to give instructions concerning these Ma- 
 nila periodicals, which the native carrier, with an in- 
 creasingly divergent aim, had continued to throw over 
 the gate. 
 
 Julie stooped and rummaged among the papers on 
 the sill. Stuck fast under the door, she discovered a 
 couple of letters. She pried them forth, and, examin- 
 ing them in the moonlight at the. edge of the porch, 
 found they were both addressed to her. She moved 
 toward the seat under the fire-tree, which she and 
 Barry had so often occupied; the full moon was now 
 flooding the garden; she could read her letters there. 
 In a vague appetite for news of the world she caught 
 up, as she went, two or three of the papers from the 
 walk. 
 
 Through curiosity she opened the unknown letter be- 
 fore her uncle's. She wondered why little Mrs. Smith 
 had taken it into her head to write, after all this time. 
 
 The Smiths were now stationed in Solano, and Mrs. 
 Smith rather pathetically wished to know if any of the 
 things that had happened to Julie's old friends of Nahal 
 were happening to Julie. She hoped not — for the 
 worst thing that could happen to anybody had hap- 
 pened to her. She knew that the natives over here 
 suffered from terrible things, but she had never 
 dreamed that anything so awful could befall her. 
 Those first cruel red spots on her white skin — looking 
 as if they had been branded on with a red hot iron; 
 Marlborough's desperate efforts to disprove them ; the 
 doctor's reticence; the nurse's gingerly cautious atti- 
 tude, had air only disclosed the unbearable truth. She 
 had caught the small pox in Nahal — though she was 
 in Solano when it developed. Where else than in that 
 
342 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 ill-omened island could one have got such a thing ! She 
 could demonstrate to everybody how fatal a spot to 
 everybody Nahal had been. 
 
 She had not been anywhere near death, but rather 
 than this thing she would have prayed for any other 
 conceivable, cruel curse of the East — this East which 
 had so many to give. 
 
 Marlborough had been a miracle of devotion, assur- 
 ing her a thousand times that it would never matter 
 to him what she looked like. A girl might believe all 
 this — but to a woman whose heart was deeply versed 
 in the frailty of men it was all intolerable. It wasn't 
 that she was marked so badly — not really so much 
 at all — but that she would never again see in the 
 glass her old self. Marlborough was going to take 
 her to Paris and have her skin peeled, but — she dared 
 not believe. 
 
 Yes, certainly, there must have been a curse on that 
 place! To further prove it there was Calmiden. 
 Af tef Julie left, Calmiden had been ordered to Dao to 
 take Adams's place. " But, you know, Julie, he was 
 never Adams's metal, and I guess he rebelled utterly 
 at being put in Adams's shoes. Templeton goaded 
 Calmiden to what he did — one day he struck him. I 
 can't imagine any one's striking Calmiden and going 
 on living, can you? Well — Templeton didn't, Julie, 
 and that's it ! It's so hard to tell, but in the big fight 
 they had — men lose their balance so completely in 
 places like this — Templeton somehow dropped dead. 
 Of course you understand that he was a rotten old 
 shell of a dipsomaniac that would cave in at the first 
 few blows. 
 
 " They brought Calmiden over here for trial, and 
 high-ranking officers came down from Manila. I 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 343 
 
 don't know what took place, but they say his men stood 
 around him in an invincible and impenetrable wall of 
 evidence, and he was acquitted. But he will never 
 be the same Kenneth again. 
 
 " Do you know, I think that somehow this place 
 has recoiled on us, Julie. We hated it and stood aloof 
 from it. We despised the people and made gods of 
 ourselves. You remember I used always to call them 
 niggers — I thought I was showing the superiority 
 of my birthright that way; and not one throb of this 
 life here ever touched Calmiden's soul. Did any of 
 us have any soul, particularly, in it? Weren't we the 
 dead wood on a mighty, struggling stream? I don't 
 know about you — what has happened to you; but I 
 used to think there was something different about you, 
 for all your seeming to take no real interest in any- 
 thing here, save Calmiden — and Adams, a little. 
 
 " The regiment is soon to sail for home. Be sure 
 to look us up, as we come through." 
 
 Julie dropped the letter in her lap. She leaned for- 
 ward on her knee, and her mind went wandering over 
 the stretches of the past. So this was the message 
 of Nahal — all there was ever to be; of that Nahal 
 which had caused her soul's difficulties. She pondered 
 deeply the whole immense problem. Had it been her 
 individual problem, set for her to solve — her frag- 
 ment of eternal purposes to prove? How utterly she 
 had blundered and drifted along, evading the par- 
 ticular, crucial nonconforming bit of the universe that 
 she had perhaps come into life to subdue^ Even when 
 aware of her flaming objective, she had dallied weakly 
 and wastefully in easy and uninspired areas of life. 
 Stupidly she had let her fire die out, and her being go 
 to waste. 
 
344 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 Once she had been offered the choice of her ideals 
 or Calmiden, and she had chosen Calmiden, though 
 he was the antagonist of all her stirring beliefs. For 
 a passing whim of passion, she had flung her sublim- 
 est convictions to the winds. That there were pun- 
 ishments for such perfidies of spirit she had come trag- 
 ically to comprehend. She had halted and turned, 
 given up — letting the things she had made a Covenant 
 with go back to fate unaccounted for. 
 
 None of these men she had known here would have 
 turned back, at any cost; as agents of the future, of 
 the whole onmoving universe, nothing had counted 
 with them — not happiness, nor life, nor love; while 
 she had demanded insistently and supremely her hu- 
 man happiness, and, failing to obtain it, had let go, 
 like the rest of the derelicts of life: and there the 
 East had stepped in to capture her, as inevitably it 
 captured all of her mood. 
 
 With here and there little flashes of eternal verities 
 overwhelming her, she sat and thought more pro- 
 foundly than ever she had thought in her life. She 
 wanted to probe to the bottom and release the last 
 vestige of the illusion of the past. Those few words 
 of Mrs. Smith stood out like flame against her brain: 
 " This place has recoiled on us — because we hated it, 
 and stood aloof." Julie felt this sink into some deep, 
 almost inaccessible place, and come forth again. 
 
 That was the key to the long mystery. That was 
 the key to her. She remembered how contemptuous 
 her friends in Nahal had all been of the work in hand, 
 how anxious they had been to be rid of it — except 
 her. She covered her face with her hands : all but her! 
 She had clung to Nahal as a glory for herself — as 
 a universe for a small and exhilarantly inflated ego to 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 345 
 
 expand in. Her sincere energies had borne fruit, but 
 too often she had brushed aside all that had not col- ■ 
 ored her adventurous fancy. Turned in upon herself, 
 she had skimmed fruitlessly this brown well of being. 
 A psychological Alexander taking by assault the soul 
 of Asia. In what a halo of Eastern colors she had 
 planned to do that! She had chosen the East as a 
 stage for her personal grandeur. She had expected 
 a superlative destiny somehow to be handed out from 
 it. 
 
 But from the East's dark face and blunted mind 
 she had actually always shrunk; and as that foolish 
 little woman, in a moment of tremendous wisdom, 
 had pointed out, the East had recoiled upon her and 
 pulled her down with ruthless irony to its lowest levels. 
 Mrs. Smith might as well have said the universe, which, 
 demands atom for atom of energy, ounce for ounce 
 of force. 
 
 Then had come the inscrutable forces, which had 
 taken up her life and threshed it mercilessly to the 
 point of death, and winnowed it out. The Great Law- 
 had taken her in hand, broken her old self to bits, and 
 of the pieces transmuted a form to its ends. In order 
 to come truly into life, she had first to be destroyed? 
 She felt a thrill of the old exhilaration to have at 
 last found the way. 
 
 She opened her uncle's letter, the moon falling in 
 soft sheets about her. 
 
 It was upon that letter that for a moment the new 
 fate seemed to hinge. He had written to say that 
 his aflfairs were in better shape; that he had, in fact, 
 sold the factories, advantageously; that some monejr 
 of Julie's, which he had long ago invested for her, 
 would now be available for her. He urged her to 
 
346 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 come home; he was perfectly sure that the East was 
 no place for a girl alone. She need not live with 
 Mrs. Dreschell, if she did not choose to, but with more 
 congenial relatives. 
 
 The girl sank once more into thought. She sat a 
 long time staring at the moon-lit night, at the fire- 
 ilowers dropping through it like soft sparks. Over 
 her came at last the conviction that she would never 
 leave — that the gates of the East had indeed closed 
 after her for good. There would be no more turning. 
 She was going straight on, only struggle,, everlasting 
 struggle lying ahead. Things were moving toward 
 something over here, and rather than all the safe paths 
 of the world she would choose this vivid, perilous ex- 
 istence. That was what the levels had done for her — 
 taken out all fear. She remembered Barry's high 
 peak, where from him also fear had dropped. Here 
 the Hunger had been vanquished. Back in that for- 
 lorn spot, she had fought the Plague, and lost ; but the 
 Plague had fought the Hunger, and won. There were 
 t)ig forces over here, to fight with or against. Every- 
 thing for her must be created new. In the silence of 
 the night, she recalled a vision of waiting and watch- 
 ing that she had seen in this same garden. Yes, she 
 Tvould go farther on. 
 
 She reached down for the papers, which had slipped 
 to her feet. She wanted to see if that stroke of fate 
 — Independence, had come. The most recent of the 
 papers was two days old, and conveyed the information 
 that the bill had failed to pass the Congress of the 
 United States. 
 
 There would be no Philippine Republic! The sig- 
 nificance of this stupendous fact did not penetrate her 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 347 
 
 all at once. Oddly scattered, different thoughts fil- 
 tered through her mind. 
 
 Fate had decided aright. It would take these people 
 awhile longer to make ready to meet the future. And 
 if Isabel were right in her prophecies of the coming 
 clash of the world, they would certainly be best as 
 they were — till the earth were made safe for such 
 little peoples as they. 
 
 Isabel's dreams then were fallen — and Barry's 
 hopes were realized. Slowly the full realization of 
 the turn of events broke upon her consciousness. The 
 aims and hopes of Barry and Isabel could never have 
 been united — never in any case. She saw that now. 
 
 Where then was Barry? The question flashed 
 through every atom of her. 
 
 Her eyes, which unconsciously had wandered down 
 the columns of the paper at which she was staring, 
 rested on Barry's name — and the monstrous, incredi- 
 ble thing printed with it ! 
 
 A process of deadly ossification, starting with her 
 feet and traveling to her brain, seemed to be rooting 
 her to this spot forever. 
 
 " He couldn't have it ! " she murmured in stupid 
 agony to the night. 
 
 The last blow out of the East! The uncombatable 
 enemy! She flung out her arms despairingly, and 
 crumpled crushed on the seat. 
 
 Silent as was the garden, it had a myriad of con- 
 veyances. They urged her to her feet, and on. She 
 ran to the wall, thrust herself through the crevice, and 
 continued to run along the dusky street till she came 
 upon a carromata. 
 
 Now the carromata, by all the chances of the East, 
 
348 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 was driven by the Pedro who had looted her body and 
 who believed it at this moment to be buried in the 
 sea. Therefore when he saw Julie, from whose hacked 
 blond hair the wrap had slipped, Pedro, who had be- 
 come too familiar with her features to forget them, 
 gave a cry, and tried frantically to pass on. But 
 Julie had Disgusto by the bit, and could not be dis- 
 lodged. 
 
 " Drive me to Calle Arzobispo at once ! " she com- 
 manded. 
 
 Pedro whimpering and shivering, sure now that 
 the ghost of the unfortunate Senorita had come back 
 to haunt his carromata forever, gave up resistance; 
 and, when Julie had taken her seat, obeyed her frenzied 
 injunctions with a rattle of terror in his throat. He 
 drove at terrific speed, till Disgusto appeared ready to 
 drop. 
 
 It would be this way, always, Pedro knew. This 
 ghost whom he had plundered in life would not only 
 take complete possession of his carromata, but would 
 drive to death all the horses he could buy. So, when 
 upon nearing the vicinity of the cathedral, the ghost 
 commanded him to stop, leaped over the wheel, and 
 shot forward without paying the fare, Pedro, instead 
 of summoning a policeman, hurled terrific blows upon 
 Disgusto and fled for all he was worth. 
 
 In the sacerdotal section of Arzobispo, with the 
 monastic walls rearing darkly around her and the 
 shadowy trees looming above her like super-human 
 shapes, Julie paused. There was his house^ lifting 
 out of the dark foliage. She went forward unstead- 
 ily. At every step the world seemed to crumble under 
 her tread, and death to claim all that was left of her 
 universe. 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 349 
 
 A native policeman emerged from the shadows as 
 she crept up to the gate. He surveyed her wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I must go in there ! " she said. 
 
 " Women, women ! " he exclaimed fussily. " The 
 master of that house will never think of women any 
 more. There was another one here this evening, cry- 
 ing as if this old earth were a cage and she were shut 
 in it. She was a beautiful lady, too, with great blue 
 eyes; but not a soul in that house, I tell you, stirred 
 out to her. So at last she went groping away in the 
 blackness. You had better go too. I am guarding 
 the gate so that he shall die in peace. Besides," he 
 added, " there is no one to let you in. The servants 
 ran away, being afraid of the Plague — all but one 
 boy. A young boy, a good boy; he is a Visayan, as 
 so am I. They will stand by when Tagalogs take 
 to their heels." 
 
 A vivid intuition flashed through the girl's soul. 
 Stepping past the wordy policeman, she pressed her 
 face close against the bars of the gate. " Delphine ! " 
 she called, again and again through the night. 
 
 A window slid open above. She could distinguish 
 a slight figure standing in the aperture. 
 
 Tremulously she called again: "Delphine! It is 
 I — your maestra." 
 
 The boy's wondering treble answered her: 
 "Maestra!" 
 
 Tears of triumph rolled down her face. 
 
 " Come quickly, and open the gate! " 
 
 He was coming. She listened for every fall of his 
 hurrying slippers. 
 
 At last a white camisa came fluttering through the 
 darkness, the brave white camisa of the poor little 
 
350 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 brown knight who had set out so long ago for the grand 
 adventure. 
 
 " Maestra, my Maestra!" he exclaimed softly and 
 incredulously, staring at her through the bars of the 
 gate. 
 
 " Ah ! You stayed with him ! " was all she could 
 say, the tears choking her. 
 
 The boy opened the gate, and let Julie up into the 
 ominous stillness of the house. At the top of the stair- 
 case, he uttered a soft word, and Doctor Braithwaite 
 appeared, a tall gray wraith spent with much struggle. 
 
 " My maestra has come back." Delphine quivered 
 with simple pride. 
 
 The Doctor stared hard for several moments, while 
 Julie made an agitated effort to explain. At last he 
 contrived to recover himself. 
 
 " Chad was right, then," he said. " He believed 
 that Isabel had tried to do away with you. After you 
 had gone, she endeavored to make it appear that you 
 had gone to meet a man in the southern islands. If 
 I hadn't been over here so long — I think I might find 
 you surprising. 
 
 " Barry was taken ill in the provinces," he went on. 
 " Your boy brought him back, and has stuck to him 
 to the end. If you have never done anvthing else 
 here—" 
 
 He stopped short, his face contracted painfully. 
 "I'm sorry it's too late!" 
 
 She was pitiful enough anyway, this thin, spent little 
 creature, in her outlandish garments, and he winced at 
 the effect of the blow he had delivered. 
 
 " I must see him," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 He shook his head " But that's impossible — with 
 the Plague." 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 351 
 
 She gave a sobbing little laugh. "The Plague! 
 Why that's where I've been — with it all the time. 
 I — " her head dropped — " watched them die." 
 
 His gray lips twitched. " Yes, we watch them die. 
 Every doctor and every nurse on double duty. Chad 
 and I took care of Barry. Then Rosalie took it, and 
 Chad had to go to her. She's gone already." He 
 paused. 
 
 " Barry's case has been different. Usually they go 
 out like lightning — but he wouldn't die! And he 
 wouldn't go to San Lazarus. He kept saying he was 
 going to get over it quick. Said he had to be alive 
 in these times. I never saw a man fight so hard; he 
 has fought with the last artery and capillary. Doctor 
 though I am, I really believed that he would win over 
 sheer matter. And I wanted to see him triumph — 
 it would have seemed like a victory for the race. 
 
 " He believed you would come back." The Doctor 
 looked at her hard for several moments of deep si- 
 lence, then he said : " The East has made you strong." 
 
 He sank heavily into a chair. "If you wish, you 
 may watch. It is good that you have come. I be- 
 lieve I could not have kept my eyes open to-night — 
 even for him ! No sleep for nights — and nights ! " 
 he murmured. 
 
 " He's unconscious now — nothing more to do. 
 Watch a while — and call me — " Even as he spoke, 
 the Doctor sank sleeping in his chair. 
 
 She turned down the hall, groping ahead of her as 
 through gulfs of darkness, her last plank shaking be- 
 neath her, scorching agony tearing at her heart. 
 
 His door stood open. There was a very dim light 
 in the room. From the threshold, she could see the 
 rumpled head, the quenched conquered face. She 
 
352 THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 
 
 stumbled to the bed; and, dropping down beside it, 
 flung her arms about him, as if to hold off with main 
 desperate human strength that last blow. 
 
 " You said you'd come back — wherever you were 
 — if I called you!" she cried in anguished despair. 
 
 She lifted her head, and looked about her in wild 
 entreaty. Where was He — in nights like these — 
 who had walked human paths of despair? Somewhere 
 here He must still be fighting the battle of death ! 
 
 She crouched down on the floor; the spectacle of 
 that inert form was insupportable. Suddenly she 
 lifted her head. From out the soft wonder of dark- 
 ness, with its swinging worlds, Barry was coming 
 toward her — all alight, as of old — looking as he 
 always looked when he had something perfectly new 
 to do. Then he passed on, and darloiess dropped 
 once more. 
 
 With all the appeal in her, she flung her spirit out 
 upon the night. Power, power — everywhere out 
 there — tremendous^ terrifying power behind the illim- 
 itable stretches of space, behind the swinging worlds, 
 veining the universe like lightning to eternal depths. 
 If only she could force a foothold in its great con- 
 spiracy! She had traveled far, gone deep to find it, 
 and had more than once felt it graze her being. Just 
 around the corner, close it was — yet out of touch. 
 All that was in her soul, or would ever be, stretched 
 after it in this moment. She tore at her circum- 
 scribed human vision as at some fatally binding band- 
 age across her eyes. Just to see clear once! 
 
 Her consciousness in its search swept out of its sur- 
 roundings, beyond the barriers of flesh. The stillness 
 of the night seemed charged with the light and force 
 of swift traveling stars. Struggling with the legion§ 
 
THE GREEN GOD'S PAVILION 353 
 
 of darkness and death, she stumbled suddenly into 
 the kingdoms of the unseen. 
 
 The Doctor bent, in the gray light, over the bed. 
 Nobody had called him; and, exhausted, he had slept 
 throughout the night. He had come hurriedly, and 
 stooped down to investigate the outstretched form. 
 
 He picked up one of the hands, and counted the 
 pulse intently. A change passed over his face. He 
 placed his ear to the heart. Then he slowly straight- 
 ened up, and stood staring before him, in a trance 
 of thought. 
 
 The dawn came peeping into the room. He bent 
 over, and studied once more, without drawing breath, 
 his patient's appearance in its reflection. A stir near 
 at hand caused him to turn sharply. He had for- 
 gotten the girl. 
 
 He concentrated upon her a puzzled look. 
 
 " I think," he said, speaking slowly, as if groping 
 through dazed layers of thought, " that you had better 
 get up. He has pulled back ! " 
 
 She started, then slowly raised herself from the 
 floor. For a moment, she appeared to be stretching 
 herself out of sleep; then he had an utterly odd sen- 
 sation that she was putting out her hands in the red 
 dawn toward some invisible thing. 
 
 THE END 
 
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