CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CUP OF WRATH AND TREMBLING.
A flash of time, . . an instant of black, horrid eclipse, too brief for the utterance of even a word or cry, … and then,—with an appalling roar, as of the splitting of huge rocks and the tearing asunder of mighty mountains, the murky gloom was lifted, rent, devoured, and swept away on all sides by a sudden bursting forth of Fire! … Fire leaped up alive in twenty different parts of the building, springing aloft in spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to give the impetuous flames their rapid egress, . . fire climbed lithely round and round the immense carven columns, and ran, nimbly dancing and crackling its way among the painted and begemmed decorations of the dome, … fire enwrapped the side-altars, and shrivelled the jewelled idols at a breath, . . fire unfastened and shook down the swinging-lamps, the garlands, the splendid draperies of silk and cloth-of-gold…fire—fire everywhere! … and the madly affrighted multitude, stunned by the abrupt shock of terror, stood for a moment paralyzed and inert, . . then, with one desperate yell of wild brute fear and ferocity, they rushed headlong in a struggling, shrieking, cursing, sweltering swarm toward the great closed portals of the central aisle. As they did so, a tremendous weight of thunder seemed to descend solidly on the roof with a thudding burst as though a thousand walls had been battered down at one blow, . . the whole edifice rocked and trembled in the terrific reverberation, and almost simultaneously, the doors were violently jerked open, wrenched from their hinges, and hurled, all burning and split with flame, against the forward-fighting crowds! Several hundred fell under the fiery mass, a charred heap of corpses,—the raging remainder pressed on in frenzied haste, clambering over piles of burning dead,—trampling on scorched, disfigured faces that perhaps but a moment since had been dear to them,—each and all bent on forcing a way out to the open air. In the midst of the overwhelming awfulness of the scene, Theos still retained sufficient presence of mind to remember that, whatever happened, his first care must be for Sah-luma, . . always for Sah-luma, no matter who else perished! … and he now held that beloved comrade closely clasped by the arm, while he eagerly glanced about him on every side for some outlet through which to make a good and swift escape.
The most immediate place of safety seemed to be the Inner Sanctuary of Nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its Titanic pillars of brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly impregnable harbor of refuge. The King had fled thither, and now stood, like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside Lysia, who on her part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her large, startled eyes, roving here and there in helpless anxiety, alone gave any animation to the deathly, rigid whiteness of her face, and she still mechanically supported the Sacred Ebony Staff, without apparently being aware of the fact that the Snake Deity, convulsed through all his coils with fright, had begun to make there-from his rapid DESCENT. The priests, the virgins,—the poor, unhappy little singing children,—flocked hurriedly together, and darted to the back of the great Shrine, in the manifest intention of reaching some private way of egress known only to themselves,—but their attempts were evidently frustrated, for no sooner had they gone than they sped back again, their faces scorched and blackened, and uttering cries and woeful lamentations they flung themselves wildly among the struggling crowds in the main body of the Temple, and fought for life in the jaws of death, every one for Self, and no one for another! Volumes of smoke rolled up from the ground, in thick and suffocating clouds, accompanied by incessant sharp reports like the close firing of guns, . . jets of flame and showers of cinders broke forth fountain-like, scattering hot destruction on every hand, . . while a few flying sparks caught the end of the "Silver Veil"—and withered it into nothingness with one bright resolute flare!
Half maddened by the shrieks and dying groans that resounded everywhere about him, and yet all the time feeling as though he were some spectator set apart, and condemned to watch the progress of a ghastly phantasmagoria in Hell, Theos was just revolving in his mind whether it would or would not be possible to make a determined climb for escape through one of the tall painted windows, some of which were not yet reached by the fire, when, with a sudden passionate exclamation, Sah-luma broke from his hold and rushed to the Sanctuary. Quick as lightning, Theos followed him, . . followed him close, as he sprang up the steps and confronted Lysia with eager, outstretched arms. The dead Niphrita lay near him, . . fair as a sculptured saint, with the cruel wound of sacrifice in her breast,—but he seemed not to see that piteous corpse of Faithfulness! His grief for her death had been a mere transient emotion, . . his stronger earthly passions re-asserted their tempestuous sway,—and for sweet things perished and gone to heaven he had no further care. On Lysia, and on Lysia's living beauty alone, his eyes flamed their ardent glory.
"Come! … Come!" he cried.. "Come, my love—my life! … Let me save thee! … Or if I cannot save thee, let us die together!"
Scarcely had the words left his lips, when the King, with a swift forward movement like the pounce of some desert-panther, turned fiercely upon him, . . amazement, jealousy, distrust, revenge, all gathering stormily in the black frown of his bent vindictive brows. His great chest heaved pantingly—his teeth glittered wolfishly through his jetty beard, . . and in the terrible nerve-tension of the moment, the fury of the spreading conflagration was forgotten, at any rate, by Theos, who, stricken numb and rigid by a shock of alarm too poignant for expression, stared aghast at the three figures before him…Sah-luma, Lysia, Zephoranim, . . especially Zephoranim, whose bursting wrath threatened to choke his utterance.
"What sayest thou, Sah-luma?" he demanded in a sort of ferocious gasping whisper … "Repeat thy words! … Repeat them!" … and his hand clutched at his dagger-hilt, while his restless, lowering glance flashed from Lysia to the Laureate and from the Laureate back to Lysia again.. "Death encompasses us, . . this is no time for trifling! … Speak!".. and his voice suddenly rose to a frantic shout of rage, "Speak! What is this woman to thee?"
"Everything!".. returned Sah-luma with prompt and passionate fearlessness, his glorious eyes blazing a proud defiance as he spoke.. "Everything that woman can be, or ever shall be, unto man! Call her by whatsoever name a foolish creed enjoins, . . Virgin-Daughter of the Sun, or High-Priestess of Nagaya,—she is nevertheless MINE!—and mine only! I am her lover!"
"THOU!" and with a hoarse cry, Zephoranim sprang upon, and seized him by the throat.. "Thou liest! I,—I, crowned King of Al-Kyris, I am her lover!—chosen by her out of all men! … and dost thou dare to pretend that she hath preferred THEE, a mere singer of mad songs, to ME? … Thou unscrupulous knave! … I tell thee she is MINE! .. Dost hear me?—Mine.. mine.. MINE!" and he shrieked the last word out in a perfect hurricane of passion,—"My Queen.. my mistress!—heart of my heart!—soul of my soul! … Let the city burn to ashes, and the whole land be utterly consumed, in death as in life Lysia is mine! … and the gods themselves shall never part her from me!"
And suddenly releasing his grasp he hurled Sah-luma away as he might have hurled aside a toy figure,—and a peal of reckless musical laughter echoed mockingly through the vaulted shrine. It was Lysia's laughter! … and Theos's blood grew cold as he heard its cruel, silvery ring … even so had she laughed when Nir-jalis died!
Sah-luma reeled backward from the King's thrust, but did not fall,—white and trembling, with his sad and splendid features, frozen as it were into a sculptured mask of agonized beauty, he turned upon the treacherous woman he loved the silent challenge of his eloquent eyes. Oh, that look of piteous pain and wonder! a whole lifetime's wasted opportunities seemed concentrated in its unspeakable reproach! She met it with a sort of triumphant, tranquil indifference, . . an uncontrollable wicked smile curved the corners of her red lips, . . the sacred Ebony Staff had somehow slipped from her hands, and it now lay on the ground, the half-uncoiled Serpent still clinging to it, in glittering lengths that appeared to be quite motionless.
"Ah, Lysia, hast thou played me false?".. cried the unhappy Laureate at last, as with a quick, impulsive movement, he caught her round jewelled arm in a resolute grip.. "After all thy vows, thy endearments, thy embraces, hast thou betrayed me? Speak truly! … Art thou not all in all to me? … hast thou not given thyself body and soul into my keeping? To this braggart King I deign no answer—one word of thine will suffice! … Be brave.. be faithful! … Declare thy love for me, even as thou hast oft declared it a thousand remembered times!"
Over the face of the beautiful Priestess swept a strange expression of mingled fear, antagonism, loathing, and exultation. Her eyes wandered to the red tongued leaping flames that tossed in eddying rings round the Temple, running every second nearer to the place where she stood, and in that one glance she seemed to recognize the hopelessness of rescue and certainty of death. A careless, haughty acceptance of her fate manifested itself in the pallid resolve of her drawn features, . . but as she allowed her gaze to return and dwell on Sah-luma, the old, malicious mirth flushed and gave lustre to her loveliness, and she laughed again…a laugh of uttermost bitter scorn.
"Declare my love for thee!" she said in thrilling accents.. "Thou boaster! Let the gods, who have kindled this fiery end for us, bear witness to my hatred! I hate thee! … Aye, even THEE!".. and she pointed at him jeeringly, as he recoiled from her in wide eyed anguish and amazement:—"No man have I ever loved, but thee have I hated most of all! All men have I despised for their folly, greed and vain-glory,—I have fought them with their own weapons of avarice, cunning, cruelty, and falsehood,—but THOU hast been even beneath MY contempt! 'Twas scarcely worth my while to fool thee, thou wert so easily fooled! … 'Twas idle sport to rouse thy passions, they were so easily roused! Poet and Perjurer, . . Singer and Sophist! Thou to whom the Genius of Poesy was as a pearl set in a swine's snout! … thou wert not worthy to be my dupe, seeing that thou camest to me already in bonds, the dupe of thine own Self! Niphrata loved thee,—and thou didst play with and torture her more unmercifully than wild beasts play with and torture their prey; . . but thou couldst never trifle with ME! O thou who hast taken so much pride in the breaking of many women's hearts, learn that thou hast never stirred one throb of passion in MINE! … that I have loathed thy beauty while caressing thee, and longed to slay thee while embracing thee! … and that even now I would I saw thee dead before me, ere I myself am forced to die!"
Pausing in the swift torrent of her words, her white breast heaved violently with the rise and fall of her panting breath,—her dark, brilliant eyes dilated, while the symbolic Jewel she wore, and the crown of serpents' heads in her streaming hair, seemed to glitter about her like so many points of lightning. At that instant one side of the Sanctuary split asunder, giving way to a bursting wreath of flames. Seeing this, she uttered a piercing cry, and stretched out her arms.
"Zephoranim! … Save me!"
In a second, the King sprang toward her, but not before Sah-luma, wild with wrath, had interposed himself between them.
"Back!" he exclaimed passionately, addressing the infuriated monarch.. "While I live, Lysia is mine!—let her hate and deny me as she will!—and sooner than see her in thine arms, O King, I will slay her where she stands!"
His bold attitude was magnificent,—his countenance more than beautiful in its love betrayed despair, . . and for a moment the savage Zephoranim paused irresolute, his scowling brows bent on his erstwhile favorite Minstrel with an expression that hovered curiously between bitterest enmity and reluctant reverence. There seemed to be a struggling consciousness in his mind of the immortality of a Poet as compared with the evanescent power of a King,—and also a quick realization of the truth that, let his anger be what it would, they twain were partakers in the same evil, and were mutually deceived by the same false woman! But ere his saving sense of justice could prevail, a ripple of discordant, delirious laughter broke once more from Lysia's lips,—her eye shone vindictively,—her whole face became animated with a sudden glow of fiendish triumph.
"Zephoranim!" she cried, "Hero! … Warrior! … King! … Thou who hast risked thy crown and throne and life for my sake and the love of me! … Wilt lose me now? … Wilt let me perish in these raging flames, to satisfy this wanton liar and unbeliever in the gods, to whose disturbance of the Holy Ritual we surely owe this present fiery disaster! Save me, O strong and noble Zephoranim! … Save me, and with me save the city and the people! KILL SAH-LUMA!"
O barbarous, inexorable words!—they rang like a desolating knell in the ears of the bewildered, fear-stricken Theos, and startled him from his rigid trance of speechless misery. Uttering an inarticulate dull groan, he made a violent effort to rush forward—to serve as a living shield of defence to his adored friend, . . to ward off the imminent blow! Too late! too late! … Zephoranim's dagger glittered in the air, and rapidly descended … One gasping cry! … and Sah-luma lay prone,—beautiful as a slain Adonis, . . the rich red blood pouring from his heart, and a faint, stern smile frozen on the proud lips whose dulcet singing-speech was now struck dumb forever! With a shriek of agony, Theos threw himself beside his murdered comrade, . . heedless of King, Priestess, flames, and all the out-breaking fury of earth and heaven, he bent above that motionless form, and gazed yearningly into the fair colorless face.
"Sah-luma! … Sah-luma!"
No sign! … No tremulous stir of breath! Dead—dead,—dead in his prime of years—dead in the zenith of his glory!—all the delicate, dreaming genius turned to dust and ashes! … all the ardent light of inspiration quenched in the never-lifting darkness of the grave! … and in the first delirious paroxysm of his grief Theos felt as though life, time, and the world were ended for him also, with this one suddenly destroyed existence!
"O thou mad King!" he cried fiercely, "Thou hast slain the chief wonder of thy realm and reign! Die now when thou wilt, thou shalt only he remembered as the murderer of Sah-luma! … Sah-luma, whose name shall live when thine is covered in shameful oblivion!"
Zephoranim frowned,—and threw the blood-stained dagger from him.
"Peace, clamorous fool!" he said, "Sah-luma hath gone but a moment before me, . . as Poet he hath received precedence even in death! When the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, . . and whether I am hereafter remembered or forgotten I care not! I have lived as a man should live,—fearing nothing and conquered by none,—except perchance by Love, that hath brought many kings ere now to untimely ruin!" Here his moody eyes lighted on Lysia. "How many lovers hast thou had, fair soul?".. he demanded in a stern yet tremulous voice … "A thousand? … I would swear this dead Minstrel of mine was one,—for though I slew him at thy bidding I saw the truth in his dying eyes! … No matter!—We shall meet in Hades,—and there we shall have ample time to urge our rival claims upon thy favor! Ah!".. and he suddenly laid his two strong hands on her white uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her reproachfully as she shrank a little beneath his close scrutiny, . . "Thou divine Traitress! Have I not challenged the very heavens for thy sake? … and lo! the prophecy is fulfilled and Al-Kyris must fall! How many men would have loved thee as I have loved? … None! not even this dead Sah-luma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure! Come! … Let me kiss thee once again ere death makes cold our lips! False or true, thou art nevertheless fair!—and the wrathful gods know best how I worship thy fairness!"
And folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately. She clung to him like a lithe serpentine thing,—her eyes ablaze, her mouth quivering with suppressed hysterical laughter. Pointing to Sah-luma's body, she said in a strange excited whisper:
"Nay, hast thou slain him in very truth, Zephoranim! … slain him utterly? For I have heard that poets cannot die,—they live when the whole world deems them dead,—they rise from their shut graves and re-invest the earth with all the secrets of past time, . . Oh! my brain reels! … I talk mere madness! … there is no afterwards of death!—No, no! No gods, no anything but blankness.. forgetfulness.. and silence! … for us, and for all men! … How good it is!—how excellently devised a jest! … that the whole wide Universe should be but a cheat of time! … a bubble blown into Space, to float, break, and perish,—all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless Devil-Mystery!"
Shuddering, half-laughing, half-weeping, she clasped her hands round the monarch's throat, and hid her wild eyes in his breast, while he, unnerved by her distraction and his own inward torture, glared about him on all sides for some glimmering chance of rescue, but could see none. The flames were now attacking the Shrine on every side like a besieging army,—their leaping darts of blue and crimson gleaming here and there with indescribable velocity, . . and still Theos knelt by Sah-luma's corpse in dry-eyed despair, endeavoring with feverish zeal to stanch the oozing blood with a strip torn from his own garments, and listening anxiously for the feeblest heart-throb, or smaller pulsation of smouldering life in the senseless stiffening clay.
All at once a hideous scream assailed his ears,—another, and yet another rang above the crackling roar of the gradually conquering fire, . . and half-lifting Sah-luma's body in his arms, he looked up…O horror, horror! his nerves contracted,—his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins, . . his head swam giddily, . . and he thought the moment of his own death had come, for surely no man could behold the sight he saw and yet continue to live on! Lysia the captor was made captive at last! ..bound, helpless, imprisoned, and hopelessly doomed, ..Nagaya had claimed his own! The huge Snake, terrified beyond all control at the bursting breadth of fire environing the shrine, had turned in its brute fear to the mistress it had for years been accustomed to obey, and had now, with one stealthy noiseless spring, twisted its uppermost coil close about her waist, where its restless head, alarmed eyes, and darting fangs all glistened together like a blazing cluster of gems! the more she struggled to release herself from its deathful embrace, the tighter its body contracted and the more maddened with fright it became. Shriek upon shriek broke from her lips and pierced the suffocating air, . . while with all his great muscular force Zephoranim the King strove in desperate agony to tear her from the awful clutch of the monster he had but lately knelt to as divine! In vain, ..in vain! … the strongest efforts were useless, … the cruel, beautiful, pitiless Priestess of Nagaya was condemned to suffer the same frightful death she had so often mercilessly decreed for others! Closer and closer grew the fearful Python's constricting clasp, . . nearer and nearer swept the dancing battalion of destroying flames! … For one fleeting breath of time Theos stared aghast at the horrid scene, . . then making a superhuman effort he raised Sah-luma's corpse entirely from the ground and staggered with his burden away, . . away from the burning Shrine, . . the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a wasted Love and a dead passion!
* * * * * * *
Whither should he go! … Down into the blazing area of the fast-perishing Temple? Surely no safety could be found there, where the fire was raging at its utmost height! … yet he went on mechanically, as though urged forward by some force superior to his own, . . always clinging to the idea that his friend still lived and that if he could only reach some place of temporary shelter he might yet be able to restore him. It was possible the wound was not fatal, . . far more possible to his mind than that so gloriously famed a Poet should be dead!
So he dimly thought, while he stumbled dizzily along, . . his forehead wet with clammy dews, . . his limbs trembling under the weight he bore, . . his eyes half-blinded by the hot flying sparks and drifting smoke, . . and his soul shaken and appalled by the ghastly sights that met his view wheresoever he turned. Crushed and writhing bodies of men, women, and children, half-living, half-dead, . . heaps of corpses, fast blazing to ashes,—broken and falling columns, . . yawning gaps in the ground, from which were cast forth volleys of red cinders and streams of lava, … all these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with uncertain, faltering steps he moved on like a sick man walking in sleep, carrying his precious burden! He knew nothing of where he was bound,—he saw no outlet anywhere—no corner wherein the Fire-fiend had not set up devouring dominion, . . but nevertheless he steadily continued his difficult progress, clasping Sah-luma's corpse with a strange tenacity, and concentrating all his attention on protecting it from the withering touch of the ravenous flames. All at once,—as he strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some twenty or thirty people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it,—a face horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of Zabastes, the Critic. His protruding eyes glistened with something of their old malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form it was that was being carried by.
"What! … is the famous Sah-luma gone?" he gasped, his words half choking him in their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand and caught at Theos's garments … "Good youth, stay! … Stay! … Why burden thyself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a living man? Save ME! … Save ME! … I was the Poet's adverse Critic, and who but I should write his Eulogy now that he is no more! … Pity! … Pity, most courteous, gentle sir! … Save me if only for the sake of Sah-luma's future honor! Thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!"
Theos gazed down upon him in unspeakable, melancholy scorn, . . was it only through time-serving creatures such as this miserable Zabastes, that the after-glory of perished poets was proclaimed to the world? … What then was the actual worth of Fame?
Shuddering, he wrenched himself away, and passed on silently, heedless of the savage curses the despairing scribe yelled after him as he went, and he involuntarily pressed the dead corpse of his beloved friend closer to his heart, as though he thought he could re-animate it by this mute expression of tenderness! Meanwhile the fire raged continuously,—the Temple was fast becoming a pillared mass of flames, . . and presently,—choked and giddy with the sulphurous vapors—he stopped abruptly, struggling for breath. His time had come at last, he thought, . . he with Sah-luma must die!
Just then a loud muttering and rolling of thunder swept in eddying vibrations round him, followed by a sharp, splitting noise, . . raising his aching eyes, he saw straight before him, a yawning gloomy archway, like the solemn portal of a funeral vault.. dark, yet with a white glimmer of steps leading outward, and a dim sparkle as of stars in heaven. A rush of new vigor inspired him at this sight, and he resumed his way, stumbling over countless corpses strewn among fallen blocks of marble,—and every now and then looking back in awful fascination to the fiery furnace of the body of the Temple, where of all the vast numbers that had lately crowded it from end to end, there were only a hundred or so remaining alive,—and these were fast perishing in frightful agony. The Shrine of Nagaya was enveloped in thick black smoke, crossed here and there by flashes of flame,—the bare outline of its Titanic architecture was scarcely discernible! Yet the thought of the dreadful end of Lysia, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, moved him now to no emotion whatever—save..gladness! Some deadly evil seemed burnt out of his life, . . moreover her command had slain Sah-luma! … Enough! … no fate however horrible, could be more so than she in her wanton wickedness deserved! … But alas! her beauty! … He dared not think of its subtle, slumberous charm! … and stung to a new sense of desperation, he plunged recklessly toward the dusky aperture he had seen, which appeared to enlarge itself mysteriously as he approached, like the opening gateway of some magic cavern.
Suddenly a faint groan at his feet startled him,—and, looking down hastily, he perceived an unfortunate man lying half crushed under the ponderous fragment of a split column, which had fallen across his body in such manner that any attempt to extricate him would have been worse than useless. By the bright light of the leaping flames, Theos had no difficulty in recognizing the pallid countenance of his late acquaintance, the learned Professor of Positivism, Mira-Khabur, who was evidently very near his woeful and most positive end! Struck by an impulse of compassion he paused, . . yet what could he say? ..In such a case, where rescue was impossible, all comfort seemed mockery,—and while he stood silent and irresolute, he fancied the Professor smiled! It was a very ghastly smile,—nevertheless it hid in it a curious touch of bland and scrupulous inquiry.
"Is not this…a very.. remarkable occurrence?" … asked a voice so feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came from the lips of the suffering sage. "Of course…it arises from…a volcanic eruption! … and the mystery of the red river.. is.. solved!" Here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at equanimity;—"It is NOT a phenomenon!".. and a gleam of obstinate self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes, "Nothing is phenonmenal! … only I am not able…to explain…. I have no time…no time…to analyze.. my very … singular…sensations!"
A rush of blood choked his utterance—his throat rattled, … he was dead! … and the dreary speculative smile froze on his mouth in the likeness of a solemn sneer. At that moment, a terrific swirling, surging noise, like the furious boiling of an underground whirlpool, rumbled heavily through the air, . . and lo! with a sudden, swift shock that sent Theos reeling forward and almost falling, under the burdensome weight he carried, the earth opened, . . disclosing a huge pit of black nothingness,—an enormous chasm,—into which, with an appalling clamor as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole main area of the Temple, together with its mass of dead and dying human beings, sank in less than five seconds!—the ground closing instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied. And instead of the vanished fane arose a mighty Pillar of Fire! … a vast increasing volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and upward,—higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of living light, . . while Theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the force of the convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark and quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned against its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead Sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the tossing vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped. And,—as he looked,—a host of spectral faces seemed to rise whitely out of the flames and wonder at him! … faces that were solemn, wistful, warning, and beseeching by turns! … they drifted through the fire and smiled, and wept, and vanished, to reappear again and yet again! … and as, with painfully beating heart, he strove to combat the terror that seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy wreaths of smoke that had till now hung over the Inner Shrine of Nagaya parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief breathing space of direst agony he saw Lysia once more,—Lysia, in a torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of his enemy's Hell! Round and round her writhing form the sacred Serpent was twined in all his many coils,—with both hands she had grasped the creature's throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust back its quivering fangs from her breast, whereon the evil "Eye of Raphon" still gleamed distinctly with its adamantine chilly stare, . . at her feet lay the body of the King her lover, dead and wrapped in a ring of flames! … Alone—all, all alone, she confronted Death in its most appalling shape.. her countenance was distorted, yet beautiful still with the beauty of a maddened Medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost invoked from some deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of mingled loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire!
With wild, straining eyes Theos gazed upon her thus, … for the last time! … For with a crash that seemed to rend the very heavens, the great bronze columns surrounding her, which had, up to the present, resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames, bent together all at once and fell in a melting ruin.. and the victorious fire roared loudly above them, enveloping the whole Shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke and jets of flame,—Lysia had perished! All that proud loveliness, that dazzling supremacy, that superb voluptuousness, that triumphant dominion, . . swept away into a heap of undiscoverable ashes! And Zephoranim's haughty spirit too had fled,—fled, stained with guilt and most unroyal dishonor, all for the sake of one woman's fairness—the fairness of body only—the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides the hideousness of a devil's nature!
For one moment Theos remained stupefied by the sheer horror of the catastrophe,—then, recalling his bewildered wits to his aid, he peered anxiously through the archway where he rested, . . there seemed to be a dim red glow at the end of the downward-leading steps, as well as a dusky azure tint, like a patch of midnight sky. The Temple was now nothing but a hissing shrieking pyramid of flames,—the hot and blinding glare was almost too intense for his eyes to endure,—yet so fascinated was he by the sublime terror and grandeur of the spectacle, that he could scarcely make up his mind to turn away from it! The thought of Sah-luma, however, gave the needful spur to his flagging energies, and without pausing to consider where he might be going, he slowly and hesitatingly descended the steps before him, and presently reached a sort of small open court paved with black marble. Here he tenderly laid his burden down,—a burden grown weightier with each moment of its bearing,—and letting his aching arms drop listlessly at his sides, he looked up dreamily,—not all at once comprehending the cause of the vast lurid light that crimsoned the air like a wide aurora borealis everywhere about him, . . then,—as the truth suddenly flashed on his mind, he uttered a loud, irrepressible cry of amazement and awe!
Far as his gaze could see,—east, west, north, south, the whole city of Al-Kyris was in flames!—and the burning Temple of Nagaya was but a mere spark in the enormous breadth of the general conflagration! Palaces, domes, towers, and spires were tottering to red destruction, . . fire…fire everywhere! … nothing but fire,—save when a furious gust of scorching wind blew aside the masses of cindery smoke, and showed glimpses of sky and the changeless shining of a few cold quiet stars. He cast one desperate glance from earth to heaven, . . how was it possible to escape from this kindling furnace of utter annihilation! … Where all were manifestly doomed, how could HE expect to be saved! And moreover, if Sah-luma was indeed dead, what remained for him but to die also!
* * * * * * *
Calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort, he began to vaguely wonder why and how it happened that the place where he now was, . . this small and insignificant court,—had so far escaped the fire, and was as cool and sombre as a sacred tomb set apart for some hero, … or Poet? Poet!—The word acted as a stimulant to his tired struggling brain, and he all at once remembered what Sah-luma had said to him at their first meeting: "There is but one Poet in Al-Kyris, and I am he!"
O true, true! Only one Poet! … Only one glory of the great city, that now served him as funeral pyre!—only one name worth remembering in all its perishing history.. the name of SAH-LUMA! Sah-luma, the beautiful, the gifted, the famous, the beloved, . . he was dead! This thought, in its absorbing painfulness, straightway drove out all others,—and Theos, who had carried his comrade's corpse bravely and unshrinkingly through a fiery vortex of imminent peril, now sank on his knees all desolate and unnerved, his hot tears dropping fast on that fair, still, white face that he knew would never flush to the warmth of life again!
"Sah-luma! Sah-luma!" he whispered, "My friend … My more than brother! Would I could have died for thee! … Would thou couldst have lived to fulfil the nobler promise of thy genius! … Better far thou hadst been spared to the world than I! … for I am Nothing, . . but thou wert Everything!"
And taking the clay-cold hands in his own, he kissed them reverently, and, with an unconscious memory not born of his recent adventures, folded them on the dead Laureate's breast in the fashion of a Cross.
As he did this an icy spasm seemed to contract his heart, . . seized by a sudden insufferable anxiety, he stared like one spell-bound into Sah-luma's wide-open, fixed, and glassy eyes. Dead eyes! … yet how full of mysterious significance! … What—WHAT was their weird secret, their imminent meaning! … Why did their dark and frozen depths appear to retain a strange, living undergleam of melting, sorrowful, beseeching sweetness? … like the eyes of one who prays to be remembered, though changed after long absence! What hot and terrible delirium was this that snatched at his whirling brain as he bent closer and closer over the marble quiet countenance, and studied with a sort of fierce intentness every line of those delicate, classic features, on which high thought had left so marked an impress of dignity and power! What a marvellous, half-reproachful, half-appealing smile lingered on the finely-curved set lips! … How wonderful, how beautiful, how beloved beyond all words was this fair dead god of poesy on whom he gazed with such a passion of yearning!
Stooping more and more, he threw his arms round the senseless form, and partly lifting it from the ground, brought the wax-pallid face nearer to his own.. so near that the cold mouth almost touched his, . . then filled with an awful, unnamable misgiving, he scanned his murdered comrade's perished beauty in puzzled, vague bewilderment, much as an ignorant dullard might perplexedly scan the incomprehensible characters of some hieroglyphic scroll. And, as he looked, a sharp pang shot through him like a whizzing ball of fire, . . a convulsion of mental agony shook his limbs,—he could have shrieked aloud in the extremity of his torture, but the struggling cry died gasping in his throat. Still as stone he kept his strained, steadfast gaze fixed on Sah-luma's corpse, slowly absorbing the full horror of a tremendous Suggestion, that like a scorching lava-flood swept into every subtle channel of his brain. For the dead Sah-luma's eyes grew into the semblance of his own eyes! … the dead Sah-luma's face smiled spectrally back at him in the image of his own face! … it was as though he beheld the Picture of himself, slain and reflected in a magician's mirror! Round him the very heavens seemed given up to fire,—but he heeded it not,—the world might be at an end and the day of Judgment, proclaimed,—nothing would have stirred him from where he knelt, in that dreadful stillness of mystic martyrdom, drinking in the gradual, glimmering consciousness of a terrific Truth, . . the amazing, yet scarcely graspable solution of a supernatural Enigma, … an enigma through which, like a man lost in the depths of a dark forest, he had wandered up and down, seeking light, yet finding none!
"O God!" he dumbly prayed. "Thou, with whom all things are possible, give eyes to this blind trouble of my heart! I am but as a grain of dust before thee, . . a poor perishable atom, devoid of simplest comprehension! … Do Thou of Thy supernal pity teach me what I must know!"
As he thought out this unuttered petition, a tense cord seemed to snap suddenly in his brain, . . a rush of tears came to his relief, and through their salt and bitter haze the face of Sah-luma appeared to melt into a thin and spiritual brightness,—a mere aerial outline of what it had once been, . . the glazed dark eyes seemed to flash living lightning into his, . . the whole lost Personality of the dead Poet seemed to environ him with a mysterious, potent, incorporeal influence.. an influence that he felt he must now or never repel, reject, and utterly RESIST! … With a shuddering cry, he tore his reluctant arms away from the beloved corpse, . . with trembling, tender fingers he closed and pressed down the white eyelids of those love-expressive eyes, and kissed the broad poetic brow!
"Whatever thou WERT or ART to me, Sah-luma," he murmured in sobbing haste,—"thou knowest that I loved thee, though now I leave thee! Farewell!"—and his voice broke in its strong agony—"O how much easier to divide body from soul than part myself from thee! Sah-luma, beloved Sah-luma! God give thee rest! … God pardon thy sins,—and mine!"
And he pressed his lips once more on the folded rigid hands; . . as he did so, he inadvertently touched the writing-tablet that hung from the dead Laureate's girdle. The red glow of the fire around him enabled him to see distinctly what was written on it, . . there were about twenty lines of verse, in exquisitely clear and fine caligraphy, … and, as he read, he knew them well, . . they were the last lines of the poem "Nourhalma"!
He dared trust his own strength no longer, . . one wild, adoring, lingering, parting look at his dead rival in song, whom he had loved better than himself,—and then,—full of a nameless fear, he fled! … fled recklessly, and with swift, mad fury as though demons followed in pursuit, . . fled through the burning city, as a lost and frenzied spirit might speed through the deserts of Hell! Everywhere about him resounded the crackling hiss of the flames, and the crash of falling buildings, . . mighty pinnacles and lofty domes melted and vanished before is eyes in a blaze of brilliant destruction! … on—on he went, meeting confused, scattered crowds of people, whose rushing, white-garmented figures looked like ghosts flying before a storm, . . the cries and shrieks of women and children, and the groans of men were mingled with the restless roaring of lions and other wild beasts burnt out of their dens in the Royal Arena, the distant circle of which could be dimly seen, surrounded by fountain-like jets of fire. Some of these maddened animals ran against him, as he sped along the blazing thoroughfares,—but he made no attempt to avoid them, nor was he sensible of any other terror than that which was WITHIN HIMSELF and was purely mental. On! … On!—Still on he went,—a desperate, lonely man, lost in a hideous nightmare of flame and fury, . . seeing nothing but one vast flying rout of molten red and gold, . . speaking to none, . . utterly reckless as to his own fate, . . only impelled on and on, but whither he knew not, nor cared to know!
All at once his, strength gave way…his nerves seemed to break asunder like so many over-wound harp-strings, . . a sudden silvery clanging of bells rang in his ears, and with them came a sound of multitudinous soft, small voices: "Kyrie Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!"
Hush! … What was that? … What did it mean? … Halting abruptly, he gave a wild glance round him,—up to the sky, where the flaring flames spread in tangled lengths and webs of light, . . then, straight before him to the City of Al-Kyris, now a wondrous vision of redly luminous columns and cupolas, with the wet gleam of the river enfolding its blazing streets and towers: . . and while he yet beheld it, lo! IT RECEDED FROM HIS VIEW! Further, . . further!—further away, till it seemed nothing but the toppling and smoldering of heavy clouds after the conflagration of the sunset!
Hark, hark again! … "Kyrie, Eleison! … Kyrie, Eleison!" With a sense of reeling rapture and awe he listened, . . he understood! … he found the NAME he had so long forgotten! "CHRIST, have mercy upon me!"…he cried, and in that one urgent supplication he uttered all the pent-up anguish of his soul! Blind and dizzy with the fevered whirl of his own emotions, he stumbled forward and fell! … fell heavily over a block of stone, . . stunned by the shock, he lost consciousness, but only for a moment; . . a dull aching in his temples roused him,—and making a faint effort to rise, he turned slowly and languidly on his arm, . . and with a long, deep, shuddering sigh…AWOKE!
He was on the Field of Ardath. Dawn had just broken. The east was one wide, shimmering stretch of warm gold, and over it lay strips of blue and gray, like fragments of torn battle-banners. Above him sparkled the morning star, white and glittering as a silver lamp, among the delicate spreading tints of saffron and green, . . and beside him,—her clear, pure features flushed by the roseate splendor of the sky, her hands clasped on her breast, and her sweet eyes full of an infinite tenderness and yearning, knelt EDRIS!—Edris, his flower-crowned Angel, whom last he had seen drifting upward and away like a dove through the glory of the Cross in Heaven!
CHAPTER XXX.
SUNRISE.
Entranced in amazed ecstasy he lay quite quiet, . . afraid to speak or stir! This gentle Presence,—this fair, beseeching face, might vanish if he moved! So he dimly fancied, as he gazed up at her in mute wonder and worship, his devout eyes drinking in her saintly loveliness, from the deep burnished gold of her hair to the soft, white slimness of her prayerfully folded hands. And while he looked, old thoughts like home-returning birds began to hover round his soul,—sweet and dear remembrances, like the sunset lighting up the windows of an empty house, began to shine on the before semi-darkened nooks and crannies of his brain. Clearer and clearer grew the reflecting mirror of his consciousness,—trouble and perplexity seemed passing away forever from his mind, . . a great and solemn peace environed him, . . and he began to believe he had crossed the boundary of death and had entered at last into the Kingdom of Heaven! O let him not break this holy silence! … Let him rest so, with all the glory of that Angel-visage shed like summer sunbeams over him! … Let him absorb into his innermost being the exquisite tenderness of those innocent, hopeful, watchful, starry eyes whose radiance seemed to steal into the golden morning and give it a sacred poetry and infinite marvel of meaning! So he mused, gravely contented, … while all through the brightening skies overhead, came the pale, pink flushing of the dawn, like a far fluttering and scattering of rose-leaves. Everything was so still that he could hear his own heart beating forth healthful and regular pulsations, . . but he was scarcely conscious of his own existence,—he was only aware of the vast, beautiful, halcyon calm that encircled him shelteringly and soothed all care away.
Gradually, however, this deep and delicious tranquillity began to yield to a sweeping rush of memory and comprehension, … he knew WHO he was and WHERE he was,—though he did not as yet feel absolutely certain of life and life's so-called realities. For if the City of Al-Kyris, with all its vivid wonders, its distinct experiences, its brilliant pageantry, had been indeed a DREAM, then sorely it was possible he might be dreaming still! … Nevertheless he was able to gather up the fragments of lost recollection consecutively enough to realize, by gentle degrees, his actual identity and position in the world, . . he was Theos Alwyn, . . a man of the nineteenth century after Christ. Ah! thank God for that! … AFTER Christ! … not one who had lived five thousand years BEFORE Christ's birth! … And this quiet, patient Maiden at his side, . . who was she? A vision? … or an actually existent Being? Unable to resist the craving desire of his heart, he spoke her name as he now remembered it, . . spoke it in a faint, awed whisper.
"Edris!"
"Theos, my Beloved!"
O sweet and thrilling voice! more musical than the singing of birds in a sun-filled Spring!
He raised himself a little, and looked at her more intently:—she smiled,—and that smile, so marvellous in its pensive peace and lofty devotion, was as though all the light of an unguessed paradise had suddenly flashed upon his soul!
"Edris!" he said again, trembling in the excess of mingled hope and fear … "Hast thou then returned again from heaven, to lift me out of darkness? … Tell me, fair Angel, do I wake or sleep? … Are my senses deceived? Is this land a dream? … Am I myself a dream, and thou the only manifest sweet Truth in a world of drifting shadows! … Speak to me, gentle Saint! … In what vast mystery have I been engulfed? … in what timeless trance of soul-bewilderment? … in what blind uncertainty and pain? … O Sweet! … resolve my wordless wonder! Where have I strayed? … what have I seen? … Ah, let not my rough speech fright thee back to Paradise! … Stay with me! … comfort me! … I have lost thee so long! let me not lose thee now!"
Smiling still, she bent over him, and pressed her warm, delicate ringers lightly on his brow and lips. Then softly she rose and stood erect.
"Fear nothing, my beloved!" she answered, her silvery accents sending a throb of holy triumph through the air.. "Let no trouble disquiet thee, and no shadow of misgiving dim the brightness of thy waking moments! Thou hast slept ONE night on the Field of Ardath, in the Valley of Vision!—but lo! the Night is past!".. and she pointed toward the eastern horizon now breaking into waves of rosy gold, "Rise! and behold the dawning of thy new Day!"
Roused by her touch, and fired by her tone and the grand, unworldly dignity of her look and bearing, he sprang up, . . but as he met the full, pure splendor of her divine eyes, and saw, wavering round her hair, a shining aureole of amber radiance like a wreath of woven sunbeams, his spirit quailed within him, . . he remembered all his doubts of her,—his disbelief, . . and falling at her feet, he hid his face in a shame that was better than all glory,—a humiliation that was sweeter than all pride.
"Edris! Immortal Edris!".. he passionately prayed, "As thou art a crowned saint in Heaven, shed light on the chaos of my soul! From the depths of a penitence past thought and speech I plead with thee! Hear me, my Edris, thou who art so maiden-meek, so tender-patient! … hear me, help me, guide me…I am all thine! Say, didst thou not summon me to meet thee here upon this wondrous Field of Ardath?—did I not come hither according to thy words?—and have I not seen things that I am not able to express or understand? Teach me, wise and beloved one! … I doubt no more! I know Myself and Thee:—thou art an angel,—but I! … alas, what am I? A grain of sand in thy sight and in God's, . . a mere Nothing, comprehending nothing,—unable even to realize the extent of my own nothingness! Edris, O Edris! … THOU canst not love me! … thou mayst pity me perchance, and pardon, and bless me gently in Christ's dear Name! … but love! … THY love! … Oh let me not aspire to such heights of joy, where I have no place, no right, no worthiness!"
"No worthiness!" echoed Edris! … what a rapture trembled through her sweet caressing voice!—"My Theos, who is so worthy to win back what is thine own, as thou? All Heaven has wondered at thy voluntary exile,—thy place in God's supernal Sphere has long been vacant, . . thy right to dwell there, none have questioned, … thy throne is empty—thy crown unclaimed! Thou art an Angel even as I! … but thou art in bonds while I am free! Ah, how sad and strange it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the Sorrowful Star, when, countless aeons since, thou mightest have enjoyed full liberty in the Eternal Light of the everlasting Paradise!"
He listened, … a strong, sweet hope began to kindle in him like flame, . . but he made no answer. Only he caught and kissed the edge of her garment, . . its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips with the odorous coolness of a furled roseleaf. She seemed to tremble at his action, … but he dared not look up. Presently he felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head! and a rush of strange, warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric flash of new and never-ending life.
"Thou wouldst seek after and know the truth!" she said, "Truth Celestial,—Truth Unchangeable, . . Truth that permeates and underlies all the mystic inward workings of the Universe, . . workings and secret laws unguessed by Man! Vast as Eternity is this Truth,—ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely mortal intelligence, … nevertheless thy spirit, being chastened to noble humility and repentance, hath risen to new heights of comprehension, whence thou canst partly penetrate into the wonders of worlds unseen. Did I not tell thee to 'LEARN FROM THE PERILS OF THE PAST, THE PERILS OF THE FUTURE'—and understandest thou not the lesson of the Vision of Al-Kyris? Thou hast seen the Dream-reflection of thy former Poet-fame and glory in old time,—THOU WERT SAH-LUMA!"
An agony of shame possessed him as he heard. His soul at once seized the solution of the mystery, . . his quickened thought plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly complex, but actually simple meaning! HE WAS SAH-LUMA! … or rather, he HAD BEEN Sah-luma in some far stretch of long-receded time, … and in his Dream of a single night, he had loved the brilliant Phantom of his Former Self more than his own present Identity! Not less remarkable was the fact that, in this strange Sleep-Mirage, he had imagined himself to be perfectly UNselfish, whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the more Appearance of Himself more than anything or everything in the world! Ay!—even his occasional reluctant reproaches to Himself in the ghostly impersonation of Sah-luma had been far more tender than severe!
O deep and bitter ingloriousness! … O speechless degradation of all the higher capabilities of Man! to love one's own ephemeral Shadow-Existence so utterly as to exclude from thought and sympathy all other things whether human or divine! And was it not possible that this Spectre of Self might still be clinging to him? Was it dead with the Dream of Sah-luma? … or had Sah-luma never truly died at all? … and was the fine, fire-spun Essence that had formed the Spirit of the Laureate of Al-Kyris yet part of the living Substance of his present nature, … he, a world-unrecognized English poet of the nineteenth century? Did all Sah-luma's light follies, idle passions, and careless cruelties remain inherent in him? Had he the same pride of intellect, the same vain-glory, the same indifference to God and Man? Oh, no, no! … he shuddered at the thought! … and his head sank lower and lower beneath the benediction touch of Her whose tenderness revived his noblest energies, and lit anew in his heart the pure, bright fire of heaven-encompassing Aspiration.
"THOU WERT SAH-LUMA!" went on the mildly earnest voice, "And all the wide, ungrudging fame given to Earth's great poets in ancient days, was thine! Thy name was on all men's mouths, … thou wert honored by kings, … thou wert the chief glory of a great people, … great though misled by their own false opinions, … and the City of Al-Kyris, of which thou wert the enshrined jewel, was mightier far than any now built upon the earth! Christ had not come to thee, save by dim types and vague prefigurements which only praying prophets could discern, … but God had spoken to thy soul in quiet moments, and thou wouldst neither hear Him nor believe in Him! I had called thee, but thou wouldst not listen, … thou didst foolishly prefer to hearken to the clamorous tempting of thine own beguiling human passions, and wert altogether deaf to an Angel's whisper! Things of the earth earthly gained dominion over thee … by them thou wert led astray, deceived, and at last forsaken, … the genius God gave thee thou didst misuse and indolently waste, … thy brief life came, as thou hast seen, to sudden-piteous end,—and the proud City of thy dwelling was destroyed by fire! Not a trace of it was left to mark the spot where once it stood. The foundations of Babylon were laid above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. And thy poems, … the fruit of thy heaven-sent but carelessly accepted inspiration,—who is there that remembers them? … No one! … save THOU! THOU hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the profound ocean of limitless Memory, … and to the world of To-day thou dost repeat the SELF-SAME MUSIC to which Al-Kyris listened entranced so many thousands of generations ago!"
A deep sigh, that was half a groan, broke from his lips, … he could now take the measurement of his own utter littleness and incompetency! HE COULD CREATE NOTHING NEW! Everything he had written, as he fancied only just lately, had been written by himself before! The problem of the poem "Nourhalma" … was explained, … he had designed it when he had played his part on the stage of life as Sah-luma,—and perhaps not even then for the first time! In this pride-crushing knowledge there was only one consolation, … namely, that if his Dream was a true reflection of his Past, and exact in details as he felt it must be, then "Nourhalma," had not been given to Al-Kyris, … it had been composed, but not made public. Hence, so far, it was new to the world, though not new to himself. Yet he had considered it wondrously new! a "perfectly original" idea! … Ah! who dares to boast of any idea as humanly "original" … seeing that all ideas whatsoever must be referred back to God and admitted as His and His only! What is the wisest man that ever lived, but a small, pale, ill-reflecting mirror of the Eternal Thought that controls and dominates all things! … He remembered with conscience-stricken confusion what pleasure he had felt, what placid satisfaction, what unqualified admiration, when listening to his own works recited by the ghost-presentment of his Former Self! … pleasure that had certainly exceeded whatever pain he had suffered by the then enigmatical and perplexing nature of the incident. O what a foolish Atom he now seemed, viewed by the standard of his newly aroused higher consciousness! … how poor and passive a slave to the glittering, beckoning Phantasm of his own perishable Fame!
Thus on the Field of Ardath he drained the cup of humility to the dregs,—the cup which like that offered to the Prophet of Holy Writ was "full as it were with water, but the color of it was like fire"—the water of tears.. the fire of faith, . . and with that prophet he might have said.. "When I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory."
Meanwhile Edris, still keeping her gentle hands on his bent head, went on:
"In such wise didst thou, my Beloved, as the famous Sah-luma, mournfully perish.. and the nations remembered thee no more! But thy spiritual, indestructible Essence lived on, and wandered dismayed and forlorn through a myriad forms of existence in the depths of Perpetual Darkness which MUST be, even as the Everlasting Light IS. Thy immortal but perverted Will bore thee always further from God, . . further from Him, and so far from me, that thou wert at times beyond even an Angel's ken! Ages upon ages rolled away, . . the centuries between Earth and Earths purposed redemption passed, … and, . . though in Heaven these measured spaces of time that appear so great to men are as a mere world's month of summer, . . still, to me, for once God's golden days seemed long! I had lost THEE! Thou wert my soul's other soul, my king!—my immortality's completion! … and though thou wert, alas! a fallen brightness, yet I held fast to my one hope, . . the hope in thy diviner nature, which, though sorely overcome, WAS NOT, and COULD NOT BE wholly destroyed. I knew the fate in store for thee, . . I knew that thou with other erring spirits wert bound to live again on earth when Christ had built His Holy Way therefrom to Heaven,—and never did I cease for thy dear sake to wait and watch and pray! At last I found thee, … but ah! how I trembled for thy destiny! To thee had been delivered, as to all the children of men, the final message of salvation.. the Message of Love and Pardon which made all the angels wonder! … but thou didst utterly reject it—and with the same willful arrogance of thy former self, Sah-luma, thou wert blindly and desperately turning anew into darkness! O my Beloved, that darkness might have been eternal! … and crowded with memories dating from the very beginning of life! … Nay, let me not speak of that Supernal Agony, since Christ hath died to quench its terrors! … Enough!—by happy chance, through my desire, thine own roused better will, and the strength of one who hath many friends in Heaven, thy spirit was released to temporary liberty, . . and in thy vision at Dariel, which was NO vision, but a Truth, I bade thee meet me here. And why? … SOLELY TO TEST THY POWER OF OBEDIENCE TO A DIVINE IMPULSE UNEXPLAINABLE BY HUMAN REASON,—and I rejoiced as only angels can rejoice, when of thine own Free-Will thou didst keep the tryst I made with thee! Yet thou knewest me not! … or rather thou WOULDST NOT KNOW ME, . . till I left thee! … 'Tis ever the way of mortals, to doubt their angels in disguise!"
Her sweet accents shook with a liquid thrill suggestive of tears,—but he was silent. It seemed to him that he would be well content to hold his place forever, if forever he might hear her thus melodiously speak on! Had she not called him her "other soul, her king, her immortality's completion!"—and on those wondrous words of hers his spirit hung, impassioned, dazzled, and entranced beyond all Time and Space and Nature and Experience!
After a brief pause, during which his ravished mind floated among the thousand images and vague feelings of a whole Past and Future merged in one splendid and celestial Present, she resumed, always softly and with the same exquisite tenderness of tone:
"I left thee, Dearest, but a moment, … and in that moment, He who hath himself shared in human sorrows and sympathies,—He who is the embodiment of the Essence of God's Love,—came to my aid. Plunging thy senses in deep sleep, as hath been done before to many a saint and prophet of old time here on this very field of Ardath,—he summoned up before thee the phantoms of a PORTION of thy Past, … phantoms which, to thee, seemed far more real than the living presence of thy faithful Edris! … alas, my Beloved! … thou art not the only one on the Sorrowful Star who accepts a Dream for Reality and rejects Reality as a Dream!"
She paused again,—and again continued: "Nevertheless, in some degree thy Vision of Al-Kyris was true, inasmuch as thou wert shown therein as in a mirror, ONE phase, ONE only of thy former existence upon earth. The final episode was chosen,—as by the end of a man's days alone shall he be judged! As much as thy dreaming-sight was able to see,—as much as thy brain was able to bear, appeared before thee, … but that thou, slumbering, wert yet a conscious Personality among Phantoms, and that these phantoms spoke to thee, charmed thee, bewildered thee, tempted thee, and swayed thee, . . this was the Divine Master's work upon thine own retrospective Thought and Memory. He gave the shadows of thy bygone life, seeming color, sense, motion, and speech,—He blotted out from thy remembrance His own Most Holy Name, . . and, shutting up the Present from thy gaze, He sent thy spirit back into the Past. There, thou, perplexed and sorrowful, didst painfully re-weave the last fragments of thy former history, . . and not till thou hadst abandoned the Shadow of Thyself, didst thou escape from the fear of destruction! Then, when apparently all alone, and utterly forsaken, a cloud of angels circled round thee, . . THEN, at thy first repentant cry for help, He who has never left an earnest prayer unanswered bade me descend hither, to waken and comfort thee! … Oh, never was His bidding more joyously obeyed! Now I have plainly shown thee the interpretation of thy Dream, . . and dost thou not comprehend the intention of the Highest in manifesting it unto thee? Remember the words of God's Prophet of old:
"'Behold the Field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory
hath the moon unveiled!
"'And I beheld and was sore amazed, for I was no longer
Myself, but Another
"'And the sword of death was in that Other's soul,—and yet
that Other was but Myself in pain
"'And I knew not the things which were once familiar, and my
heart failed within me for very fear!'"
She spoke the quaint and mystic lines with a grave, pure, rhythmic utterance that was like the far-off singing of sweet psalmody;—and when she ceased, the stillness that followed seemed quivering with the rich vibrations of her voice, … the very air was surely rendered softer and more delicate by such soul-moving sound!
But Theos, who had listened dumbly until now, began to feel a sudden sorrowful aching at his heart, a sense of coming desolation, . . a consciousness that she would soon depart again, and leave him and, with a mingled reverence and passion, he ventured to draw one of the fair hands that rested on his brows, down into his own clasp. He met with no resistance, and half-happy, half-agonized, he pressed his lips upon its soft and dazzling whiteness, while the longing of his soul broke forth in words of fervid, irrepressible appeal.
"Edris!" he implored.. "If thou dost love me give me my death! Here,—now, at thy feet where I kneel! … of what avail is it for me to struggle in this dark and difficult world? … O deprive me of this fluctuating breath called Life and let me live indeed! I understand.. I know all thou hast said,—I have learned my own sins as in a glass darkly,—I have lived on earth before, and as it seems, made no good use of life, … and now: now I have found THEE! Then why must I lose thee? … thou who camest to me so sweetly at the first? … Nay, I cannot part from thee—I will not! … If thou leavest me, I have no strength to follow thee; I shall but miss the way to thine abode!"
"Thou canst not miss the way!"—responded Edris softly, . . "Look up, my Theos,—be of good cheer, thou Poet to whom Heaven's greatest gifts of Song are now accorded! Look up and tell me, . . is not the way made plain?"
Slowly and in reverential fear, he obeyed, and raised his eyes, still holding her by the hand,—and saw behind her a distinctly marked shadow that seemed flung downward by the reflection of some brilliant light above, . . the shadow of a Cross, against which her delicate figure stood forth in shining outlines. Seeing, he understood,—but nevertheless his mind grew more and more disquieted. A thousand misgivings crowded upon him,—he thought of the world, . . he remembered what it was, . . he was living in an age of heresy and wanton unbelief, where not only Christ's Divinity was made blasphemous mock of, but where even God's existence was itself called in question.. and as for ANGELS! … a sort of shock ran through his nerves as he reflected that though preachers preached concerning these supernatural beings,—though the very birth of Christ rested on Angels' testimony,—though poets wrote of them, and painters strove to delineate them on their most famous canvases, each and all thus PRACTICALLY DEMONSTRATING THE SECRET INSTINCTIVE INTUITION OF HUMANITY that such celestial Forms ARE,—yet it was most absolutely certain that not a man in the prosaic nineteenth century would, if asked, admit, to any actual belief in their existence! Inconsistent? … yes!—but are not men more inconsistent than the very beasts of the field their tyranny controls? What, as a rule, DO men believe in? … Themselves! … only themselves! They are, in their own opinion, the Be-All and the End-All of everything! … as if the Supreme Creative Force called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and, with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to understand and weigh the whole foundation and plan of the Universe!
Growing swiftly conscious of all that in the Purgatory of the Present awaited him, Theos felt as though the earth-chasm that had swallowed up Al-Kyris in his dream had opened again before him, affrighting him with its black depth of nothingness and annihilation,—and in a sudden agony of self-distrust he gazed yearningly at the fair, wistful face above him, . . the divine beauty that was HIS after all, if he only knew how to claim it!—Something, he knew not what, filled him with a fiery restlessness,—a passion of protest and aspiration, which for a moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must, with one fierce effort, wrench himself free from the trammels of mortality, and straightway take upon him the majesty of immortal nature, and so bear his Angel love company whithersoever she went! Never had the fetters of flesh weighed upon him with such-heaviness! … but, in spite of his feverish longing to escape, some authoritative yet gentle Force held him prisoner.
"God!" he muttered … "Why am I thus bound?—why can I not be free?"
"Because thy time for freedom has not come!" said Edris, quickly answering his thought … "Because thou hast work to do that is not yet done! Thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely REPETITION, … the repetition of thy Former Self, … Go! the tired world waits for a new Gospel of Poesy, … a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto God and all things high and fair! Write!—for the nations wait for a trumpet-voice of Truth! … the great poets are dead, . . their spirits are in Heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the Sorrowful Star save THOU! Not for Fame do thy work—nor for Wealth, . . but for Love and the Glory of God!—for Love of Humanity, for Love of the Beautiful, the Pure, the Holy! … let the race of men hear one more faithful Apostle of the Divine Unseen, ere Earth is lost in the withering light of a larger Creation! Go! … perform thy long-neglected mission,—that mission of all poets worthy the name.. TO RAISE THE WORLD! Thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for the benefit of others. Serve God and live!—serve Self and die! Such is the Eternal Law of Spheres Invisible, . . the less thou seest of Self, the more thou seest of Heaven! … thrust Self away, and lo! God invests thee with His Presence! Go forth into the world, . . a King uncrowned, . . a Master of Song, . . and fear not that I, Edris, will forsake thee,—I, who have loved thee since the birth of Time!"
He met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad interrogativeness in his own. What a hard fate was meted out to him! … To teach the world that scoffed at teaching!—to rouse the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine! O vain task!—O dreary impossibility! … Enough surely, to guide his own Will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills of others!
Her mandate seemed to him almost cruel,—it was like driving him into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she might transport him into Paradise! If SHE were in the world, . . if SHE were always with him.. ah! then how different, how easy life would be! Again he thought of those strange entrancing words of hers.. "My other soul, . . my king.. my immortality's completion!"—and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain.
"Edris!" he cried.. "If I may not yet come to thee, then come THOU to me! … Dwell thou with me! … O by the force of my love, which God knoweth, let me draw thee, thou fair Light, into my heart's gloom! Hear me while I swear my faith to thee as at some holy shrine! … As I live, with all my soul I do accept thy Master Christ, as mine utmost good, and His Cross as my proudest glory! … but yet, bethink thee, Edris, bethink thee of this world,—its wilful sin, its scorn of God, and all the evil that like a spreading thunder-cloud darkens it day by day! Oh, wilt thou leave me desolate and alone? … Fight as I will, I shall often sink under blows, . . conquer as I may, I shall suffer the solitude of conquest, unless THOU art with me! Oh, speak!—is there no deeper divine intention in the marvellous destiny that has brought us together?—thou, pure Spirit, and I, weak Mortal? Has love, the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee? … If I am, as thou sayest, thy Beloved, loved by thee so long, even while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, can I not NOW,—now when I am all thine,—persuade thee to compassionate the rest of my brief life on earth? … Thou art in woman's shape here on this Field of Ardath,—and yet thou art not woman! Oh, could my love constrain thee in God's Name, to wear the mask of mortal body for my sake, would not our union even now make the Sorrowful Star seem fair? … Love, love, love! Come to mine aid, and teach me how to shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in mine own breast! … God! Spare her to me for one of Thy sweet moments which are our mortal years! … Christ, who became a mere child for pity of us, let me learn from Thee the mystic spell that makes Thine angel mine!"
Carried away by his own forceful emotion he hardly knew what he said, . . but an unspeakable, dizzy joy flooded his soul, as he caught the look she gave him! … a wild, sweet, amazed, half-tender, half-agonized, wholly HUMAN look, suggestive of the most marvellous possibilities! One effort and she released her hand from his, and moved a little apart, her eyes kindling with celestial sympathy in which there was the very faintest touch of self-surrender. Self-surrender? … what! from an Angel to a mortal? … Ah no! … it could not be,—yet he felt filled all at once with a terrible sense of power that at the same time was mingled with the deepest humility and fear.
"Hush!"—she said, and her lovely, low voice was tremulous,—"Hush!—Thou dost speak as if we were already in God's World! I love thee, Theos! … and truly, because thou art prisoned here, I love the sad Earth also! … but dost thou think to what thou wouldst so eagerly persuade me? To live a mortal life? … to die? … to pass through the darkest phase of world-existence known in all the teeming spheres? Nay!".. and a look of pathetic sorrow came over her face.. "How could I, even for thee, my Theos, forsake my home in Heaven?"
Her last words were half-questioning, half-hesitating, … her manner was as of one in doubt.. and Theos, kneeling still, surveyed her in worshipping silence. Then he suddenly remembered what the Monk and Mystic, Heliobas, had said to him at Dariel on the morning after his trance of soul-liberty: . . "If, as I conjecture, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, you would not drag her spiritual and death-unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality' of a mere human life? … Nay, if you would you could not!" And now, strange to say, he felt that he COULD but WOULD NOT; and he was overcome with remorse and penitence for the egotistical nature of his own appeal.
"My love—my life!" he said brokenly,—"Forgive me,—forgive my selfish prayer! … Self spoke,—not I, . . yet I had thought Self dead, and buried forever!" A faint sigh escaped him … "Believe me, Sweet, I would not have thee lose one hour of Heaven's ecstasies, . . I would not have thee saddened by Earth's wilful miseries, … no! not even for that lightning-moment which numbers up man's mortal days! Speed back to Angel-land, my Edris!—I will love thee till I die, and leave the Afterward to Christ. Be glad, thou fairest, dearest One! … unfurl thy rainbow wings and fly from me! … and wander singing through the groves of Heaven, making all Heaven musical, . . perchance in the silence of the night I may catch the echo of thy voice and fancy thou art near! And trust me, Edris! … trust me! … for my faith will not falter, … my hope shall not waver, … and though in the world I may, I MUST have tribulation, yet will I believe in Him who hath by simple love overcome the world!"
He ceased, . . a great quiet seemed to fall upon him,—the quiet of a deep and passive resignation.
Edris drew nearer to him,—timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes. Very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at him with divinely compassionate tenderness.
"Thou beloved one!" she said, "Thou whose spirit was formerly equal to mine, and to all angels, in God's sight though through pride it fell! Learn that thou art nearer to me now than thou hast been for a myriad ages! … between us are renewed the strong, sweet ties that shall nevermore be broken, unless …" and her voice faltered,—"Unless thou, of thine own Free Will, break them again in spite of all my prayers! For, BECAUSE thou art immortal even as I, though thou art pent up in mortality, even so must thy Will remain immortally unfettered, and what thou dost firmly elect to do, God will not prevent. The Dream of thy Past was a lesson, not a command,—thou art free to forget or remember it as thou wilt while on earth, since it is only AFTER Death that Memory is ineffaceable, and, with its companion Remorse, constitutes Hell. Obey God, or disobey Him,—He will not force thee either way, . . constrained love hath no value! Only this is the Universal Law,—that whosoever disobeys, his disobedience recoils on his own head as of Necessity it MUST,—whereas obedience is the working in perfect harmony with all Nature, and of equal Necessity brings its own reward. Cling to the Cross for one moment.. the moment called by mortals, Life, … and it shall lift thee straightway into highest Heaven! There will I wait for thee,—and there thou shalt make me thine own forever!"