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.