Old wives' tales! Ancient vile superstition! And yet, what wisdom had departed from the world since ancient days! Not spiritual wisdom alone but material wisdom. How were the great blocks of the pyramids raised? We were n't certain of that! The mighty things of Easter Island, yes, and the great stone legacies of the Incas! We did n't know. And the progress of the world was not spiritual. It was material. And we were n't even certain of material things.
Why did they do it, Lovat pondered! Was it a sacrifice to the bridge itself? A tribute to the idol they had made with their own hands? Hardly! For that would be the idea of barbarians, and barbarians never built great bridges. Was it a sacrifice to the cruelty of the great elements that might endanger the bridge? Possibly. And yet storm was so powerful and so cruel when it felt that way that nothing would hinder it. What was it? He did n't know.
And yet the bridge demanded, needed something.
Cecily felt it,, too, he knew, for she spoke one evening in the lamplight, with averted eyes.
"Dearest one, it sounds a silly question, but why are you building the bridge?"
"Because it's my work, Cecily, to build bridges." He felt what she meant.
"Dearest one, if the bridge were to fall, you would be heartbroken, would n't you?"
"I 'm afraid I should, Cecily."
"Why, dearest one? Is it because you are proud of your bridge? That you want generations to remember you by your bridge?"
"No, Cecily," he thought seriously, "it is n't that. I—I 'm just a helper of the Master Mason, and if the bridge were to fall, I should feel I was a poor, an unworthy helper. That's how I feel, Cecily. That's why I should be heart-broken."
She put down the sewing work she was doing, and came to him, her eyes misty. She took his hands. She knelt by his side.
"I know, my lover," she whispered, a little huskily, "but your bridge will never fall. Believe it, dearest one. Believe it night and day."
But the bridge bothered him. And all her wise courage could not still its silent clamor. He could watch the ant-like battalions of men as they laid stone on stone, chanting in the guttural Chibcha as the bridge-builders of Persia chanted when they built the Perl-i-Khaju at Ispahan. But above their voices came the silent voice of the bridge, loud as thunder. Until he could stand it no longer.
"What is it you want? In God's name what do you want?"
"You know."
"I don't know."
"Ta-wak knew when he builded the great wall of China."
"I don't know."
"King Cheops knew when he builded his great pyramid at Ghizeh."
"But I don't know."
"The Romans knew when they raised the bridges of Gaul. You know, building me."
"I don't know. I won't know." Lovat broke from the place, his forehead damp with perspiration. And as he went toward his cottage, it seemed to him that the jungle and the mountains and all the creatures of the wilds were watching with their inhuman apathetic eyes the Titanic struggle between himself and the thing he had conceived into being, out of lifeless iron and dumb stone.