Chapter 61 - The Plant Hunters by Mayne Reid

Dreams.

Karl in his sleep had a dream, “Let there be light, and there was light!”

This highly poetic passage of Scripture had been running in his mind during the past hours. He was thinking of chaos before the creation; and their own situation might well suggest the chaotic age. He was thinking—and reverentially—of the wonderful power of the Creator, who out of such darkness could cause light to shine forth by the simple expression of his will, “Let there be light, and there was light!”

Karl dreamt that a form had appeared to them,—the form of a beautiful man,—and that from his body a bright light, similar to that of the sun, radiated on all sides. Around his head and face the rays were distributed in the form of a glory, such as Karl had seen upon many old pictures of the Saviour. Looking more attentively at the face, Karl also recognised its resemblance to the same pictures;—the gentle and benign expression, the noble forehead, and fair curling hair,—all were the same. Karl, who was of a religious turn, believed it was the Saviour he saw in his dream. The cave was no longer in darkness; it was lit up by the coruscations of light that emanated from the beautiful vision, and Karl could see all around him.

After regarding him for a while, the bright form turned and moved off, beckoning Karl and the others to follow.

They obeyed; and, after traversing numerous passages and chambers,—some of which they recognised as having passed through while in chase of the bear,—they were guided to the mouth of the cavern, where the strange apparition, meeting the light of the sun, melted into the air and disappeared from their sight!

The delight which Karl felt, at this dénouement of his dream, caused him to awake with a start, and with a joyful ejaculation upon his lips. It was suddenly suppressed, and followed by an expression of pain and disappointment. The happy passage had been only a dream,—a false delusion. The reality was as dark and gloomy as ever.

The interjections of Karl awoke his companions; and Karl perceived that Caspar was greatly excited. He could not see him, but he knew by his talk, that such was the case.

“I have been dreaming,” said Caspar, “a strange dream.”

“Dreaming! of what?”

“Oh! of lights, brother,—of lights,” replied Caspar.

Karl was deeply attentive,—almost superstitious. He fancied that Caspar had seen the same vision with himself,—it must have been something more than a dream!

“What lights, Caspar?”

“Oh! jolly lights,—lights enough to show us out. Hang me! if I think I dreamt it after all. By thunder! good brother, I believe I was half awake when the idea came into my mind. Capital idea, isn’t it?”

“What idea?” inquired Karl in surprise, and rather apprehensive that Caspar’s dream had deprived him of his senses. “What idea, Caspar?”

“Why, the idea of the candles, to be sure.”

“The candles! What candles?—Surely,” thought Karl, as he asked the question,—“surely my poor brother’s intellect is getting deranged,—this horrid darkness is turning his brain.”

“Oh! I have not told you my dream,—if it was a dream. I am confused. I am so delighted with the idea. We shall group no more in this hideous darkness,—we shall have light,—plenty of light, I promise you. Odd we did not think of the thing before!”

“But what is it, brother? What was your dream about?—Tell us that.”

“Well, now that I am awake, I don’t think it was a dream,—at least, not a regular one. I was thinking of the thing before I fell asleep, and I kept on thinking about it when I got to be half asleep; and then I saw my way clearer. You know, brother, I have before told you that when I have any thing upon my mind that puzzles me, I often hit upon the solution of it when I am about half dreaming; and so it has been in this case, I am sure I have got the right way at last.”

“Well, Caspar,—the right way to do what? The right way to get out of the cave?”

“I hope so, brother.”

“But what do you propose?”

“I propose that we turn tallow-chandlers.”

“Tallow-chandlers! Poor boy!” soliloquised Karl; “I thought as much. O merciful Heaven, my dear brother! his reason is gone!”

Such were Karl’s painful surmises, though he kept them to himself.

“Yes, tallow-chandlers,” continued Caspar, in the same half-earnest, half-jocular way, “and make us a full set of candles.”

“And of what would you make your candles, dear Caspar?” inquired Karl, in a sympathising tone, and with the design of humouring his brother, rather than excite him by contradiction.

“Of what,” echoed Caspar, “what but the fat of this great bear?”

“Ha!” ejaculated Karl, suddenly changing his tone, as he perceived that Caspar’s madness had something of method in it, “the fat of the bear, you say?”

“Certainly, Karl. Isn’t his stomach as full of tallow as it can stick? and what’s to hinder us to make candles out of it that will carry us all over the cave,—and out of it, I fancy, unless it be the greatest maze that Nature has ever made out of rock-work?”

Karl was no longer under the belief that his brother had gone mad. On the contrary, he saw that the latter had conceived a very fine idea; and though it did not yet appear how the thing was to be carried out, Karl fancied that there was something in it. His sweet dream recurred to him, and this he now regarded as ominous of the success of some plan of escape,—perhaps by the very means which Caspar had suggested,—by making candles out of “bear’s grease!”

These were pleasant thoughts, but to Karl the pleasantest thought of all was the returning conviction that Caspar was still in his senses!