South Africa.
II. THE HUNTER.
In certain valleys there was a hunter. Day by day he went to hunt for wild-fowl in the woods; and it chanced that once he stood on the shores of a large lake. While he stood waiting in the rushes for the coming of the birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water he saw a reflection. He looked up to the sky; but the thing was gone. Then a burning desire came over him to see once again that reflection in the water, and all day he watched and waited; but night came and it had not returned. Then he went home with his empty bag, moody and silent. His comrades came questioning about him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing; he sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him, and to him he spoke.
“I have seen today,” he said, “that which I never saw before—a vast white bird, with silver wings outstretched, sailing in the everlasting blue. And now it is as though a great fire burnt within my breast. It was but a sheen, a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire nothing more on earth than to hold her.”
His friend laughed.
“It was but a beam playing on the water, or the shadow of your own head. Tomorrow you will forget her,” he said.
But tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow the hunter walked alone. He sought in the forest and in the woods, by the lakes and among the rushes, but he could not find her. He shot no more wild fowl; what were they to him?
“What ails him?” said his comrades.
“He is mad,” said one.
“No; but he is worse,” said another; “he would see that which none of us have seen, and make himself a wonder.”
“Come, let us forswear his company,” said all.
So the hunter walked alone.
One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore and weeping, an old man stood before him, grander and taller than the sons of men.
“Who are you?” asked the hunter.
“I am Wisdom,” answered the old man; “but some men call me Knowledge. All my life I have grown in these valleys; but no man sees me till he has sorrowed much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to behold me; and, according as a man has suffered, I speak.”
And the hunter cried:
“Oh, you who have lived here so long, tell me, what is that great wild bird I have seen sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she is a dream; the shadow of my own head.”
The old man smiled.
“Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never rests again. Till death he desires her.”
And the hunter cried:
“Oh, tell me where I may find her.”
But the old man said:
“You have not suffered enough,” and went.
Then the hunter took from his breast the shuttle of Imagination, and wound on it the thread of his Wishes; and all night he sat and wove a net.
In the morning he spread the golden net upon the ground, and into it he threw a few grains of credulity, which his father had left him, and which he kept in his breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat by to see what would happen. The first that came into the net was a snow-white bird, with dove’s eyes, and he sang a beautiful song—“A human-God! a human-God! a human-God!” it sang. The second that came was black and mystical, with dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the depths of your soul, and he sang only this—“Immortality!”
And the hunter took them both in his arms, for he said—
“They are surely of the beautiful family of Truth.”
Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a shrill voice, like one crying in the marketplace—“Reward after Death! Reward after Death!”
And he said—
“You are not so fair; but you are fair too,” and he took it.
And others came, brightly coloured, singing pleasant songs, till all the grains were finished. And the hunter gathered all his birds together, and built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.
Then the people came about dancing and singing.
“Oh, happy hunter!” they cried. “Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightful birds! Oh, lovely songs!”
No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had been caught; but they danced and sang before them. And the hunter too was glad, for he said:
“Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and I shall see her snow-white form.”
But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter’s heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terrible desire had awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it chanced that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he had done.
And Wisdom smiled sadly.
“Many men,” he said, “have spread that net for Truth; but they have never found her. On the grains of credulity she will not feed; in the net of wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. Lovely and beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows them not.”
And the hunter cried out in bitterness—
“And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?”
And the old man said,
“Listen, and in that you have suffered much and wept much, I will tell you what I know. He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these valleys of superstition forever, taking with him not one shred that has belonged to them. Alone he must wander down into the Land of Absolute Negation and Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation; when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into the country of dry sunshine. The mountains of stern reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond them lies Truth.”
“And he will hold her fast! he will hold her in his hands!” the hunter cried.
Wisdom shook his head.
“He will never see her, never hold her. The time is not yet.”
“Then there is no hope?” cried the hunter.
“There is this,” said Wisdom: “Some men have climbed on those mountains; circle above circle of bare rock they have scaled; and, wandering there, in those high regions, some have chanced to pick up on the ground one white silver feather, dropped from the wing of Truth. And it shall come to pass,” said the old man, raising himself prophetically and pointing with his finger to the sky, “it shall come to pass, that when enough of those silver feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men, and shall have been woven into a cord, and the cord into a net, that in that net Truth may be captured. Nothing but Truth can hold Truth.”
The hunter arose. “I will go,” he said.
But wisdom detained him.
“Mark you well—who leaves these valleys never returns to them. Though he should weep tears of blood seven days and nights upon