XVI
I
Nan rose upright, crying aloud; the wind of terror had blown violently in upon the stillness of the gallery. Silas towered amongst the vats; he wore an air of unearthly triumph and exaltation. “Nan! Nan!” he said, stretching up both arms with the gesture of the fanatic over the blood-offering. “What have you done? what have you done?” she cried. “Saved you,—bought you free,” he answered loudly, still lit up by his triumph, but she hid her face in her hands, and moaned, shuddering.
Morgan stirred, and lay gazing without comprehension. He whispered Nan’s name; she started, and turned to him, but seeing his eyes opened she wildly laid her hand across them. “You mustn’t look,—you mustn’t look,” she said, distraught, in the effort to preserve him although she understood nothing herself.
In that absence of understanding she saw only Silas erect there with his arms still stretched out, as a sinner might stare into heaven, or a martyr into hell, accepting either, because enlightened as to both.
“Silas!” she called, unbearably alarmed.
“Builders and destroyers,” he replied from afar, and in the tone of one giving utterance to a quotation of secret familiarity.
“What am I to do?” she cried, in a lost whisper. She felt immeasurably removed from the succour of mankind, forced into the kindred of the Denes, amongst grotesque surroundings, and grotesque and terrible events, high above the comings and goings of the temperate world. There was no room in her mind for the thought that the body of Gregory was pitched sinking through the morass of that deadly cauldron. Then the word “Gregory!” came to her, and, wonderingly, she pronounced it aloud, “Gregory,” thereby bringing realisation upon herself, and the first conscious dismay.
She went to Silas and seized him by the arm.
“Silas, speak to me....”
He turned his eyes full upon her face.
“O God, can you see me?” she murmured, shrinking away.
“There was nothing else to be done,” he said.
“Oh, yes, yes!” she protested, inarticulate in her extreme distress and bewilderment.
“There was nothing else,” he repeated.