PART II.--IN AL-KYRIS.

Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

ARDATH

THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF

BY MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF "THELMA," ETC.

PART I.--SAINT AND SCEPTIC

"What merest whim

Seems all this poor endeavor after Fame

To one who keeps within his steadfast aim

A love immortal, an Immortal too!

Look not so 'wildered, for these things are true

And never can be borne of atomics

That buzz about our slumbers like brain-flies

Leaving us fancy-sick. No, I am sure

My restless spirit never could endure

To brood so long upon one luxury.

Unless it did, though fearfully, espy

A HOPE BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DREAM!"

KEATS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MONASTERY.

Deep in the heart of the Caucasus mountains a wild storm was gathering.

Drear shadows drooped and thickened above the Pass of Dariel,--that

terrific gorge which like a mere thread seems to hang between the

toppling frost-bound heights above and the black abysmal depths

below,--clouds, fringed ominously with lurid green and white, drifted

heavily yet swiftly across the jagged peaks where, looming largely out

of the mist, the snow-capped crest of Mount Kazbek rose coldly white

against the darkness of the threatening sky. Night was approaching,

though away to the west a road gash of crimson, a seeming wound in the

breast of heaven, showed where the sun had set an hour since. Now and

again the rising wind moaned sobbingly through the tall and spectral

pines that, with knotted roots fast clenched in the reluctant earth,

clung tenaciously to their stony vantageground; and mingling with its

wailing murmur, there came a distant hoarse roaring as of tumbling

torrents, while at far-off intervals could be heard the sweeping thud

of an avalanche slipping from point to point on its disastrous downward

way. Through the wreathing vapors the steep, bare sides of the near

mountains were pallidly visible, their icy pinnacles, like uplifted

daggers, piercing with sharp glitter the density of the low-hanging

haze, from which large drops of moisture began presently to ooze rather

than fall. Gradually the wind increased, and soon with sudden fierce

gusts shook the pine-trees into shuddering anxiety,--the red slit in

the sky closed, and a gleam of forked lightning leaped athwart the

driving darkness. An appalling crash of thunder followed almost

instantaneously, its deep boom vibrating in sullenly grand echoes on

all sides of the Pass, and then--with a swirling, hissing rush of

rain--the unbound hurricane burst forth alive and furious. On, on!

splitting huge boughs and flinging them aside like straws, swelling the

rivers into riotous floods that swept hither and thither, carrying with

them masses of rock and stone and tons of loosened snow--on, on! with

pitiless force and destructive haste, the tempest rolled, thundered,

and shrieked its way through Dariel. As the night darkened and the

clamor of the conflicting elements grew more sustained and violent, a

sudden sweet sound floated softly through the turbulent air--the slow,

measured tolling of a bell. To and fro, to and fro, the silvery chime

swung with mild distinctness--it was the vesper-bell ringing in the

Monastery of Lars far up among the crags crowning the ravine. There the

wind roared and blustered its loudest; it whirled round and round the

quaint castellated building, battering the gates and moving their heavy

iron hinges to a most dolorous groaning; it flung rattling hailstones

at the narrow windows, and raged and howled at every corner and through

every crevice; while snaky twists of lightning played threateningly

over the tall iron Cross that surmounted the roof, as though bent on

striking it down and splitting open the firm old walls it guarded. All

was war and tumult without:--but within, a tranquil peace prevailed,

enhanced by the grave murmur of organ music; men's voices mingling

together in mellow unison chanted the Magnificat, and the uplifted

steady harmony of the grand old anthem rose triumphantly above the

noise of the storm. The monks who inhabited this mountain eyrie, once a

fortress, now a religious refuge, were assembled in their little

chapel--a sort of grotto roughly hewn out of the natural rock. Fifteen

in number, they stood in rows of three abreast, their white woollen

robes touching the ground, their white cowls thrown back, and their

dark faces and flashing eyes turned devoutly toward the altar whereon

blazed in strange and solitary brilliancy a Cross of Fire. At the first

glance it was easy to see that they were a peculiar Community devoted

to some peculiar form of worship, for their costume was totally

different in character and detail from any such as are worn by the

various religious fraternities of the Greek, Roman, or Armenian faith,

and one especial feature of their outward appearance served as a

distinctly marked sign of their severance from all known monastic

orders--this was the absence of the disfiguring tonsure. They were all

fine-looking men seemingly in the prime of life, and they intoned the

Magnificat not drowsily or droningly, but with a rich tunefulness and

warmth of utterance that stirred to a faint surprise and contempt the

jaded spirit of one reluctant listener present among them. This was a

stranger who had arrived that evening at the monastery, and who

intended remaining there for the night--a man of distinguished and

somewhat haughty bearing, with a dark, sorrowful, poetic face, chiefly

remarkable for its mingled expression of dreamy ardor and cold scorn,

an expression such as the unknown sculptor of Hadrian's era caught and

fixed in the marble of his ivy-crowned Bacchus-Antinous, whose

half-sweet, half-cruel smile suggests a perpetual doubt of all things

and all men. He was clad in the rough-and-ready garb of the travelling

Englishman, and his athletic figure in its plain-cut modern attire

looked curiously out of place in that mysterious grotto which, with its

rocky walls and flaming symbol of salvation, seem suited only to the

picturesque prophet-like forms of the white-gowned brethren whom he now

surveyed, as he stood behind their ranks, with a gleam of something

like mockery in his proud, weary eyes.

"What sort of fellows are these?" he mused--"fools or knaves? They must

be one or the other,--else they would not thus chant praises to a Deity

of whose existence there is, and can be, no proof. It is either sheer

ignorance or hypocrisy,--or both combined. I can pardon ignorance, but

not hypocrisy; for however dreary the results of Truth, yet Truth alone

prevails; its killing bolt destroys the illusive beauty of the

Universe, but what then? Is it not better so than that the Universe

should continue to seem beautiful only through the medium of a lie?"

His straight brows drew together in a puzzled, frowning line as he

asked himself this question, and he moved restlessly. He was becoming

impatient; the chanting of the monks grew monotonous to his ears; the

lighted cross on the altar dazzled him with its glare. Moreover he

disliked all forms of religious service, though as a lover of classic

lore it is probable he would have witnessed a celebration in honor of

Apollo or Diana with the liveliest interest. But the very name of

Christianity was obnoxious to him. Like Shelley, he considered that

creed a vulgar and barbarous superstition. Like Shelley, he inquired,

"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?" He began to wish

he had never set foot inside this abode of what he deemed a pretended

sanctity, although as a matter of fact he had a special purpose of his

own in visiting the place-a purpose so utterly at variance with the

professed tenets of his present life and character that the mere

thought of it secretly irritated him, even while he was determined to

accomplish it. As yet he had only made acquaintance with two of the

monks, courteous, good-humored personages, who had received him on his

arrival with the customary hospitality which it was the rule of the

monastery to afford to all belated wayfarers journeying across the

perilous Pass of Dariel. They had asked him no questions as to his name

or nation, they had simply seen in him a stranger overtaken by the

storm and in need of shelter, and had entertained him accordingly. They

had conducted him to the refectory, where a well-piled log fire was

cheerfully blazing, and there had set before him an excellent supper,

flavored with equally excellent wine. He had, however, scarcely begun

to converse with them when the vesper-bell had rung, and, obedient to

its summons, they had hurried away, leaving him to enjoy his repast in

solitude. When he had finished it, he had sat for a while dreamily

listening to the solemn strains of the organ, which penetrated to every

part of the building, and then moved by a vague curiosity to see how

many men there were dwelling thus together in this lonely retreat,

perched like an eagle's nest among the frozen heights of Caucasus, he

had managed to find his way, guided by the sound of the music, through

various long corridors and narrow twisting passages, into the cavernous

grot where he now stood, feeling infinitely bored and listlessly

dissatisfied. His primary object in entering the chapel had been to get

a good full view of the monks, and of their faces especially,--but at

present this was impossible, as from the position he was obliged to

occupy behind them their backs alone were visible.

"And who knows," he thought moodily, "how long they will go on intoning

their dreary Latin doggerel? Priestcraft and Sham! There's no escape

from it anywhere, not even in the wilds of Caucasus! I wonder if the

man I seek is really here, or whether after all I have been misled?

There are so many contradictory stories told about him that one doesn't

know what to believe. It seems incredible that he should be a monk; it

is such an altogether foolish ending to an intellectual career. For

whatever may be the form of faith professed by this particular

fraternity, the absurdity of the whole system of religion remains the

same. Religion's day is done; the very sense of worship is a mere

coward instinct--a relic of barbarism which is being gradually

eradicated from our natures by the progress of civilization. The world

knows by this time that creation is an empty jest; we are all beginning

to understand its bathos! And if we must grant that there is some

mischievous supreme Farceur who, safely shrouded in invisibility,

continues to perpetrate so poor and purposeless a joke for his own

amusement and our torture, we need not, for that matter, admire his wit

or flatter his ingenuity! For life is nothing but vexation and

suffering; are we dogs that we should lick the hand that crushes us?"

At that moment, the chanting suddenly ceased. The organ went on, as

though musically meditating to itself in minor cords, through which

soft upper notes, like touches of light on a dark landscape, flickered

ripplingly,--one monk separated himself from the clustered group, and

stepping slowly up to the altar, confronted the rest of his brethren.

The fiery Cross shone radiantly behind him, its beams seeming to gather

in a lustrous halo round his tall, majestic figure,--his countenance,

fully illumined and clearly visible, was one never to be forgotten for

the striking force, sweetness, and dignity expressed in its every

feature. The veriest scoffer that ever made mock of fine beliefs and

fair virtues must have been momentarily awed and silenced in the

presence of such a man as this,--a man upon whom the grace of a perfect

life seemed to have fallen like a royal robe, investing even his

outward appearance with spiritual authority and grandeur. At sight of

him, the stranger's indifferent air rapidly changed to one of eager

interest,--leaning forward, he regarded him intently with a look of

mingled astonishment and unwilling admiration,--the monk meanwhile

extended his hands as though in blessing and spoke aloud, his Latin

words echoing through the rocky temple with the measured utterance of

poetical rhythm. Translated they ran thus:

"Glory to God, the Most High, the Supreme and Eternal!"

And with one harmonious murmur of accord the brethren responded:

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God, the Ruler of Spirits and Master of Angels!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God who in love never wearies of loving!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God in the Name of His Christ our Redeemer!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God for the joys of the Past, the Present and Future!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God for the Power of Will and the working of Wisdom!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

"Glory to God for the briefness of life, the gladness of death, and the

promised Immortal Hereafter!"

"GLORY FOR EVER AND EVER! AMEN!"

Then came a pause, during which the thunder outside added a tumultuous

Gloria of its own to those already recited,--the organ music died away

into silence, and the monk now turning so that he faced the altar, sank

reverently on his knees. All present followed his example, with the

exception of the stranger, who, as if in deliberate defiance, drew

himself resolutely up to his full height, and, folding his arms, gazed

at the scene before him with a perfectly unmoved demeanor,--he expected

to hear some long prayer, but none came. There was an absolute

stillness, unbroken save by the rattle of the rain-drops against the

high oriel window, and the whistling rush of the wind. And as he

looked, the fiery Cross began to grow dim and pale,--little by little,

its scintillating lustre decreased, till at last it disappeared

altogether, leaving no trace of its former brilliancy but a small

bright flame that gradually took the shape of a seven-pointed Star

which sparkled through the gloom like a suspended ruby. The chapel was

left almost in complete darkness--he could scarcely discern even the

white figures of the kneeling worshippers,--a haunting sense of the

Supernatural seemed to permeate that deep hush and dense shadow,--and

notwithstanding his habitual tendency to despise all religious

ceremonies, there was something novel and strange about this one which

exercised a peculiar influence upon his imagination. A sudden odd fancy

possessed him that there were others present besides himself and the

brethren,--but who these "others" were, he could not determine. It was

an altogether uncanny, uncomfortable impression--yet it was very strong

upon him--and he breathed a sigh of intense relief when he heard the

soft melody of the organ once more, and saw the oaken doors of the

grotto swing wide open to admit a flood of cheerful light from the

outer passage. The vespers were over,--the monks rose and paced forth

two by two, not with bent heads and downcast eyes as though affecting

an abased humility, but with the free and stately bearing of kings

returning from some high conquest. Drawing a little further back into

his retired corner, he watched them pass, and was forced to admit to

himself that he had seldom or never seen finer types of splendid,

healthful, and vigorous manhood at its best and brightest. As noble

specimens of the human race alone they were well worth looking

at,--they might have been warriors, princes, emperors, he

thought--anything but monks. Yet monks they were, and followers of that

Christian creed he so specially condemned,--for each one wore on his

breast a massive golden crucifix, hung to a chain and fastened with a

jewelled star.

"Cross and Star!" he mused, as he noticed this brilliant and singular

decoration, "an emblem of the fraternity, I suppose, meaning ... what?

Salvation and Immortality? Alas, they are poor, witless builders on

shifting sand if they place any hope or reliance on those two empty

words, signifying nothing! Do they, can they honestly believe in God, I

wonder? or are they only acting the usual worn-out comedy of a feigned

faith?"

And he eyed them somewhat wistfully as their white apparelled figures

went by--ten had already left the chapel. Two more passed, then other

two, and last of all came one alone--one who walked slowly, with a

dreamy, meditative air, as though he were deeply absorbed in thought.

The light from the open door streamed fully upon him as he advanced--it

was the monk who had recited the Seven Glorias. The stranger no sooner

beheld him than he instantly stepped forward and touched him on the arm.

"Pardon!" he said hastily in English, "I think I am not mistaken--your

name is, or used to be Heliobas?"

The monk bent his handsome head in a slight yet graceful salutation,

and smiled.

"I have not changed it," he replied, "I am Heliobas still." And his

keen, steadfast, blue eyes rested half inquiringly, half

compassionately, on the dark, weary, troubled face of his questioner

who, avoiding his direct gaze, continued:

"I should like to speak to you in private. Can I do so

now--to-night--at once?"

"By all means!" assented the monk, showing no surprise at the request.

"Follow me to the library, we shall be quite alone there."

He led the way immediately out of the chapel, and through a stone-paved

vestibule, where they were met by the two brethren who had first

received and entertained the unknown guest, and who, not finding him in

the refectory where they had left him, were now coming in search of

him. On seeing in whose company he was, however, they drew aside with a

deep and reverential obeisance to the personage called Heliobas--he,

silently acknowledging it, passed on, closely attended by the stranger,

till he reached a spacious, well-lighted apartment, the walls of which

were entirely lined with books. Here, entering and closing the door, he

turned and confronted his visitor--his tall, imposing figure in its

trailing white garments calling to mind the picture of some saint or

evangelist--and with grave yet kindly courtesy, said:

"Now, my friend, I am at your disposal! In what way can Heliobas, who

is dead to the world, serve one for whom surely as yet the world is

everything?"

CHAPTER II.

CONFESSION.

His question was not very promptly answered. The stranger stood still,

regarding him intently for two of three minutes with a look of peculiar

pensiveness and abstraction, the heavy double fringe of his long dark

lashes giving an almost drowsy pathos to his proud and earnest eyes.

Soon, however, this absorbed expression changed to one of sombre scorn.

"The world!" he said slowly and bitterly. "You think _I_ care for the

world? Then you read me wrongly at the very outset of our interview,

and your once reputed skill as a Seer goes for naught! To me the world

is a graveyard full of dead, worm-eaten things, and its supposititious

Creator, whom you have so be praised in your orisons to-night, is the

Sexton who entombs, and the Ghoul who devours his own hapless Creation!

I myself am one of the tortured and dying, and I have sought you simply

that you may trick me into a brief oblivion of my doom, and mock me

with the mirage of a life that is not and can never be! How can you

serve me? Give me a few hours' respite from wretchedness! that is all I

ask!"

As he spoke his face grew blanched and haggard, as though he suffered

from some painfully repressed inward agony. The monk Heliobas heard him

with an air of attentive patience, but said nothing; he therefore,

after waiting for a reply and receiving none, went on in colder and

more even tones:

"I dare say my words seem strange to you--though they should not do so

if, as reported, you have studied all the varying phases of that purely

intellectual despair which, in this age of excessive over-culture,

crushes men who learn too much and think too deeply. But before going

further I had better introduce myself. My name is Alwyn ..."

"Theos Alwyn, the English author, I presume?" interposed the monk

interrogatively.

"Why, yes!" this in accents of extreme surprise--"how did you know

that!"

"Your celebrity," politely suggested Heliobas, with a wave of the hand

and an enigmatical smile that might have meant anything or nothing.

Alwyn colored a little. "Your mistake," he said indifferently, "I have

no celebrity. The celebrities of my country are few, and among them

those most admired are jockeys and divorced women. I merely follow in

the rear-line of the art or profession of literature--I am that always

unluckiest and most undesirable kind of an author, a writer of verse--I

lay no claim, not now at any rate, to the title of poet. While recently

staying in Paris I chanced to hear of you ..."

The monk bowed ever so slightly--there was a dawning gleam of satire in

his brilliant eyes.

"You won special distinction and renown there, I believe, before you

adopted this monastic life?" pursued Alwyn, glancing at him curiously.

"Did I?" and Heliobas looked cheerfully interested. "Really I was not

aware of it, I assure you! Possibly my ways and doings may have

occasionally furnished the Parisians with something to talk about

instead of the weather, and I know I made some few friends and an

astonishing number of enemies, if that is what you mean by distinction

and renown!"

Alwyn smiled--his smile was always reluctant, and had in it more of

sadness than sweetness, yet it gave his features a singular softness

and beauty, just as a ray of sunlight falling on a dark picture will

brighten the tints into a momentary warmth of seeming life.

"All reputation means that, I think," he said, "unless it be

mediocre--then one is safe; one has scores of friends, and scarce a

foe. Mediocrity succeeds wonderfully well nowadays--nobody hates it,

because every one feels how easily they themselves can attain to it.

Exceptional talent is aggressive--actual genius is offensive; people

are insulted to have a thing held up for their admiration which is

entirely out of their reach. They become like bears climbing a greased

pole; they see a great name above them--a tempting sugary morsel which

they would fain snatch and devour--and when their uncouth efforts fail,

they huddle together on the ground beneath, look up with dull, peering

eyes, and impotently snarl! But you,"--and here his gazed rested

doubtfully, yet questioningly, on his companion's open, serene

countenance--"you, if rumor speaks truly, should have been able to tame

YOUR bears and turn them into dogs, humble and couchant! Your

marvellous achievements as a mesmerist--"

"Excuse me!" returned Heliobas quietly, "I never was a mesmerist."

"Well-as a spiritualist then; though I cannot admit the existence of

any such thing as spiritualism."

"Neither can I," returned Heliobas, with perfect good-humor, "according

to the generally accepted meaning of the term. Pray go on, Mr. Alwyn!"

Alwyn looked at him, a little puzzled and uncertain how to proceed. A

curious sense of irritation was growing up in his mind against this

monk with the grand head and flashing eyes--eyes that seemed to strip

bare his innermost thoughts, as lightning strips bark from a tree.

"I was told," he continued after a pause, during which he had

apparently considered and prepared his words, "that you were chiefly

known in Paris as being the possessor of some mysterious internal

force--call it magnetic, hypnotic, or spiritual, as you please--which,

though perfectly inexplicable, was yet plainly manifested and evident

to all who placed themselves under your influence. Moreover, that by

this force you were able to deal scientifically and practically with

the active principle of intelligence in man, to such an extent that you

could, in some miraculous way, disentangle the knots of toil and

perplexity in an over-taxed brain, and restore to it its pristine

vitality and vigor. Is this true? If so, exert your power upon me,--for

something, I know not what, has of late frozen up the once overflowing

fountain of my thoughts, and I have lost all working ability. When a

man can no longer work, it were best he should die, only unfortunately

I cannot die unless I kill myself,--which it is possible I may do ere

long. But in the meantime,"--he hesitated a moment, then went on, "in

the meantime, I have a strong wish to be deluded--I use the word

advisedly, and repeat it--DELUDED into an imaginary happiness, though I

am aware that as an agnostic and searcher after truth--truth absolute,

truth positive--such a desire on my part seems even to myself

inconsistent and unreasonable. Still I confess to having it; and

therein, I know, I betray the weakness of my nature. It may be that I

am tired "--and he passed his hand across his brow with a troubled

gesture--"or puzzled by the infinite, incurable distress of all living

things. Perhaps I am growing mad!--who knows!--but whatever my

condition, you,--if report be correct,--have the magic skill to ravish

the mind away from its troubles and transport it to a radiant Elysium

of sweet illusions and ethereal ecstasies. Do this for me, as you have

done it for others, and whatever payment you demand, whether in gold or

gratitude, shall be yours."

He ceased; the wind howled furiously outside, flinging gusty dashes of

rain against the one window of the room, a tall arched casement that

clattered noisily with every blow inflicted upon it by the storm.

Heliobas gave him a swift, searching glance, half pitying, half

disdainful.

"Haschisch or opium should serve your turn," he said curtly. "I know of

no other means whereby to temporarily still the clamorings of

conscience."

Alwyn flushed darkly. "Conscience!" he began in rather a resentful tone,

"Aye, conscience!" repeated Heliobas firmly. "There is such a thing. Do

you profess to be wholly without it?"

Alwyn deigned no reply--the ironical bluntness of the question annoyed

him.

"You have formed a very unjust opinion of me, Mr. Alwyn," continued

Heliobas, "an opinion which neither honors your courtesy nor your

intellect--pardon me for saying so. You ask me to 'mock' and 'delude'

you as if it were my custom and delight to make dupes of my suffering

fellow-creatures! You come to me as though I were a mesmerist or

magnetizer such as you can hire for a few guineas in any civilized city

in Europe--nay, I doubt not but that you consider me that kind of

so-called 'spiritualist' whose enlightened intelligence and

heaven-aspiring aims are demonstrated in the turning of tables and

general furniture-gyration. I am, however, hopelessly deficient in such

knowledge. I should make a most unsatisfactory conjurer! Moreover,

whatever you may have heard concerning me in Paris, you must remember I

am in Paris no longer. I am a monk, as you see, devoted to my vocation;

I am completely severed from the world, and my duties and occupations

in the present are widely different to those which employed me in the

past. Then I gave what aid I could to those who honestly needed it and

sought it without prejudice or personal distrust; but now my work among

men is finished, and I practice my science, such as it is, on others no

more, except in very rare and special cases."

Alwyn heard, and the lines of his face hardened into an expression of

frigid hauteur.

"I suppose I am to understand by this that you will do nothing for me?"

he said stiffly.

"Why, what CAN I do?" returned Heliobas, smiling a little. "All you

want--so you say--is a brief forgetfulness of your troubles. Well, that

is easily obtainable through certain narcotics, if you choose to employ

them and take the risk of their injurious action on your bodily system.

You can drug your brain and thereby fill it with drowsy suggestions of

ideas--of course they would only he SUGGESTIONS, and very vague and

indefinite ones too, still they might be pleasant enough to absorb and

repress bitter memories for a time. As for me, my poor skill would

scarcely avail you, as I could promise you neither self-oblivion nor

visionary joy. I have a certain internal force, it is true--a spiritual

force which when strongly exercised overpowers and subdues the

material--and by exerting this I could, if I thought it well to do so,

release your SOUL--that is, the Inner Intelligent Spirit which is the

actual You--from its house of clay, and allow it an interval of

freedom. But what its experience might be in that unfettered condition,

whether glad or sorrowful, I am totally unable to predict."

Alwyn looked at him steadfastly.

"You believe in the Soul?" he asked.

"Most certainly!"

"As a separate Personality that continues to live on when the body

perishes?"

"Assuredly."

"And you profess to be able to liberate it for a time from its mortal

habitation--"

"I do not profess," interposed Heliobas quietly. "I CAN do so."

"But with the success of the experiment your power ceases?--you cannot

foretell whether the unimprisoned creature will take its course to an

inferno of suffering or a heaven of delight?--is this what you mean?"

Heliobas bent his head in grave assent.

Alwyn broke into a harsh laugh--"Come then!" he exclaimed with a

reckless air,--"Begin your incantations at once! Send me hence, no

matter where, so long as I am for a while escaped from this den of a

world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the death

rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank unmeaning honor

of the Universe! Prove to me that the Soul exists--ye gods! Prove it!

and if mine can find its way straight to the mainspring of this

revolving Creation, it shall cling to the accused wheels and stop them,

that they may grind out the tortures of Life no more!"

He flung up his hand with a wild gesture: his countenance, darkly

threatening and defiant, was yet beautiful with the evil beauty of a

rebellious and fallen angel. His breath came and went quickly,--he

seemed to challenge some invisible opponent. Heliobas meanwhile watched

him much as a physician might watch in his patient the workings of a

new disease, then he said in purposely cold and tranquil tones:

"A bold idea! singularly blasphemous, arrogant, and--fortunately for us

all--impracticable! Allow me to remark that you are overexcited, Mr.

Alwyn; you talk as madmen may, but as reasonable men should not. Come,"

and he smiled,--a smile that was both grave and sweet, "come and sit

down--you are worn out with the force of your own desperate

emotions--rest a few minutes and recover your self."

His voice thouqh gentle was distinctly authoritative, and Alwyn meeting

the full gaze of his calm eyes felt bound to obey the implied command.

He therefore sank listlessly into an easy chair near the table, pushing

back the short, thick curls from his brow with a wearied movement; he

was very pale,--an uneasy sense of shame was upon him, and he

sighed,--a quick sigh of exhausted passion. Heliobas seated himself

opposite and looked at him earnestly, he studied with sympathetic

attention the lines of dejection and fatigue which marred the

attractiveness of features otherwise frank, poetic, and noble. He had

seen many such men. Men in their prime who had begun life full of high

faith, hope, and lofty aspiration, yet whose fair ideals once bruised

in the mortar of modern atheistical opinion had perished forever, while

they themselves, like golden eagles suddenly and cruelly shot while

flying in mid-air, had fallen helplessly, broken-winged among the

dust-heaps of the world, never to rise and soar sunwards again.

Thinking this, his accents were touched with a certain compassion when

after a pause he said softly:

"Poor boy!--poor, puzzled, tired brain that would fain judge Infinity

by merely finite perception! You were a far truer poet, Theos Alwyn,

when as a world-foolish, heaven-inspired lad you believed in God, and

therefore, in godlike gladness, found all things good!"

Alwyn looked up--his lips quivered.

"Poet--poet!" he murmured--"why taunt me with the name?" He started

upright in his chair--"Let me tell you all," he said suddenly; "you may

as well know what has made me the useless wreck I am; though perhaps I

shall only weary you."

"Far from it," answered Heliobas gently. "Speak freely--but remember I

do not compel your confidence."

"On the contrary, I think you do!" and again that faint, half-mournful

smile shone for an instant in his deep, dark eyes, "though you may not

be conscious of it. Anyhow I feel impelled to unburden my heart to you:

I have kept silence so long! You know what it is in the world, ... one

must always keep silence, always shut in one's grief and force a smile,

in company with the rest of the tormented, forced-smiling crowd. We can

never be ourselves--our veritable selves--for, if we were, the air

would resound with our ceaseless lamentations! It is HORRIBLE to think

of all the pent-up sufferings of humanity--all the inconceivably

hideous agonies that remain forever dumb and unrevealed! When I was

young,--how long ago that seems! yes, though my actual years are taut

thirty, I feel an alder-elde of accumulated centuries upon me--when I

was young, the dream of my life was Poesy. Perhaps I inherited the

fatal love of it from my mother--she was a Greek-and she had a subtle

music in her that nothing could quell, not even my father's English

coldness. She named me Theos, little guessing what a dreary sarcasm

that name would prove! It was well, I think, that she died early."

"Well for her, but perhaps not so well for you," said Heliobas with a

keen, kindly glance at him.

Alwyn sighed. "Nay, well, for us both,--for I should have chafed at her

loving restraint, and she would unquestionably have been disappointed

in me. My father was a conscientious, methodical business man, who

spent all his days up to almost the last moment of his life in amassing

money, though it never gave him any joy so far as I could see, and when

at his death I became sole possessor of his hardly-earned fortune, I

felt far more sorrow than satisfaction. I wished he had spent his gold

on himself and left me poor, for it seemed to me I had need of nothing

save the little I earned by my pen--I was content to live an anchorite

and dine off a crust for the sake of the divine Muse I worshipped.

Fate, however, willed it otherwise,--and though I scarcely cared for

the wealth I inherited, it gave me at least one blessing--that of

perfect independence. I was free to follow my own chosen vocation, and

for a brief wondering while I deemed myself happy, ... happy as Keats

must have been when the fragment of 'Hyperion' broke from his frail

life as thunder breaks from a summer-cloud. I was as a monarch swaying

a sceptre that commanded both earth and heaven; a kingdom was mine-a

kingdom of golden ether, peopled with shining shapes Protean,--alas!

its gates are shut upon me now, and I shall enter it no more!"

"'No more' is a long time, my friend!" interposed Heliobas gently. "You

are too despondent,--perchance too diffident, concerning your own

ability."

"Ability!" and he laughed wearily. "I have none,--I am as weak and

inapt as an untaught child--the music of my heart is silenced! Yet

there is nothing I would not do to regain the ravishment of the

past--when the sight of the sunset across the hills, or the moon's

silver transfiguration of the sea filled me with deep and indescribable

ecstasy--when the thought of Love, like a full chord struck from a

magic harp, set my pulses throbbing with delirious delight--fancies

thick as leaves in summer crowded my brain--Earth was a round charm

hung on the breast of a smiling Divinity--men were gods--women were

angels'--the world seemed but a wide scroll for the signatures of

poets, and mine, I swore, should be clearly written!"

He paused, as though ashamed of his own fervor, and glanced at

Heliobas, who, leaning a little forward in his chair was regaling him

with friendly, attentive interest; then he continued more calmly:

"Enough! I think I had something in me then,--something that was new

and wild and, though it may seem self praise to say so, full of that

witching glamour we name Inspiration; but whatever that something was,

call it genius, a trick of song, what you will,--it was soon crushed

out of me. The world is fond of slaying its singing buds and devouring

them for daily fare--one rough pressure of finger and thumb on the

little melodious throats, and they are mute forever. So I found, when

at last in mingled pride, hope, and fear I published my poems, seeking

for them no other recompense save fair hearing and justice. They

obtained neither--they were tossed carelessly by a few critics from

hand to hand, jeered at for a while, and finally flung back to me as

lies--lies all! The finely spun web of any fancy,--the delicate

interwoven intricacies of thought,--these were torn to shreds with as

little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own

cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose

and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. I was a fool--so I was told with

many a languid sneer and stale jest--to talk of hidden mysteries in the

whisper of the wind and the dash of the waves--such sounds were but

common cause and effect. The stars were merely conglomerated masses of

heated vapor condensed by the work of ages into meteorites and from

meteorites into worlds--and these went on rolling in their appointed

orbits, for what reason nobody knew, but then nobody cared! And

Love--the key-note of the theme to which I had set my mistaken life in

tune--Love was only a graceful word used to politely define the low but

very general sentiment of coarse animal attraction--in short, poetry

such as mine was altogether absurd and out of date when confronted with

the facts of every-day existence--facts which plainly taught us that

man's chief business here below was simply to live, breed, and die--the

life of a silk-worm or caterpillar on a slightly higher platform of

ability; beyond this--nothing!"

"Nothing?" murmured Heliobas, in a tone of suggestive inquiry--"really

nothing?"

"Nothing!" repeated Alwyn, with an air of resigned hopelessness; "for I

learned that, according to the results arrived at by the most advanced

thinkers of the day, there was no God, no Soul, no Hereafter--the

loftiest efforts of the highest heaven--aspiring minds were doomed to

end in non-fruition, failure, and annihilation. Among all the

desperately hard truths that came rattling down upon me like a shower

of stones, I think this was the crowning one that killed whatever

genius I had. I use the word 'genius' foolishly--though, after all,

genius itself is nothing to boast of, since it is only a morbid and

unhealthy condition of the intellectual faculties, or at least was

demonstrated to me as such by a scientific friend of my own who, seeing

I was miserable, took great pains to make me more so if possible. He

proved,--to his own satisfaction if not altogether to mine,--that the

abnormal position of certain molecules in the brain produced an

eccentricity or peculiar bias in one direction which, practically

viewed, might be described as an intelligent form of monomania, but

which most people chose to term 'genius,' and that from a purely

scientific standpoint it was evident that the poets, painters,

musicians, sculptors, and all the widely renowned 'great ones' of the

earth should be classified as so many brains more or less affected by

abnormal molecular formation, which strictly speaking amounted to

brain-deformity. He assured me, that to the properly balanced,

healthily organized brain of the human animal, genius was an

impossibility--it was a malady as unnatural as rare. 'And it is

singular, very singular,' he added with a complacent smile, 'that the

world should owe all its finest art and literature merely to a few

varieties of molecular disease!' I thought it singular enough,

too,--however, I did not care to argue with him; I only felt that if

the illness of genius had at any time affected ME, it was pretty well

certain I should now suffer no more from its delicious pangs and

honey-sweet fever. I was cured! The probing-knife of the world's

cynicism had found its way to the musically throbbing centre of divine

disquietude in my brain, and had there cut down the growth of fair

imaginations for ever. I thrust aside the bright illusions that had

once been my gladness; I forced myself to look with unflinching eyes at

the wide waste of universal Nothingness revealed to me by the rigid

positivists and iconoclasts of the century; but my heart died within

me; my whole being froze as it were into an icy apathy,--I wrote no

more; I doubt whether I shall ever write again. Of a truth, there is

nothing to write about. All has been said. The days of the Troubadours

are past,--one cannot string canticles of love for men and women whose

ruling passion is the greed of gold. Yet I have sometimes thought life

would be drearier even than it is, were the voices of poets altogether

silent; and I wish--yes! I wish I had it in my power to brand my

sign-manual on the brazen face of this coldly callous age-brand it deep

in those letters of living lire called Fame!"

A look of baffled longing and un gratified ambition came into his

musing eyes,-his strong, shapely white hand clenched nervously, as

though it grasped some unseen yet perfectly tangible substance. Just

then the storm without, which had partially lulled during the last few

minutes, began its wrath anew: a glare of lightning blazed against the

uncurtained window, and a heavy clap of thunder burst overhead with the

sudden crash of an exploding bomb.

"You care for Fame?" asked Ileliobas abruptly, as soon as the terrific

uproar had subsided into a distant, dull rumbling mingled with the

pattering dash of hail.

"I care for it--yes!" replied Alwyn, and his voice was very low and

dreamy. "For though the world is a graveyard, as I have said, full of

unmarked tombs, still here and there we find graves, such as Shelley's

or Byron's, whereon pale flowers, like sweet suggestions of

ever-silenced music, break into continuous bloom. And shall I not win

my own death-garland of asphodel?"

There was an indescribable, almost heart-rending pathos in his manner

of uttering these last words--a hopelessness of effort and a despairing

sense of failure which he himself seemed conscious of, for, meeting the

fixed and earnest gaze of Ileliobas, he quickly relapsed into his usual

tone of indolent indifference.

"You see," he said, with a forced smile, "my story is not very

interesting! No hairbreadth escapes, no thrilling adventures, no love

intrigues--nothing but mental misery, for which few people have any

sympathy. A child with a cut finger gets more universal commiseration

than a man with a tortured brain and breaking heart, yet there can be

no quotion as to which is the most intense duel long enduring anguish

of the two. However, such as my troubles are I have told you all I have

laid bare my 'wound of living'--a wound that throbs and burns, and

aches, more intolerably with every pissing hour and day--it is not

unnatural, I think, that I should seek for a little cessation of

suffering; a brief dreaming space in which to rest for a while, and

escape from the deathful Truth--Truth, that like the flaming sword

placed east of the fabled garden of Eden, turns ruthlessly every way,

keeping us out of the forfeited paradise of imaginative aspiration,

which made the men of old time great because they deemed themselves

immortal. It was a glorious faith! that strong consciousness, that in

the change and upheaval of whole universes the soul of man should

forever over-ride disaster! But now that we know ourselves to be of no

more importance, relatively speaking, than the animalculae in a drop of

stagnant water, what great works can be done, what noble deeds

accomplished, in the face of the declared and proved futility of

everything? Still, if you can, as you say, liberate me from this

fleshly prison, and give me new sensations and different experiences,

why then let me depart with all possible speed, for I am certain I

shall find in the storm-swept areas of space nothing worse than life as

lived in this present world. Remember, I am quite incredulous as to

your professed power--" he paused and glanced at the white-robed,

priestly figure opposite, then added, lightly, "but I am curious to

test it all the same. Are you ready to being your spells?--and shall I

say the Nunc Dimittis?"

CHAPTER III.

DEPARTURE.

Heliobas was silent--he seemed engaged in deep and anxious

thought,--and he kept his steadfast eyes fixed on Alwyn's countenance,

as though he sought there the clew to some difficult problem.

"What do you know of the Nunc Dimittis?" he asked at last, with a

half-smile. "You might as well say PATER NOSTER,--both canticle and

prayer would be equally unmeaning to you! For poet as you are,--or let

me say as you WERE,--inasmuch as no atheist was ever a poet at the same

time--"

"You are wrong," interrupted Alwyn quickly. "Shelley was an atheist."

"Shelley, my good friend, was NOT an atheist [Footnote: See the last

two verses of Adonais]. He strove to be one,--nay, he made pretence to

be one,--but throughout his poems we hear the voice of his inner and

better self appealing to that Divinity and Eternity which, in spite of

the material part of him, he instinctively felt existent in his own

being. I repeat, poet as your WERE, and poet as you will be again when

the clouds on your mind are cleared,--you present the strange, but not

uncommon spectacle of an Immortal Spirit fighting to disprove its own

Immortality. In a word, you will not believe in the Soul."

"I cannot!" said Alwyn, with a hopeless gesture.

"Why?"

"Science can give us no positive proof of its existence; it cannot be

defined."

"What do you mean by Science?" demanded Heliobas. "The foot of the

mountain, at which men now stand, grovelling and uncertain how to

climb? or the glittering summit itself which touches God's throne?"

Alwyn made no answer.

"Tell me," pursued Heliobas, "how do you define the vital principle?

What mysterious agency sets the heart beating and the blood flowing? By

the small porter's lantern of to-day's so-called Science, will you

fling a light on the dark riddle of an apparently purposeless Universe,

and explain to me why we live at all?"

"Evolution," responded Alwyn shortly, "and Necessity."

"Evolution from what?" persisted Heliobas. "From one atom? WHAT atom?

And FROM WHENCE came the atom? And why the NECESSITY of any atom?"

"The human brain reels at such questions!" said Alwyn, vexedly and with

impatience. "I cannot answer them--no one can!"

"No one?" Heliobas smiled very tranquilly. "Do not be too sure of that!

And why should the human brain 'reel'?--the sagacious, calculating,

clear human brain that never gets tired, or puzzled, or

perplexed!--that settles everything in the most practical and

common-sense manner, and disposes of God altogether as an extraneous

sort of bargain not wanted in the general economy of our little solar

system! Aye, the human brain is a wonderful thing!--and yet by a sharp,

well-directed knock with this"--and he took up from the table a

paper-knife with a massive, silver-mounted, weighty horn-handle--"I

could deaden it in such wise that the SOUL could no more hold any

communication with it, and it would lie an inert mass in the cranium,

of no more use to its owner than a paralyzed limb."

"You mean to infer that the brain cannot act without the influence of

the soul?"

"Precisely! If the hands on the telegraph dial will not respond to the

electric battery, the telegram cannot be deciphered. But it would be

foolish to deny the existence of the electric battery because the dial

is unsatisfactory! In like manner, when, by physical incapacity, or

inherited disease, the brain can no longer receive the impressions or

electric messages of the Spirit, it is practically useless. Yet the

Spirit is there all the same, dumbly waiting for release and another

chance of expansion."

"Is this the way you account for idiocy and mania?" asked Alwyn

incredulously.

"Most certainly; idiocy and mania always come from man's interference

with the laws of health and of nature--never otherwise. The Soul placed

within us by the Creator is meant to be fostered by man's unfettered

Will; if man chooses to employ that unfettered Will in wrong

directions, he has only himself to blame for the disastrous results

that follow. You may perhaps ask why God has thus left our wills

unfettered: the answer is simple--that we may serve Him by CHOICE and

not by COMPULSION. Among the myriad million worlds that acknowledge His

goodness gladly and undoubtingly, why should He seek to force unwilling

obedience from us castaways!"

"As we are on this subject," said Alwyn, with a tinge of satire in his

tone, "if you grant a God, and make Him out to be supreme Love, why in

the name of His supposed inexhaustible beneficence should we be

castaways at all?"

"Because in our overweening pride and egotism we have ELECTED to be

such," replied Heliobas. "As angels have fallen, so have we. But we are

not altogether castaways now, since this signal," and he touched the

cross on his breast, "shone in heaven."

Alwyn shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.

"Pardon me," he murmured coldly, "with every desire to respect your

religious scruples, I really cannot, personally speaking, accept the

tenets of a worn-out faith, which all the most intellectual minds of

the day reject as mere ignorant superstition. The carpenter's son of

Judea was no doubt a very estimable person,--a socialist teacher whose

doctrines were very excellent in theory but impossible of practice.

That there was anything divine about Him I utterly deny; and I confess

I am surprised that you, a man of evident culture, do not seem to see

the hollow absurdity of Christianity as a system of morals and

civilization. It is an ever-sprouting seed of discord and hatred

between nations; it has served as a casus belli of the most fanatical

and merciless character; it is answerable for whole seas of cruel and

unnecessary bloodshed ..."

"Have you nothing NEW to say on the subject?" interposed Heliobas, with

a slight smile. "I have heard all this so often before, from divers

kinds of men both educated and ignorant, who have a willful habit of

forgetting all that Christ Himself prophesied concerning His creed of

Self-renunciation, so difficult to selfish humanity: 'Think not that I

come to send peace on the earth. I come, not to send peace, but a

sword.' Again 'Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.' ...

'all ye shall be offended because of me.' Such plain words as these

seem utterly thrown away upon this present generation. And do you know

I find a curious lack of originality among so-called 'freethinkers'; in

fact their thoughts can hardly be designated as 'free' when they all

run in such extremely narrow grooves of similitude--a flock of sheep

mildly trotting under the guidance of the butcher to the slaughterhouse

could not be more tamely alike in their bleating ignorance as to where

they are going. Your opinions, for instance, differ scarce a whit from

those of the common boor who, reading his penny Radical paper, thinks

he can dispense with God, and talks of the 'carpenter's son of Judea'

with the same easy flippancy and scant reverence as yourself. The

'intellectual minds of the day' to which you allude, are

extraordinarily limited of comprehension, and none of them, literary or

otherwise, have such a grasp of knowledge as any of these dead and gone

authors," and he waved his hand toward the surrounding loaded

bookshelves, "who lived centuries ago, and are now, as far as the

general public is concerned, forgotten. All the volumes you see here

are vellum manuscripts copied from the original slabs of baked clay,

stone tablets, and engraved sheets of ivory, and among them is an

ingenious treatise by one Remeni Adranos, chief astronomer to the then

king of Babylonia, setting forth the Atom and Evolution theory with far

more clearness and precision than any of your modern professors. All

such propositions are old--old as the hills, I assure you; and these

days in which you live are more suggestive of the second childhood of

the world than its progressive prime. Especially in your own country

the general dotage seems to have reached a sort of climax, for there

you have the people actually forgetting, deriding, or denying their

greatest men who form the only lasting glories of their history; they

have even done their futile best to tarnish the unsoilable fame of

Shakespeare. In that land you,--who, according to your own showing,

started for the race of life full of high hopes and inspiration to

still higher endeavor--you have been, poisoned by the tainted

atmosphere of Atheism which is slowly and insidiously spreading itself

through all ranks, particularly among the upper classes, who, while

becoming every day more lax in their morals and more dissolute of

behavior, consider themselves far too wise and 'highly cultured' to

believe in anything. It is a most unwholesome atmosphere, charged with

the morbidities and microbes of national disease and downfall; it is

difficult to breathe it without becoming fever-smitten; and in your

denial of the divinity of Christ, I do not blame you any more than I

would blame a poor creature struck down by a plague. You have caught

the negative, agnostic, and atheistical infection from others,--it is

not the natural, healthy condition of your temperament."

"On the contrary it IS, so far as that point goes," said Alwyn with

sudden heat--"I tell you I am amazed,--utterly amazed, that you, with

your intelligence, should uphold such a barbaric idea as the Divinity

of Christ! Human reason revolts at it,--and after all, make as light of

it as you will, reason is the only thing that exalts us a little above

the level of the beasts."

"Nay--the beasts share the gift of reason in common with us," replied

Heliobas, "and Man only proves his ignorance if he denies the fact.

Often indeed the very insects show superior reasoning ability to

ourselves, any thoroughly capable naturalist would bear me out in this

assertion."

"Well, well!" and Alwyn grew impatient--"reason or no reason, I again

repeat that the legend on which Christianity is founded is absurd and

preposterous,--why, if there were a grain of truth in it, Judas

Iscariot instead of being universally condemned, ought to be honored

and canonized as the first of saints!"

"Must I remind you of your early lesson days?" asked Heliobas mildly.

"You will find it written in a Book you appear to have forgotten, that

Christ expressly prophesied, 'Woe to that man' by whom He was betrayed.

I tell, you, little as you credit it, there is not a word that the

Sinless One uttered while on this earth, that has not been or shall not

be in time fulfilled. But I do not wish to enter into any controversies

with you; you have told me your story,--I have heard it with

interest,--and I may add with sympathy. You are a poet, struck dumb by

Materialism because you lacked strength to resist the shock,--you would

fain recover your singing-speech--and this is in truth the reason why

you have come to me. You think that if you could gain some of the

strange experiences which others have had while under my influence, you

might win back your lost inspiration--though you do not know WHY you

think this--neither do I--I can only guess."

"And your guess is...?" demanded Alwyn with an air of affected

indifference.

"That some higher influence is working for your rescue and safety,"

replied Heliobas. "What influence I dare not presume to imagine,

but--there are always angels near!"

"Angels!" Alwyn laughed aloud. "How many more fairy tales are you going

to weave for me out of your fertile Oriental imagination? Angels! ...

See here, my good Heliobas, I am perfectly willing to grant that you

may be a very clever man with an odd prejudice in favor of

Christianity,--but I must request that you will not talk to me of

angels and spirits or any such nonsense, as if I were a child waiting

to be amused, instead of a full-grown man with ..."

"With so full-grown an intellect that it has out-grown God!" finished

Heliobas serenely. "Quite so! Yet angels, after all, are only immortal

Souls such as yours or mine when set free of their earthly tenements.

For instance, when I look at you thus," and he raised his eyes with a

lustrous, piercing glance--"I see the proud, strong, and rebellious

Angel in you far more distinctly than your outward shape of man ... and

you ... when you look at me--"

He broke off, for Alwyn at that moment sprang from his chair, and,

staring fixedly at him, uttered a quick, fierce exclamation.

"Ah! I know you now!" he cried in sudden and extraordinary

excitement--"I know you well! We have met before!--Why,--after all that

has passed,--do we meet again?"

This singular speech was accompanied by a still more singular

transfiguration of countenance--a dark, fiery glory burned in his eyes,

and, in the stern, frowning wonder and defiance of his expression and

attitude, there was something grand yet terrible,--menacing yet

supernaturally sublime. He stood so for an instant's space,

majestically sombre, like some haughty, discrowned emperor confronting

his conqueror,--a rumbling, long-continued roll of thunder outside

seemed to recall him to himself, and he pressed his hand tightly down

over his eyelids, as though to shut out some overwhelming vision. After

a pause he looked up again,--wildly, confusedly,--almost

beseechingly,--and Heliobas, observing this, rose and advanced toward

him.

"Peace!" he said, in low, impressive tones,--"we have recognized each

other,--but on earth such recognitions are brief and soon forgotten!"

He waited for a few seconds,--then resumed lightly, "Come, look at me

now! ... what do you see?"

"Nothing ... but yourself!" he replied, sighing deeply as he

spoke--"yet ... oddly enough, a moment ago I fancied you had altogether

a different appearance,--and I thought I saw ... no matter what! ... I

cannot describe it!" His brows contracted in a puzzled line. "It was a

curious phenomenon--very curious ... and it affected me strangely..."

he stopped abruptly,--then added, with a slight flush of annoyance on

his face, "I perceive you are an adept in the art of optical illusion!"

Heliobas laughed softly. "Of course! What else can you expect of a

charlatan, a trickster, and a monk to boot! Deception, deception

throughout, my dear sir! ... and have you not ASKED to be deceived?"

There was a fine, scarcely perceptible satire in his manner; he glanced

at the tall oaken clock that stood in one corner of the room--its hands

pointed to eleven. "Now, Mr. Alwyn," he went on, "I think we have

talked quite enough for this evening, and my advice is, that you retire

to rest, and think over what I have said to you. I am willing to help

you if I can,--but with your beliefs, or rather your non-beliefs, I do

not hesitate to tell you frankly that the exertion of MY internal force

upon YOURS in your present condition might be fraught with extreme

danger and suffering. You have spoken of Truth, 'the deathful Truth';

this being, however, nothing but Truth according to the world's

opinion, which changes with every passing generation, and therefore is

not Truth at all. There is another Truth--the everlasting Truth--the

pivot of all life, which never changes; and it is with this alone that

my science deals. Were I to set you at liberty as you desire,--were

your intelligence too suddenly awakened to the blinding awfulness of

your mistaken notions of life, death, and futurity, the result might be

more overpowering than either you or I can imagine! I have told you

what I can do,--your incredulity does not alter the fact of my

capacity. I can sever you,--that is, your Soul, which you cannot

define, but which nevertheless exists,--from your body, like a moth

from its chrysalis; but I dare not even picture to myself what

scorching flame the moth might not heedlessly fly into! You might in

your temporary state of release find that new impetus to your thoughts

you so ardently desire, or you might not,--in short, it is impossible

to form a guess as to whether your experience might be one of supernal

ecstasy or inconceivable horror." He paused a moment,--Alwyn was

watching him with a close intentness that bordered on fascination and

presently he continued, "It is best from all points of view, that you

should consider the matter more thoroughly than you have yet done;

think it over well and carefully until this time to-morrow--then, if

you are quite resolved--"

"I am resolved NOW!" said Alwyn slowly and determinately. "If you are

so certain of your influence, come! ... unbar my chains! ... open the

prison-door! Let me go hence to-night; there is no time like the

present!"

"To night!" and Heliobas turned his keen, bright eyes full upon him,

with a look of amazement and reproach--"To night' without faith,

preparation or prayer, you are willing to be tossed through the realms

of space like a grain of dust in a whirling tempest? Beyond the

glittering gyration of unnumbered stars--through the sword-like flash

of streaming comets--through darkness--through light--through depths of

profoundest silence--over heights of vibrating sound--you--YOU will

dare to wander in these God-invested regions--you a blasphemer and a

doubter of God!"

His voice thrilled with passion,--his aspect was so solemn, and

earnest, and imposing that Alwyn, awed and startled, remained for a

moment mute--then, lifting his head proudly, answered--

"Yes, I DARE! If I am immortal I will test my immortality! I will face

God and find these angels you talk about! What shall prevent me?"

"Find the angels!" Heliobas surveyed him sadly as he spoke. "Nay! ...

pray rather that they may find THEE!" He looked long and steadfastly at

Alwyn's countenance, on which there was just then the faint glimmer of

a rather mocking smile,--and as he looked, his own face darkened

suddenly into an expression of vague trouble and uneasiness--and a

strange quiver passed visibly through him from head to foot.

"You are bold, Mr. Alwyn,"--he said at last, moving a little away from

his guest and speaking with some apparent effort--"bold to a fault, but

at the same time you are ignorant of all that lies behind the veil of

the Unseen. I should be much to blame if I sent you hence to-night,

utterly unguided--utterly uninstructed. I myself must think--and

pray--before I venture to incur so terrible a responsibility. To-morrow

perhaps--to-night, no! I cannot--moreover I will not!"

Alwyn flushed hotly with anger. "Trickster!" he thought. "He feels he

has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!"

"Did I hear you aright?" he said aloud in cold determined accents. "You

cannot? you will not? ... By Heaven!"--and his voice rose, "I say you

SHALL!" As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations

overcame him,--he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious,

invincible, supreme authority,--he felt twice a man and more than half

a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither

explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,--when

Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of

mingled appeal and menace.

"Back! back!" he cried warningly. "If you come one inch nearer to me I

cannot answer for your safety--back, I say! Good God! you do not know

your OWN power!"

Alwyn scarcely heeded him,--some fatal attraction drew him on, and he

still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His

nerves began to throb acutely,--the blood in his veins was like

fire,--there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that

interrupted and oppressed his breathing,--he stared straight before him

with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. What--WHAT was that dazzling

something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering

wheels of golden flame? His lips parted ... he stretched out his hands

in the uncertain manner of a blind man feeling his way ... "Oh God! ...

God!" ... he muttered as though stricken by some sudden

amazement,--then, with a smothered, gasping cry, he staggered and fell

heavily forward on the floor--insensible!

At the self-same instant the window blew open, with a loud crash--it

swung backward and forward on its hinges, and a torrent of rain poured

through it slantwise into the room. A remarkable change had taken place

in the aspect and bearing of Heliobas,--he stood as though rooted to

the spot, trembling from head to foot,--he had lost all his usual

composure,--he was deathly pale, and breathed with difficulty.

Presently recovering himself a little he strove to shut the swinging

casement, but the wind was so boisterous, that he had to pause a moment

to gain strength for the effort, and instinctively he glanced out at

the tempestuous night. The clouds were scurrying over the sky like

great black vessels on a foaming sea,--the lightning flashed

incessantly, and the thunder reverberated Over the mountains in

tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon. Stinging drops of icy sleet

dashed his face and the front of his white garb as he inhaled the

stormy freshness of the strong, upward-sweeping blast for a few

seconds--and then, with the air of one gathering together all his

scattered forces, he shut to the window firmly and barred it across.

Turning now to the unconscious Alwyn, he lifted him from the floor to a

low couch near at hand, and there laid him gently down. This done, he

stood looking at him with an expression of the deepest anxiety, but

made no attempt to rouse him from his death-like swoon. His own

habitual serenity was completely broken through,--he had all the

appearance of having received some unexpected and overwhelming

shock,--his very lips were blanched and quivered nervously.

He waited for several minutes, attentively watching the recumbent

figure before him, till gradually,--very gradually,--that figure took

upon itself the pale, stern beauty of a corpse from which life has but

recently and painlessly departed. The limbs grew stiff and rigid--the

features smoothed into that mysteriously wise placidity which is so

often seen in the faces of the dead,--the closed eyelids looked purple

and livid as though bruised ... there was not a breath, not a tremor,

to offer any outward suggestion of returning animation,--and when,

after some little time, Heliobas bent down and listened, there was no

pulsation of the heart ... it had ceased to beat! To all appearances

Alwyn was DEAD--any physician would have certified the fact, though how

he had come by his death there was no evidence to show. And in that

condition, ... stirless, breathless ... white as marble, cold and

inanimate as stone, Heliobas left him. Not in indifference, but in sure

knowledge--knowledge far beyond all mere medical science--that the

senseless clay would in due time again arise to life and motion; that

the casket was but temporarily bereft of its jewel,--and that the jewel

itself, the Soul of the Poet, had by a superhuman access of will,

managed to break its bonds and escape elsewhere. But whither? ... Into

what vast realms of translucent light or drear shadow? ... This was a

question to which the mystic monk, gifted as he was with a powerful

spiritual insight into "things unseen and eternal," could find no

satisfactory answer, and in his anxious perplexity he betook himself to

the chapel, and there, by the red glimmer of the crimson star that

shone dimly above the altar, he knelt alone and prayed in silence till

the heavy night had passed, and the storm had slain itself with the

sword of its own fury on the dark slopes of the Pass of Dariel.

CHAPTER IV.

"ANGELUS DOMINE."

The next morning dawned pallidly over a sea of gray mist--not a glimpse

of the landscape was visible--nothing but a shadowy vastness of

floating vapor that moved slowly fold upon fold, wave upon wave, as

though bent on blotting out the world. A very faint, chill light peered

through the narrow arched window of the room where Alwyn lay, still

wrapped in that profound repose, so like the last long sleep from which

some of our modern scientists tell us there can be no awakening. His

condition was unchanged,--the wan beams of the early clay falling cross

his features intensified their waxen stillness and pallor,--the awful

majesty of death was on him,--the pathetic helplessness and

perishableness of Body without Spirit. Presently the monastery bell

began to ring for matins, and as its clear chime struck through the

deep silence, the door opened, and Heliobas, accompanied by another

monk, whose gentle countenance and fine, soft eyes betokened the

serenity of his disposition, entered the apartment. Together they

approached the couch, and gazed long and earnestly at the

supernaturally slumbering man.

"He is still far away!" said Heliobas at last, sighing as he spoke. "So

far away that my mind misgives me.... Alas, Hilarion! how limited is

our knowledge! ... even with all the spiritual aids of spiritual life

how little can be accomplished! We learn one thing, and another

presents itself--we conquer one difficulty, and another instantly

springs up to obstruct our path. Now if I had only had the innate

perception required to foresee the possible flight of this released

Immortal creature, might I not have saved it from some incalculable

misery and suffering?"

"I think not," answered in rather musing accents the monk called

Hilarion--"I think not. Such protection can never be exercised by mere

human intelligence, if this soul is to be saved or shielded in its

invisible journeying it will be by some means that not all the marvels

of our science can calculate. You say he was without faith?"

"Entirely"

"What was his leading principle?"

"A desire for what he called Truth," replied Heliobas.

"He, like many others of his class, never took the trouble to consider

very deeply the inner meaning of Pilate's famous question, 'What IS

Truth?' WE know what it is, as generally accepted--a few so called

facts which in a thousand years will all be contradicted, mixed up with

a few finite opinions propounded by unstable minded men. In brief,

Truth, according to the world, is simply whatever the world is pleased

to consider as Truth for the time being. 'Tis a somewhat slight thing

to stake one's immortal destinies upon!"

Hilarion raised one of Alwyn's cold, pulseless hands--it was stiff, and

white as marble.

"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt of his returning hither?"

"None whatever," answered Heliobas decisively. "His life on earth is

assured for many years yet,--inasmuch as his penance is not finished,

his recompense not won. Thus far my knowledge of his fate is certain."

"Then you will bring him back to-day?" pursued Hilarion.

"Bring him back? I? I cannot!" said Heliobas, with a touch of sad

humility in his tone. "And for this very reason I feared to send him

hence,--and would not have done so,--not without preparation at any

rate,--could I have had my way. His departure was more strange than any

I have ever known--moreover, it was his own doing, not mine. I had

positively refused to exert my influence upon him, because I felt he

was not in my sphere, and that therefore neither I nor any of those

higher intelligences with which I am in communication could control or

guide his wanderings. He, however, was as positively determined that I

SHOULD exert it--and to this end he suddenly concentrated all the pent

up fire of his nature in one rapid effort of Will, and advanced upon

me.... I warned him, but in vain! quick as lightning flash meets

lightning flash, the two invisible Immortal Forces within us sprang

into instant opposition,--with this difference, that while he was

ignorant and unconscious of HIS power, I was cognizant and fully

conscious of MINE. Mine was focused, as it were, upon him,--his was

untrained and scattered,--the result was that mine won the victory:

yet understand me well, Hilarion,--if I could have held myself in, I

would have done so. It was he,--he who DREW my force out of me as one

would draw a sword out of its scabbard--the sword may be ever so

stiffly fixed in its sheath, but the strong hand will wrench it forth

somehow, and use it for battle when needed."

"Then," said Hilarion wonderingly, "you admit this man possesses a

power greater than your own?"

"Aye, if he knew it!" returned Heliobas, quietly. "But he does not

know. Only an angel could teach him--and in angels he does not believe."

"He may believe now.... !"

"He may. He will--he must, ... if he has gone where I would have him

go."

"A poet, is he not!" queried Hilarion softly, bending down to look more

attentively at the beautiful Antinous-like face colorless and cold as

sculptured alabaster.

"An uncrowned monarch of a world of song!" responded Heliobas, with a

tender inflection in his rich voice. "A genius such as the earth sees

but once in a century! But he has been smitten with the disease of

unbelief and deprived of hope,--and where there is no hope there is no

lasting accomplishment." He paused, and with a touch as gentle as a

woman's, rearranged the cushions under Alwyn's heavy head, and laid his

hand in grave benediction on the broad white brow shaded by its

clustering waves of dark hair. "May the Infinite Love bring him out of

danger into peace and safety!" he said solemnly,--then turning away, he

took his companion by the arm, and they both left the room, closing the

door quietly behind them. The chapel bell went on tolling slowly,

slowly, sending muffled echoes through the fog for some minutes--then

it ceased, and profound stillness reigned.

The monastery was always a very silent habitation,--situated as it was

on so lofty and barren a crag, it was far beyond the singing-reach of

the smaller sweet-throated birds--now and then an eagle clove the mist

with a whirr of wings and a discordant scream on his way toward some

distant mountain eyrie--but no other sound of awakening life broke the

hush of the slowly widening dawn. An hour passed--and Alwyn still

remained in the same position,--as pallidly quiescent as a corpse

stretched out for burial. By and by a change begin to thrill

mysteriously through the atmosphere, like the flowing of amber wine

through crystal--the heavy vapors shuddered together as though suddenly

lashed by a whip of flame,--they rose, swayed to and fro, and parted

asunder.... then, dissolving into thin, milk-white veils of fleecy

film, they floated away, disclosing as they vanished, the giant summits

of the encircling mountains, that lifted themselves to the light, one

above another, in the form of frozen billows. Over these a delicate

pink flush flitted in tremulous wavy lines--long arrows of gold began

to pierce the tender shimmering blue of the sky--soft puffs of cloud

tinged with vivid crimson and pale green were strewn along the eastern

horizon like flowers in the path of an advancing hero,--and then all at

once there was a slight cessation of movement in the heavens--an

attentive pause as though the whole universe waited for some great

splendor as yet unrevealed. That splendor came, in a red blaze of

triumph the Sun rose, pouring a shower of beamy brilliancy over the

white vastness of the heights covered with perpetual snow,--jagged

peaks, sharp as scimetars and sparkling with ice, caught fire, and

seemed to melt away in an absorbing sea of radiance, ... the waiting

clouds moved on, redecked in deeper hues of royal purple--and the full

Morning glory was declared. As the dazzling effulgence streamed through

the window and flooded the couch where Alwyn lay, a faint tinge of

color returned to his face,--his lips moved,--his broad chest heaved

with struggling sighs,--his eyelids quivered,--and his before rigid

hands relaxed and folded themselves together in an attitude of peace

and prayer. Like a statue becoming slowly and magically flushed with

life, the warm hues of the naturally flowing blood deepened through the

whiteness of his skin,--his breathing grew more and more easy and

regular,--his features gradually assumed their wonted appearance, and

presently ... without any violent start or exclamation ... he awoke!

But was it a real awakening? or rather a continuation of some strange

impression received in slumber?

He rose to his feet, pushing back the hair from his brow with an

entranced look of listening wonderment--his eyes were humid yet

brilliant--his whole aspect was that of one inspired. He paced once or

twice up and down the room, but he was evidently unconscious of his

surroundings--he seemed possessed by thoughts which absorbed his whole

being. Presently he seated himself at the table, and absently fingering

the writing materials that were upon it, he appeared meditatively to

question their use and meaning. Then, drawing several sheets of paper

toward him, he began to write with extraordinary rapidity and

eagerness--his pen travelled on smoothly, uninterrupted by blot or

erasure. Sometimes he paused--but when he did it was always with an

upraised, attentively listening expression. Once he murmured aloud

"ARDATH! Nay, I shall not forget!--we will meet at ARDATH!" and again

he resumed his occupation. Page after page he covered with close

writing-no weak, uncertain scrawl, but a firm bold, neat

caligraphy,--his own peculiar, characteristic hand. The sun mounted

higher and higher in the heavens, ... hour after hour passed, and still

lie wrote on, apparently unaware of the flitting time. At mid-day the

bell, which had not rung since early dawn, began to swing quickly to

and fro in the chapel turret,--the deep bass of the organ breathed on

the silence a thunderous monotone, and a bee-like murmur of distant

voices proclaimed the words: "Angelas Domine nuntiavit Mariae."

At the first sound of this chant, the spell that enchained Alwyn's mind

was broken; drawing a quick dashing line under what he had written, he

sprang up erect and dropped his pen.

"Heliobas!" he cried loudly, "Heliobas! WHERE IS THE FIELD OF ARDATH?"

His voice seemed strange and unfamiliar to his own ears,--he waited,

listening, and the chant went on--"Et Verbo caro factus est, et

habitavit in nobis."

Suddenly, as if he could endure his solitude no longer, he rushed to

the door and threw it open, thereby nearly flinging himself against

Heliobas, who was entering the room at the same moment. He drew back,

... stared wildly, and passing his hand across his forehead confusedly,

forced a laugh.

"I have been dreaming!" he said, ... then with a passionate gesture he

added, "God! if the dream were true!"

He was strongly excited, and Heliobas, slipping one arm round him in a

friendly manner, led him back to the chair he had vacated, observing

him closely as he did so.

"You call THIS dreaming," he inquired with a slight smile, pointing to

the table strewn with manuscript on which the ink was not yet dry.

"Then dreams are more productive than active exertion! Here is goodly

matter for printers! ... a fair result it seems of one morning's labor!"

Alwyn started up, seized the written sheets, and scanned them eagerly.

"It is my handwriting!" he muttered in a tone of stupefied amazement.

"Of course! Whose handwriting should it be?" returned Heliobas,

watching him with scientifically keen, yet kindly interest.

"Then it IS true!" he exclaimed. "True--by the sweetness of her

eyes,--true, by the love-lit radiance of her smile!--true, O thou God

whom I dared to doubt! true by the marvels of Thy matchless, wisdom!"

And with this strange outburst, he began to read in feverish haste what

he had written. His breath came and went quickly,--his cheeks flushed,

his eyes dilated,--line after line he perused with apparent wonder and

rapture,--when suddenly interrupting himself he raised his head and

recited in a half whisper:

"With thundering notes of song sublime I cast my sins away from me--On

stairs of sound I mount--I climb! The angels wait and pray for me!

"I heard that stanza somewhere when I was a boy ... why do I think of

it now? SHE has waited,--so she said,--these many thousand days!"

He paused meditatively,--and then resumed his reading, Heliobas touched

his arm.

"It will take you some time to read that, Mr. Alwyn," he gently

observed. "You have written more than you know."

Alwyn roused himself and looked straight at the speaker. Putting down

his manuscript and resting one hand upon it, he gazed with an air of

solemn inquiry into the noble face turned steadfastly toward his own.

"Tell me," he said wistfully, "how has it happened? This composition is

mine and yet not mine. For it is a grand and perfect poem of which I

dare not call myself the author! I might as well snatch HER crown of

starry flowers and call myself an Angel!"

He spoke with mingled fervor and humility. To any ordinary observer he

would have seemed to be laboring under home strange hallucination,--but

Heliobas was more deeply instructed.

"Come, come! ... your thoughts are wide of this world," he said kindly.

"Try to recall them! I can tell you nothing, for I know nothing....

you have been absent many hours."

"Absent? yes!" and Alwyn's voice thrilled with an infinite regret.

"Absent from earth.. ah! would to God I might hive stayed with her, in

Heaven! My love, my love! where shal I find her if not in the FIELD OF

ARDATH?"

CHAPTER V.

A MYSTIC TRYST.

As he uttered the last words, his eyes darkened into a soft expression

of musing tenderness, and he remained silent for many minutes, during

which the entranced, almost unearthly beauty of his face underwent a

gradual change ... the mystic light that had for a time transfigured

it, faded and died away--and by degrees he recovered all his ordinary

self possession. Presently glancing at Heliobas, who stood patiently

waiting till he should have overcome whatever emotions were at work in

his mind, he smiled.

"You must think me mad!" he said. "Perhaps I am,--but if so, it is the

madness of love that has seized me. Love! ... it is a passion I have

never known before.. I have used it as a mere thread whereon to string

madrigals, a background of uncertain tint serving to show off the

brighter lines of Poesy--but now! ... now I am enslaved and bound,

conquered and utterly subdued by love! ... love for the sweetest,

queenliest, most radiant creature that ever captured or commanded the

worship of man! I may SEEM mad--but I know I am sane--I realize the

actual things of this world about me mind is--my clear, my thoughts are

collected, and yet I repeat, I LOVE! ... aye! with all the force and

fervor of this strongly beating human heart of mine;"--and he touched

his breast as he spoke. "And it comes to this, most wise and worthy

Heliobas,--if your spells have conjured up this vision of immortal

youth and grace and purity that has suddenly assumed such sovereignty

over my life--then you must do something further, ... you must find, or

teach me how to find, the living Reality of my Dream!"

Heliobas surveyed him with some wonder and commiseration.

"A moment ago and you yourself declared your DREAM was true!" he

observed. "This," and he pointed to the manuscript on the table,

"seemed to you sufficient to prove it. Now you have altered you

opinion: . . Why? I have worked no spells upon you, and I am entirely

ignorant as to what your recent experience has been. Moreover, what do

you mean by a 'living Reality'? The flesh and blood, bone and substance

that perishes in a brief seventy years or so and crumbles into

indistinguishable dust? Surely, ... if, as I conjecture from your

words, 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 merely human life?

Nay, if you would, you could not!"

Alwyn looked at him inquiringly and with a perplexed air.

"You speak in enigmas," he said somewhat vexedly. "However, the whole

thing is an enigma and would puzzle the most sagacious head. That the

physicial workings of the brain, in a site of trance, should arouse in

me a passion of love for an imaginary being, and, at the same time,

enable to write a poem such as must make the fame of any man, is

certainly a remarkable and noteworthy result of scientific mesmerism!"

"Now, my dear sir," interrupted Heliobas in a tone of good-natured

remonstrance,--"do not--if you have any respect for science at all--do

not, I beg of you, talk to me of the 'physical workings' of a DEAD

BRAIN?"

"A dead brain!" echoed Alwyn. "What do you mean?"

"What I say," returned Heliobas, composedly. "'Physical workings' of

any kind are impossible unless the motive power of physical life be in

action. You, regarded as a HUMAN creature merely, had during seven

hours practically CEASED TO BE,--the vital principle no longer existed

in your body, having taken its departure together with its inseparable

companion, the Soul. When it returned, it set the clockwork of your

material mechanism in motion again, obeying the sovereignty of the

Spirit that sought to express by material means, the utterance of

heaven-inspired thought. Thus your hand mechanically found its way to

the pen--thus you wrote, unconscious of what you were writing, yielding

yourself entirely to the guidance of the spiritual part of your nature,

which AT THAT PARTICULAR JUNCTURE was absolutely predominant, though

now weighted anew by earthy influences it has partially relaxed its

supernal sway. All this I readily perceive and understand ... but what

you did, and where you were conducted during the time of your complete

severance from the tenement of clay in which you are again imprisoned,

... this I have yet to learn."

While Heliobas was speaking, Alwyn's countenance had grown vaguely

troubled, and now into his deep poetic eyes there came a look of sudden

penitence.

"True!" he said softly, almost humbly, "I will tell you everything

while I remember it,--though it is not likely I shall ever forget! I

believe there must be some truth after all in what you say concerning

the Soul, ... at any rate, I do not at present feel inclined to call

your theories in question. To begin with, I find myself unable

altogether to explain what it was that happened to me during my

conversation with you last night. It was a very strange sensation! I

recollect that I had expressed a wish to be placed under your magnetic

or electric influence, and that you had refused my request. Then an odd

idea suggested itself to me--namely, that I could if I chose COMPEL

your assent,--and, filled with this notion, I think I addressed you, or

was about to address you, in a rather peremptory manner, when--all at

once--a flash of blinding light struck me fiercely across the eyes like

a scourge! Stung with the hot pain, and dazzled by the glare, I turned

away from you and fled ... or so it seemed--fled on my own instinctive

impulse ... into DARKNESS!"

He paused and drew a long, shuddering breath, like one who has narrowly

escaped imminent destruction.

"Darkness!" he went on in low accents that thrilled with the memory of

a past feat--"dense, horrible, frightful darkness!--darkness that

palpitated heavily with the labored motion of unseen things!--darkness

that clung and closed about me in masses of clammy, tangible

thickness,--its advancing and resistless weight rolled over me like a

huge waveless ocean--and, absorbed within it, I was drawn

down--down--down toward some hidden, impalpable but All Supreme Agony,

the dull unceasing throbs of which I felt, yet could not name. 'O GOD!'

I cried aloud, abandoning myself to wild despair, 'O GOD! WHERE ARE

THOU?' Then I heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten

through with wings, and a Voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet

blown suddenly in the silence of night, answered: 'HERE! ... AND

EVERYWHERE!' With that, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the

gloom with the sweep of a sword-blade, and I was caught up quickly ...

I know not how ... for I saw nothing!"

Again he pushed and looked wistfully at Heliobas, who in turn regarded

him with gentle steadfastness.

"It was wonderful--terrible!" ... he continued slowly--"yet beautiful!

... that Invisible Strength that rescued, surrounded, and uplifted me;

and--" here he hesitated, and a faint flush colored his cheeks and

stole up to the roots of his clustering hair--"dream or no dream, I

feel I cannot now altogether reject the idea of an existing Divinity.

In brief ... I believe in God!"

"Why?" asked Heliobas quietly.

Alwyn met his gaze frankly and with a soft brightening of his handsome

features.

"I cannot give you any logical reasons," he said. "Moreover, logical

reasoning would not now affect me in a matter which seems to me more

full of conviction than any logic. I believe, ... simply because I

believe!"

Heliobas smiled--a very warm and kindly smile--but said nothing, and

Alwyn resumed his narrative.

"As I tell you, I was caught up,--snatched out of that black profundity

with inconceivable swiftness,--and when the ascending movement ceased,

I found myself floating lightly like a wind-blown leaf through twining

arches of amber mist, colored here and there with rays of living flame

... I heard whispers, and fragments of song and speech, all sweeter

than the sweetest of our known music, ... and still I saw nothing.

Presently some one called me by name--'THEOS! ... THEOS!' I strove to

answer, but I had no words wherewith to match that silver-toned,

far-reaching utterance; and once again the rich vibrating notes pealed

through the vaporous fire-tinted air--'THEOS, MY BELOVED! HIGHER! ...

HIGHER! ... All my being thrilled and quivered to that call. I yearned

to obey, ... I struggled to rise--my efforts were in vain; when, to my

joy and wonder, a small, invisible hand, delicate yet strong, clasped

mine, and I was borne aloft with breathless, indescribable,

lightning-like rapidity--on ... on ... and ever upward, till at last,

alighting on a smooth, fair turf, thick-grown with fragrant blossoms of

strange loveliness and soft hues, I beheld Her! ... and she bade me

welcome."

"And who," questioned Heliobas, in tones of hushed reverence, "Who was

this Being that thus enchants your memory?"

"I know not!" replied Alwyn, with a dreamy smile of rapture on his lips

and in his eyes. "And yet her face ... oh! the entrancing beauty of

that face! ... was not altogether unfamiliar. I felt that I must have

loved and lost her ages upon ages ago! Crowned with white flowers, and

robed in a garb that seemed spun from midsummer moonbeams, she stood

... a smiling Maiden-Sweetness in a paradise of glad sights and sounds,

... ah! Eve, with the first sunrise radiance on her brows, was not more

divinely fair! ... Venus, new-springing from the silver sea-foam, was

not more queenly glorious! 'I WILL REMIND THEE OF ALL THOU HAST

FORGOTTEN,' she said, and I understood her soft, half-reproachful

accents. 'IT IS NOT YET TOO LATE! THOU HAST LOST MUCH AND SUFFERED

MUCH, AND THOU HAST BLINDLY ERRED, BUT NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THESE

THINGS, THOU ART MY BELOVED SINCE THESE MANY THOUSAND DAYS!'"

"Days--which the world counts as years!" murmured Heliobas. "You saw no

one but her?"

"No one--we were alone together. A vast woodland stretched before us,

she took my hand and led me beneath broad-arching trees to where a

lake, silvered by some strange radiance, glittered diamond-like in the

stirring of a balmy wind. Here she bade me rest--and sank gently on the

flowery bank beside me. Then viewing her more closely I greatly feared

her beauty--for I saw a wondrous halo wide and dazzling--a golden

aureole that spread itself around her in scintillating points of

light--light that reflected itself also on me and bathed me in its

luminous splendor. And as I gazed at her in speechless awe, she leaned

toward me nearer and nearer, her deep, pure eyes burning softly into

mine ... her hands touched me--her arms closed round me ... her bright

head lay in all its shining loveliness on my breast! A tremulous

ecstasy thrilled me as with fire ... I gazed upon her as one might gaze

on some fluttering, rare-plumaged bird ... I dare not move or speak ...

I drank her sweetness down into my soul! Now and then a sound as of

distant harps playing broke the love-weighted silence ... and thus we

remained together a heavenly breathing-space of wordless rapture; till

suddenly and swiftly, as though she had received an invisible summons,

she arose, her looks expressing a saintly patience, and laying her two

hands upon my brows--'Write,' she said, 'WRITE AND PROCLAIM A MESSAGE

OF HOPE TO THE SORROWFUL STAR! WRITE AND LET THINE UTTERANCE BE A TRUE

ECHO OF THE ETERNAL MUSIC WITH WHICH THESE SPHERES ARE FILLED! WRITE TO

THE RHYTHMIC BEAT OF THE HARMONIES WITHIN THEE ... FOR LO! ONCE MORE AS

IN AFORETIME MY CHANGELESS LOVE RENEWS IN THEE THE POWER OF PERFECT

SONG!' With that she moved away serenely and beckoned me to follow ...

I obeyed in haste and trembling ... long rays of rosy light swept after

her like trailing wings, and as she walked, the golden nimbus round her

form glowed with a thousand brilliant and changeful hues like the

rainbows seen in the spray of falling water! Through lush green grass

thick with blossom,--under groves heavy with fragrant leaves and laden

with the songs of birds ... over meadows cool and mountain-sheltered,

on we went--she, like the goddess of advancing Spring, I eagerly

treading in her radiant footsteps ... and presently we came to a place

where two paths met, ... one all overgrown with azure and white

flowers, that ascended away and away into undiscerned distance, ... the

other sloping deeply downward, and full of shadows, yet dimly illumined

by a pale, mysterious splendor like frosty moonlight streaming on

sad-colored seas. Here she turned and faced me, and I saw her divine

eyes droop with the moisture of unshed tears. 'THEOS! ... THEOS!' ...

she cried, and the passionate cadence of her voice was as the singing

of a nightingale in lonely woodlands ... 'AGAIN ... AGAIN WE MUST PART!

... PART! ... OH, MY BELOVED! ... MY BELOVED! HOW LONG WILT THOU SEVER

ME FROM THY SOUL AND LEAVE ME ALONE AND SORROWFUL AMID THE JOYS OF

HEAVEN?' As she thus spoke a sense of utter shame and loss and failure

overwhelmed me, ... pierced to the very core of my being by an

unexplained yet most bitter remorse, I cast myself down in deep

abasement before her, ... I caught her glittering robe ... I strove to

say 'Forgive!' but I was speechless as a convicted traitor in the

presence of a wronged queen! All at once the air about us was rent by a

great noise of thunder intermingled with triumphal music,--she drew her

sheeny garment from my touch in haste, and stooping to me where I

knelt, she kissed my forehead ... 'THY ROAD LIES THERE'--she murmured

in quick, soft tones, pointing to the vista of varying light and

shadow,--'MINE, YONDER!' and she looked toward the flower-garlanded

avenue--'HASTEN! ... IT IS TIME THOU WERT FAR HENCE! ... RETURN TO

THINE OWN STAR LEST ITS PORTALS BE CLOSED ON THEE FOREVER AND THOU BE

PLUNGED INTO DEEPER DARKNESS! SEEK THOU THE FIELD OF ARDATH!--AS CHRIST

LIVES, I WILL MEET THEE THERE! FAREWELL!' With these words she left me,

passing away, arrayed in glory, treading on flowers, and ever ascending

till she disappeared! ... while I, stricken with a great repentance,

went slowly, as she bade me, down into the shadow, and a rippling

breeze-like melody, as of harps and lutes most tenderly attuned,

followed me as I descended. And now," said Alwyn, interrupting his

narrative and speaking with emphatic decision, "surely there remains

but one thing for me to do--that is, to find the 'Field of Ardath.'"

Heliobas smiled gravely. "Nay, if you consider the whole episode a

dream," he observed, "why trouble yourself? Dreams are seldom realized,

... and as to the name of Ardath, have you ever heard it before?"

"Never!" replied Alwyn. "Still--if there is such a place on this planet

I will most certainly journey thither! Maybe YOU know something of its

whereabouts?"

"Finish your story," said Heliobas, quietly evading the question. "I am

curious to hear the end of your strange adventure."

"There is not much more to tell," and Alwyn sighed a little as he

spoke. "I wandered further and further into the gloom, oppressed by

many thoughts and troubled by vague fears, till presently it grew so

dark that I could scarcely see where I was going, though I was able to

guide myself in the path that stretched before me by means of the pale

luminous rays that frequently pierced the deepening obscurity, and

these rays I now noticed fell ever downwards in the form of a cross. As

I went on I was pursued as it were by the sound of those delicate

harmonies played on invisible, sweet strings; and after a while I

perceived at the extreme end of the long, dim vista a door standing

open, through which I entered and found myself alone in a quiet room.

Here I sat down to rest,--the melody of the distant harps and lutes

still floated in soft echoes on the silence ... and presently words

came breaking through the music, like buds breaking from their

surrounding leaves.. words that I was compelled to write down as

quickly as I heard them ... and I wrote on and on, obeying that

symphonious and rhythmical dictation with a sense of growing ease and

pleasure, ... when all suddenly a dense darkness overcame me, followed

by a gradual dawning gray and golden light ... the words dispersed into

fragmentary half-syllables ... the music died away, ... I started up

amazed ... to find myself here! ... here in this monastery of Lars,

listening to the chanting of the Angelus!"

He ceased, and looked wistfully out through the window at the white

encircling rim of the opposite snow-mountains, now bathed in the full

splendor of noon. Heliobas advanced and laid one hand kindly on his

shoulder....

"And do not forget," he said, "that you have brought with you from the

higher regions a Poem that will in all probability make your fame!

'Fame! fame! next grandest word to God!' ... so wrote one of your

craft, and no doubt you echo the sentiment! Have you not desired to

blazon your name on the open scroll of the world? Well! ... now you can

have your wish--the world waits to receive your signature!"

"That is all very well!" and Alwyn smiled rather dubiously as he

glanced at the manuscript on the table beside him. "But the question

is,--considering how it was written,--can I, dare I call this poem

MINE?"

"Most assuredly you can," returned Heliobas. "Though your hesitation is

a worthy one, and as rare as it is worthy. Well would it be for all

poets and artists were they to pause thus, and consider before rashly

calling their work their own! Self-appreciation is the death-blow of

genius. The poem is as much yours as your life is yours--no more and no

less. In brief, you have recovered your lost inspiration; the lately

dumb oracle speaks again:--and are you not satisfied?"

"No!" said Alwyn quickly, with a sudden brightening of his eyes as he

met the keenly searching glance that accompanied this question. "No!

for I love! ... and the desire of love burns in me as ardently as the

desire of fame!" He paused, and in quieter tones continued, "You see I

speak freely and frankly to you as though--," and he laughed a little,

"as though I were a good Catholic, and you my father-confessor! Good

heavens! if some of the men I know in London were to hear me, they

would think me utterly crazed! But craze or no craze, I feel I shall

never be satisfied now till I find out whether there IS anywhere is the

world a place called Ardath. Can you, will you help me in the search? I

am almost ashamed to ask you, for you have already done so much for me,

and I really owe to your wonderful power my trance or soul-liberty, or

whatever it may be called...."

"You owe me nothing," interposed Heliobas calmly, "not even thanks.

Your own will accomplished your freedom, and I am not responsible for

either your departure or your return. It was a predestined occurrence,

yet perfectly scientific and easy of explanation. Your inward force

attracted mine down upon you in one strong current, with the result

that your Spirit instantly parted asunder from your body, and in that

released condition you experienced what you have described. But _I_ had

no, more to do with that experience than I shall have with your journey

to the 'field of Ardath,' should you decide to go there."

"There IS an Ardath then!" cried Alwyn excitedly.

Heliobas eyed him with something of scorn. "Naturally! Are you still so

much of a sceptic that you think an ANGEL would have bidden you seek a

place that had no existence? Oh, yes! I see you are inclined to treat

your ethereal adventure as a mere dream,--but _I_ know it was a

reality, more real than anything in this present world." And turning to

the loaded bookshelves he took down a large volume, and spread it open

on the table.

"You know this book?" he asked.

Alwyn glanced at it. "The Bible! Of course!" he replied indifferently.

"Everybody knows it!"

"Pardon!" and Heliobas smiled. "It would be more correct to say nobody

knows it. To read is not always to understand. There are meanings and

mysteries in it which have never yet been penetrated, and which only

the highest and most spiritually gifted intellects can ever hope to

unravel. Now" ... and he turned over the pages carefully till he came

to the one he sought, "I think there is something here that will

interest you--listen!" and he read aloud, "'The Angel Uriel came unto

me and said: Go into a field of flowers where no house is builded and

eat only the flowers of the field--taste no flesh, drink no wine, but

eat flowers only. And pray unto the Highest continually, and then will

I come and talk to thee. So I went my way into the field which is

called ARDATH, ... '"

"The very place!" exclaimed Alwyn, eagerly bending over the sacred

book; then drawing back with a gesture of disappointment he added, "But

you are reading from Esdras, the Apocrypha! an utterly unreliable

source of information!"

"On the contrary, as reliable as any history ever written," rejoined

Heliobas calmly. "Study it for yourself, ... you will see that the

prophet was at that time resident in Babylon; the field he mentions was

near the city ..."

"Yes--WAS!" interrupted Alwyn incredulously.

"Was and IS," continued Heliobas. "No earthquake has crumbled it, no

sea has invaded it, and no house has been 'builded' thereon. It is, as

it was then, a waste field, lying about four miles west of the

Babylonian ruins, and there is nothing whatever to hinder you from

journeying thither when you please."

Alwyn's expression as he heard this was one of stupefied amazement.

Part of his so-called "dream" had already proved itself true--a "field

of Ardath" actually existed!

"You are certain of what you say?" he demanded.

"Positively certain!" returned Heliobas.

There was a silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded in

the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on the stone

pavement. Heliobas closed the Bible and returned it to its shelf.

"That was the dinner-bell," he announced cheerfully. "Will you

accompany me to the refectory, Mr. Alwyn? ... we can talk further of

this matter afterwards." Alwyn roused himself from the fit of

abstraction into which he had fallen, and gathering together the loose

sheets of his so strangely written manuscript, he arranged them all in

an orderly heap without speaking. Then he looked up and met the earnest

eyes of Heliobas with an expression of settled resolve in his own.

"I shall set out for Babylon to-morrow," he said quietly. "As well go

there as anywhere! ... and on the result of my journey I shall stake my

future! In the mean time--" He hesitated, then suddenly extending his

hand with a frank grace that became him well, "In spite of my

brusquerie last night, I trust we are friends?"

"Why, most assuredly we are!" returned Heliobas, heartily pressing the

proffered palm. "You had your doubts of me and you have them still; but

what of that! I take no offence at unbelief. I pity those who suffer

from its destroying influence too profoundly to find room in my heart

for anger. Moreover, I never try to convert anybody.... it is so much

more satisfactory when sceptics convert themselves, as you are

unconsciously doing! Come, ... shall we join the brethren?"

Over Alwyn's face flitted a transient shade of uneasiness and hauteur.

"I would rather they knew nothing about all this," he began.

"Make your mind quite easy on that score," rejoined Heliobas. "None of

my companions here are aware of your recent departure, except my very

old personal friend Hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in

its state of temporary death. But he is one of those remarkably rare

wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is

ignorant as to the results of your soul-transmigration, and will, as

far as I am concerned, remain in ignorance. Your confidence I assure

you is perfectly safe with me--as safe as though it had been received

under the sacred seal of confession."

With this understanding Alwyn seemed relieved and satisfied, and

thereupon they left the apartment together.

CHAPTER VI.

"NOURHALMA" AND THE ORIGINAL ESDRAS.

Later on in the afternoon of the same day, when the sun, poised above

the western mountain-range, appeared to be lazily looking about him

with a drowsy, golden smile of farewell before descending to his rest,

Alwyn was once more alone in the library. Twilight shadows were already

gathering in the corners of the long, low room, but he had moved the

writing-table to the window, in order to enjoy the magnificence of the

surrounding scenery, and sat where the light fell full upon his face as

he leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, in

an attitude of pleased, half-meditative indolence. He had just finished

reading from beginning to end the poem he had composed in his trance

... there was not a line in it he could have wished altered,--not a

word that would have been better omitted,--the only thing it lacked was

a title, and this was the question on which he now pondered. The

subject of the poem itself was not new to him--it was a story he had

known from boyhood, ... an old Eastern love-legend, fantastically

beautiful as many such legends are, full of grace and passionate

fervor--a theme fitted for the nightingale-utterance of a singer like

the Persian Hafiz--though even Hafiz would have found it difficult to

match the exquisitely choice language and delicately ringing rhythm in

which this quaint idyll of long past ages was now most perfectly set

like a jewel in fine gold. Alwyn himself entirely realized the splendid

literary value of the composition--he knew that nothing more artistic

in conception or more finished in treatment had appeared since the St.

Agnes Eve of Keats--and as he thought of this, he yielded to a growing

sense of self-complacent satisfaction which gradually destroyed all the

deeply devout humility he had at first felt concerning the high and

mysterious origin of his inspiration. The old inherent pride of his

nature reasserted itself--he reviewed all the circumstances of his

"trance" in the most practical manner--and calling to mind how the poet

Coleridge had improvised the delicious fragment of Kubla Khan in a

dream, he began to see nothing so very remarkable in his own

unconscious production of a complete poem while under mesmeric or

magnetic influences.

"After all," he mused, "the matter is simple enough when one reasons it

out. I have been unable to write anything worth writing for a long

time, and I told Heliobas as much. He, knowing my apathetic condition

of brain, employed his force accordingly, though he denies having done

so, ... and this poem is evidently the result of my long pent-up

thoughts that struggled for utterance yet could not before find vent in

words. The only mysterious part of the affair is this 'Field of

Ardath,' ... how its name haunts me! ... and how HER face shines before

the eyes of my memory! That SHE should be a phantom of my own creation

seems impossible--for when have I, even in my wildest freaks of fancy,

ever imagined a creature half so fair!"

His gaze rested dreamily on the opposite snow-clad peaks, above which

large fleecy clouds, themselves like moving mountains, were slowly

passing, their edges glowing with purple and gold as they neared the

sinking sun. Presently rousing himself, he took up a pen and first of

all addressing an envelope to

"THE HONBLE. FRANCIS VILLIERS,

"Constitutional Club,

"LONDON"

he rapidly wrote off the following letter:

"MONASTERY OF LARS,

"PASS OF DARIEL, CAUCASUS."

"MY DEAR VILLIERS:--Start not at the above address! I am not yet vowed

to perpetual seclusion, silence or celibacy! That I of all men in the

world should be in a Monastery will seem to you, who know my

prejudices, in the last degree absurd--nevertheless here I am,--though

here I do not remain, as it is my fixed intention to-morrow at daybreak

to depart straightway from hence en route for the supposed site and

ruins of Babylon. Yes,--Babylon! why not? Perished greatness has always

been a more interesting subject of contemplation to me than existing

littleness--and I dare say I shall wander among the tumuli of the

ancient fallen city with more satisfaction than in the hot,

humanity-packed streets of London, Paris, or Vienna--all destined to

become tumuli in their turn. Moreover. I am on the track of an

adventure,--on the search for a new sensation, having tried nearly all

the old ones and found them NIL. You know my nomadic and restless

disposition ... perhaps there is something of the Greek gipsy about

me--a craving for constant change of scene and surroundings,--however,

as my absence from you and England is likely to be somewhat prolonged,

I send you in the mean time a Poem--there! 'Season your admiration for

a while,' and hear me out patiently. I am perfectly aware of all you

would say concerning the utter folly and uselessness of writing poetry

at all in this present age of milk-and-watery-literature, shilling

sensationals, and lascivious society dramas,--and I have a very keen

recollection too of the way in which my last book was maltreated by the

entire press--good heavens! how the critics yelped like dogs about my

heels, snapping, sniffing, and snarling! I could have wept then like

the sensitive fool I was.... I can laugh now! In brief, my friend--for

you ARE my friend and the best of all possible good fellows--I have

made up my mind to conquer those that have risen against me--to break

through the ranks of pedantic and pre-conceived opinions--and to climb

the heights of fame, regardless of the little popular pipers of tame

verso that obstruct my path and blow their tin whistles in the public

ears to drown, if possible, my song. I WILL be heard! ... and to this

end I pin my faith on the work I now transmit to your care. Have it

published immediately and in the best style--I will cover all expenses.

Advertise sufficiently, yet with becoming modesty, for 'puffery' is a

thing I heartily despise,--and were the whole press to turn round and

applaud me as much as it has hitherto abused and ridiculed me, I would

not have one of its penny lines of condescendingly ignorant approval

quoted in connection with what must be a perfectly unostentatious and

simple announcement of this new production from my pen. The manuscript

is exceptionally clear, even for me who do not as a male write a very

bad scrawl--so that you can scarcely have much bother with the

proof-correcting--though even were this the case, and the printers

turned out to be incorrigible blockheads and blunderers, I know you

would grudge neither time nor trouble expended in my service. Good

Frank Villiers! how much I owe you!--and yet I willingly incur another

debt of gratitude by placing this matter in your hands, and am content

to borrow more of your friendship, but only believe me, in order to

repay it again with the truest interest! By the way, do you remember

when we visited the last Paris Salon together, how fascinated we were

by one picture--the head of a monk whose eyes looked out like a

veritable illumination from under the folds of a drooping white cowl?

... and on referring to our catalogues we found it described as the

portrait of one 'Heliobas,' an Eastern mystic, a psychist formerly well

known in Paris, but since retired into monastic life? Well! I have

discovered him here; he is apparently the Superior or chief of this

Order--though what Order it is and when founded is more than I can

tell. There are fifteen monks altogether, living contentedly in this

old, half-ruined habitation among the barren steeps of the frozen

Caucasus,--splendid, princely looking fellows all of them, Heliobas

himself being an exceptionally fine specimen of his race. I have just

dined with the whole community, and have been fairly astonished by the

fluent brilliancy and wit of their conversation. They speak all

languages. English included, and no subject comes amiss to them, for

they are familiar with the latest political situations in all

countries,--they know all about the newest scientific discoveries

(which, by-the-by, they smile at blandly, as though these last were

mere child's play), and they discuss our modern social problems and

theories with a Socratic-like incisiveness and composure such as our

parliamentary howlers would do well to imitate. Their doctrine is.. but

I will not bore you by a theological disquisition,--enough to say it is

founded on Christianity, and that at present I don't quite know what to

make of it! And now, my dear Villiers, farewell! An answer to this is

unnecessary; besides I can give you no address, as it is uncertain

where I shall be for the next two or three months. If I don't get as

much pleasure as I anticipate from the contemplation of the Babylonian

ruins, I shall probably take up my abode in Bagdad for a time and try

to fancy myself back in the days of 'good Haroun Alrascheed'. At any

rate, whatever becomes of me, I know I have entrusted my Poem to safe

hands--and all I ask of you is that it may be brought out with the

least possible delay,--for its IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION seems to me just

now the most vitally important thing in the world, except ... except

the adventure on which I am at present engaged, of which more

hereafter, ... when we meet. Until then think as well of me as you can,

and believe me

"Ever and most truly your friend,

"THEOS ALWYN."

This letter finished, folded, and sealed, Alwyn once more took up his

manuscript and meditated anew concerning its title. Stay! ... why not

call it by the name of the ideal heroine whose heart-passion and sorrow

formed the nucleus of the legend? ... a name that he in very truth was

all unconscious of having chosen, but which occurred frequently with

musical persistence throughout the entire poem. "NOURHALMA!" ... it had

a soft sound ... it seemed to breathe of Eastern languor and

love-singing,--it was surely the best title he could have. Straightway

deciding thereon, he wrote it clearly at the top of the first page,

thus: "Nourhalma; A Love Legend of the Past," ... then turning to the

end, he signed his own name with a bold flourish, thus attesting his

indisputable right to the authorship of what was not only destined to

be the most famous poetical masterpiece of the day, but was also to

prove the most astonishing, complex, and humiliating problem ever

suggested to his brain. Carefully numbering the pages, he folded them

in a neat packet, which he tied strongly and sealed--then addressing it

to his friend, he put letter and packet together, and eyed them both

somewhat wistfully, feeling that with them went his great chance of

immortal Fame. Immortal Fame!--what a grand vista of fair possibilities

those words unveiled to his imagination! Lost in pleasant musings, he

looked out again on the landscape. The sun had sunk behind the

mountains so far, that nothing was left of his glowing presence but a

golden rim from which great glittering rays spread upward, like lifted

lances poised against the purple and roseate clouds. A slight click

caused by the opening of the door disturbed his reverie,--he turned

round in his chair, and half rose from it as Heliobas entered, carrying

a small richly chased silver casket.

"Ah, good Heliobas! here you are at last," he said with a smile. "I

began to think you were never coming. My correspondence is

finished,--and, as you see, my poem is addressed to England--where I

pray it may meet with a better fate than has hitherto attended my

efforts!"

"You PRAY?" queried Heliobas, meaningly, "or you HOPE? There is a

difference between the two."

"I suppose there is," he returned nonchalantly. "And certainly--to be

correct--I should have said I HOPE, for I never pray. What have you

there?"--this as Heliobas set the casket he carried down on the table

before him. "A reliquary? And is it supposed to contain a fragment of

the true cross? Alas! I cannot believe in these fragments,--there are

too many of them!"

Heliobas laughed gently.

"You are right! Moreover, not a single splinter of the true cross is in

existence. It was, like other crosses then in general use, thrown aside

as lumber,--and had rotted away into the earth long before the Empress

Helena started on her piously crazed wanderings. No, I have nothing of

that sort in here,"--and taking a key from a small chain that hung at

his girdle he unlocked the casket. "This has been in the possession of

the various members of our Order for ages,--it is our chief treasure,

and is seldom, I may say never, shown to strangers,--but the mystic

mandate you have received concerning the 'field of Ardath' entitles you

to see what I think must needs prove interesting to you under the

circumstances." And opening the box he lifted out a small square volume

bound in massive silver and double-clasped. "This," he went on, "is the

original text of a portion of the 'Visions of Esdras,' and dates from

the thirteenth year after the downfall of Babylon's commercial

prosperity."

Alwyn uttered an exclamation of incredulous amazement. "Not possible!"

he cried.... then he added eagerly, "May I look at it?"

Silently Heliobas placed it in his outstretched hand. As he undid the

clasps a faint odor like that of long dead rose-leaves came like a

breath on the air, ... he opened it, and saw that its pages consisted

of twelve moderately thick sheets of ivory, which were covered all over

with curious small characters finely engraved thereon by some evidently

sharp and well-pointed instrument. These letters were utterly unknown

to Alwyn: he had seen nothing like them in any of the ancient tongues,

and he examined them perplexedly.

"What language is this?" he asked at last, looking up. "It is not

Hebrew--nor yet Sanskrit--nor does it resemble any of the discovered

forms of hieroglyphic writing. Can YOU understand it?"

"Perfectly!" returned Heliobas. "If I could not, then much of the

wisdom and science of past ages would be closed to my researches. It is

the language once commonly spoken by certain great nations which

existed long before the foundations of Babylon were laid. Little by

little it fell into disuse, till it was only kept up among scholars and

sages, and in time became known only as 'the language of prophecy.'

When Esdras wrote his Visions they were originally divided into two

hundred and four books,--and, as you will see by referring to what is

now called the Apocrypha,[Footnote: Vide 2 Esdras xiv.44-48.] he was

commanded to publish them all openly to the 'worthy and unworthy' all

except the 'seventy last,' which were to be delivered solely to such as

were 'wise among the people.' Thus one hundred and thirty-four were

written in the vulgar tongue,--the remaining seventy in the 'language

of prophecy,' for the use of deeply learned and scientific men alone.

The volume you hold is one of those seventy."

"How did you come by it?" asked Alwyn, curiously turning the book over

and over.

"How did our Order come by it, you mean," said Heliobas. "Very simply.

Chaldean fraternities existed in the time of Esdras, and to the supreme

Chief of these, Esdras himself delivered it. You look dubious, but I

assure you it is quite authentic,--we have its entire history up to

date."

"Then are you all Chaldeans here?"

"Not all--but most of us. Three of the brethren are Egyptians, and two

are natives of Damascus. The rest are, like myself, descendants of a

race supposed to have perished from off the face of the earth, yet

still powerful to a degree undreamed of by the men of this puny age."

Alwyn gave an upward glance at the speaker's regal form--a glance of

genuine admiration.

"As far as that goes," he said, with a frank laugh, "I'm quite willing

to believe you and your companions are kings in disguise,--you all

have that appearance! But regarding this book,"--and again he turned

over the silver-bound relic--"if its authenticity can be proved, as you

say, why, the British Museum would give, ah! ... let me see!--it would

give ..."

"Nothing!" declared Heliobas quietly, "believe me, nothing! The British

Government would no doubt accept it as a gift, just as it would with

equal alacrity accept the veritable signature of Homer, which we also

possess in another retreat of ours on the Isle of Lemnos. But our

treasures are neither for giving nor selling, and with respect to this

original 'Esdras,' it will certainly never pass out of our hands."

"And what of the other missing sixty-nine books?" asked Alwyn.

"They may possibly be somewhere in the world,--two of them, I know,

were buried in the coffin of one of the last princes of

Chaldea,--perhaps they will be unearthed some day. There is also a

rumor to the effect that Esdras engraved his 'Last Prophecy' on a small

oval tablet of pure jasper, which he himself secreted, no one knows

where. But to come to the point of immediate issue, ... shall I find

out and translate for you the allusions to the 'field of Ardath'

contained in this present volume?"

"Do!" said Alwyn, eagerly, at once returning the book to Heliobas, who,

seating himself at the table, began carefully looking over its ivory

pages--"I am all impatience! Even without the vision I have had, I

should still feel a desire to see this mysterious Field for its own

sake,--it must have some very strange associations to be worth

specifying in such a particular manner!"

Heliobas answered nothing--he was entirely occupied in examining the

small, closely engraved characters in which the ancient record was

written; the crimson afterglow of the now descended sun flared through

the window and sent a straight, rosy ray on his bent head and white

robes, lighting to a more lustrous brilliancy the golden cross and

jeweled star on his breast, and flashing round the silver clasps of the

time-honored relic before him. Presently he looked up...

"Here we have it!" and he placed his finger on one especial passage--it

reads as follows:

"'And the Angel bade me enter a waste field, and the field was barren

and dry save of herbs, and the name of the field was ARDATH.

"'And I wandered therein through the hours of the long night, and the

silver eyes of the field did open before me and I saw signs and wonders:

"'And I heard a voice crying aloud, Esdras, Esdras.

"'And I arose and stood on my feet and listened and refrained not till

I heard the voice again.

"'Which said unto me, 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 those things that were once familiar,--and my heart

failed within me for very fear.

"'And the voice cried aloud again saying: Hide thee from the perils of

the past and the perils of the future, for a great and terrible thing

is come upon thee, against which thy strength is as a reed in the wind

and thy thoughts as flying sand ...

"' [Footnote: See 2 Esdras x. 30-32.] And, lo, I lay as one that had

been dead and mine understanding was taken from me. And he (the Angel)

took me by the right hand and comforted me and set me upon my feet and

said unto me:

"'What aileth thee? and why art thou so disquieted? and why is thine

understanding troubled and the thoughts of thine heart?

"'And I said, Because thou hast forsaken me and yet I did according to

thy words, and I went into the field and lo! I have seen and yet see

that I am not able to express.'"

Here Heliobas paused, having read the last sentence with peculiarly

impressive emphasis.

"That is all"--he said--"I see no more allusions to the name of Ardath.

The last three verses are the same as those in the accepted Apocrypha."

CHAPTER VII.

AN UNDESIRED BLESSING.

Alwyn had listened with an absorbed yet somewhat mystified air of

attention.

"The venerable Esdras was certainly a poet in his own way!" he remarked

lightly. "There is something very fascinating about the rhythm of his

lines, though I confess I don't grasp their meaning. Still, I should

like to have them all the same,--will you let me write them out just as

you have translated them?"

Willingly assenting to this, Heliobas read the extract over again,

Alwyn taking down the words from his dictation.

"Perhaps," he then added musingly, "perhaps it would be as well to copy

a few passages from the Apocrypha also."

Whereupon the Bible was brought into requisition, and the desired

quotations made, consisting of verses xxiv. to xxvi. in the [Footnote:

The reader is requested to refer to the parts of "Esdras" here

indicated.] ninth chapter of the Second Book of Esdras, and verses xxv.

to xxvi. in the tenth chapter of the same. This done, Heliobas closed

and clasped the original text of the Prophet's work and returned it to

its casket; then addressing his guest in a kindly, yet serious tone, he

said: "You are quite resolved to undertake this journey, Mr. Alwyn?"

Alwyn looked dreamily out of the window at the flame of the sunset hues

reflected from the glowing sky on the white summit of the mountains.

"Yes, ... I ... I think so!" The answer had a touch of indecision in it.

"In that case," resumed Heliobas, "I have prepared a letter of

introduction for you to one of our Order known as Elzear of

Melyana,--he is a recluse, and his hermitage is situated close to the

Babylonian ruins. You will find rest and shelter there after the

fatigues of travel. I have also traced out a map of the district, and

the exact position of the field you seek, . . here it is," and he laid

a square piece of parchment on the table; "you can easily perceive at a

glance how the land lies. There are a few directions written at the

back, so I think you will have no difficulty. This is the letter to

Elzear,"--here he held out a folded paper--"will you take it now?"

Alwyn received it with a dubious smile, and eyed the donor as if he

rather suspected the sincerity of his intentions.

"Thanks very much!" he murmured listlessly. "You are exceedingly good

to make it all such plain sailing for me,--and yet ... to be quite

frank with you, I can't help thinking I am going on a fool's errand!"

"If that is your opinion, why go at all?" queried Heliobas, with a

slight disdain in his accents. "Return to England instead--forget the

name of 'Ardath,' and forget also the one who bade you meet her there,

and who has waited for you 'these many thousand days!'"

Alwyn started as if he had been stung.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "If I could be certain of seeing her again! ... if

... good God! the idea seems absurd! ... if that Flower-Crowned Wonder

of my dream should actually fulfill her promise and keep her tryst ..."

"Well!" demanded Heliobas--"If so, what then?"

"Well then I will believe in anything!" he cried--"No miracle will seem

miraculous.. no impossibility impossible!"

Heliobas sighed, and regarded him thoughtfully.

"You THINK you will believe!" he said somewhat sadly--"But doubts such

as yours are not easily dispelled. Angels have ere now descended to

men, men have neither received nor recognized them. Angels walk by our

side through crowded cities and lonely woodlands,--they watch us when

we sleep, they hear us when we pray, ... and yet the human eye sees

nothing save the material objects within reach of its vision, and is

not very sure of those, while it can no more discern the spiritual

presences than it can without a microscope discern the lovely living

creatures contained in a drop of dew or a ray of sunshine. Our earthly

sight is very limited--it can neither perceive the infinitely little

nor the infinitely great. And it is possible,--nay, it is most

probable, that even as Peter of old denied his Divine Master, so you,

if brought face to face with the Angel of your last night's experience,

would deny and endeavor to disprove her identity."

"Never!" declared Alwyn, with a passionate gesture--"I should know her

among a thousand!"

For one instant Heliobas bent upon him a sudden, searching, almost

pitiful glance, then withdrawing his gaze he said gently:

"Well, well! let us hope for the best--God's ways are inscrutable--and

you tell me that now--now after your strange so-called 'vision'--you

believe in God?"

"I did say so, certainly..." and Alwyn's face flushed a little..

"but..."

"Ah! ... you hesitate! there is a 'but' in the case!" and Heliobas

turned upon him with a grand reproach in his brilliant eyes.. "Already

stepping backward on the road! ... already rushing once again into the

darkness! ..." He paused, then laying one hand on the young man's

shoulder, continued in mild yet impressive accents: "My friend,

remember that the doubter and opposer of God, is also the doubter and

opposer of his own well-being. Let this unnatural and useless combat of

Human Reason, against Divine Instinct cease within you--you, who as a

poet are bound to EQUALIZE your nature that it may the more

harmoniously fulfil its high commission. You know what one of your

modern writers says of life? ... that it is a 'Dream in which we clutch

at shadows as though they were substances, and sleep deepest when

fancying ourselves most awake.'[Footnote: Carlyle's Sartor Resartus.]

Believe me, YOU have slept long enough--it is time you awoke to the

full realization of your destinies."

Alwyn heard in silence, feeling inwardly rebuked and half ashamed--the

earnestly spoken words moved him more than he cared to show--his head

drooped--he made no reply. After all, he thought, he had really no more

substantial foundation for his unbelief than others had for their

faith. With all his studies in the modern schools of science, he was

not a whit more advanced in learning than Democritus of old--Democritus

who based his system of morals on the severest mathematical lines,

taking as his starting-point a vacuum and atoms, and who after

stretching his intellect on a constant rack of searching inquiry for

years, came at last to the unhappy conclusion that man is absolutely

incapable of positive knowledge, and that even if truth is in his

possession he can never be certain of it. Was he, Theos Alwyn, wiser

than Democritus? ... or was this stately Chaldean monk, with the clear,

pathetic eyes and tender smile, and the symbol of Christ on his breast,

wiser than both? ... wiser in the wisdom of eternal things than any of

the subtle-minded ancient Greek philosophers or modern imitators of

their theories? Was there, COULD there be something not yet altogether

understood or fathomed in the Christian creed? ... as this idea

occurred to him he looked up and met his companion's calm gaze fixed

upon him with a watchful gentleness and patience.

"Are you reading my thoughts, Heliobas?" he asked, with a forced laugh.

"I assure you they are not worth the trouble."

Heliobas smiled, but made no answer. Just then one of the monks entered

the room with a large lighted lamp, which he set on the table, and the

conversation thus interrupted was not again resumed.

The evening shadows were now closing in rapidly, and already above the

furthest visible snow-peak the first risen star sparkled faintly in the

darkening sky. Soon the vesper bell began ringing as it had rung on the

previous night when Alwyn, newly arrived, had sat alone in the

refectory, listlessly wondering what manner of men he had come amongst,

and what would be the final result of his adventure into the wilds of

Caucasus. His feelings had certainly undergone some change since then,

inasmuch as he was no longer disposed to ridicule or condemn religious

sentiment, though he was nearly as far from actually believing in

Religion itself as ever. The attitude of his mind was still distinctly

skeptical--the immutable pride of what he considered his own firmly

rooted convictions was only very slightly shaken--and he now even

viewed the prospect of his journey to the "field of Ardath" as a mere

fantastic whim--a caprice of his own fancy which he chose to gratify

just for the sake of curiosity.

But notwithstanding the stubbornness of the materialistic principles

with which he had become imbued, his higher instincts were,

unconsciously to himself, beginning to be aroused--his memory

involuntarily wandered back to the sweet, fresh days of his earliest

manhood before the poison of Doubt had filtered through his soul--his

character, naturally of the lofty, imaginative, and ardent cast,

re-asserted its native force over the blighting blow of blank Atheism

which had for a time paralyzed its efforts--and as he unwittingly

yielded more and more to the mild persuasions of these genial

influences, so the former Timon-like bitterness of his humor gradually

softened. There was no trace in him now of the dark, ironic, and

reckless scorn that, before his recent visionary experience, had

distinguished his whole manner and bearing--the smile came more readily

to his lips--and he seemed content for the present to display the sunny

side of his nature--a nature impassioned, frank, generous, and noble,

in spite of the taint of overweening, ambitions egotism which somewhat

warped its true quality and narrowed the range of its sympathies. In

his then frame of mind, a curious, vague sense of half-pleasurable

penitence was upon him,--delicate, undefined, almost devotional

suggestions stirred his thoughts with the refreshment that a cool wind

brings to parched and drooping flowers,--so that when Heliobas, taking

up the silver "Esdras" reliquary and preparing to leave the apartment

in response to the vesper summons, said gently, "Will you attend our

service, Mr. Alwyn?" he assented at once, with a pleased alacrity which

somewhat astonished himself as he remembered how, on the previous

evening, he had despised and inwardly resented all forms of religious

observance.

However, he did not stop to consider the reason of his altered mood,

... he followed the monks into chapel with an air of manly grace and

quiet reverence that became him much better than the offensive and

defensive demeanor he had erewhile chosen to assume in the same

prayer-hallowed place,--he listened to the impressive ceremonial from

beginning to end without the least fatigue or impatience,--and though

when the brethren knelt, he could not humble himself so far as to kneel

also, he still made a slight concession to appearances by sitting down

and keeping his head in a bent posture--"out of respect for the good

intentions of these worthy men," as he told himself, to silence the

inner conflict of his own opposing and contradictory sensations. The

service concluded, he waited as before to see the monks pass out, and

was smitten with a sudden surprise, compunction, and regret, when

Heliobas, who walked last as usual, paused where he stood, and

confronted him, saying:

"I will bid you farewell here, my friend! ... I have many things to do

this evening, and it is best I should see you no more before your

departure."

"Why?" asked Alwyn astonished--"I had hoped for another conversation

with you."

"To what purpose!" inquired Heliobas mildly. "That I should assert ...

and you deny ... facts that God Himself will prove in His own way and

at His own appointed time? Nay, we should do no good by further

arguments."

"But," stammered Alwyn hastily, flushing hotly as he spoke, "you give

me no chance to thank you ... to express my gratitude."

"Gratitude?" questioned Heliobas almost mournfully, with a tinge of

reproach in his soft, mellow voice. "Are you grateful for being, as you

think, deluded by a trance? ... cheated, as it were, into a sort of

semi-belief in the life to come by means of mesmerism? Your first

request to me, I know, was that you might be deceived by my influence

into a state of imaginary happiness,--and now you fancy your last

night's experience was merely the result of that pre-eminently foolish

desire. You are wrong! ... and, as matters stand, no thanks are needed.

If I had indeed mesmerized or hypnotized you, I might perhaps have

deserved some reward for the exertion of my purely professional skill,

but ... as I have told you already ... I have done absolutely nothing.

Your fate is, as it has always been, in your own hands. You sought me

of your own accord ... you used me as an instrument, an unwilling

instrument, remember! ... whereby to break open the prison doors of

your chafed, and fretting spirit,--and the end of it all is that you

depart from hence tomorrow of your own free-will and choice, to fulfill

the appointed tryst made with you, as you believe, by a phantom in a

vision. In brief"--here he spoke more slowly and with marked

emphasis--"you go to the field of Ardath to solve a puzzling problem

... namely, as to whether what we call life is not a Dream--and whether

a Dream may not perchance be proved Reality! In this enterprise of

yours I have no share--nor will I say more than this ... God speed you

on your errand!"

He held out his hand--Alwyn grasped it, looking earnestly meanwhile at

the fine intellectual face, the clear pathetic eyes, the firm yet

sensitive mouth, on which there just then rested a serious yet kindly

smile.

"What a strange man you are, Heliobas!" he said impulsively ... "I wish

I knew more about you!"

Heliobas gave him a friendly glance.

"Wish rather that you knew more about yourself"--he answered

simply--"Fathom your own mystery of being--you shall find none deeper,

greater, or more difficult of comprehension!"

Alwyn still held his hand, reluctant to let it go. Finally releasing it

with a slight sigh, he said:

"Well, at any rate, though we part now it will not be for long. We MUST

meet again!"

"Why, if we must, we shall!" rejoined Heliobas cheerily. "MUST cannot

be prevented! In the mean time ... farewell!"

"Farewell!" and as this word was spoken their eyes met. Instinctively

and on a sudden impulse, Alwyn bowed his head in the lowest and most

reverential salutation he had perhaps ever made to any creature of

mortal mold, and as he did so Heliobas paused in the act of turning

away.

"Do you care for a blessing, gentle Skeptic!" he asked in a soft tone

that thrilled tenderly through the silence of the dimly-lit

chapel,--then, receiving no reply, he laid one hand gently on the young

man's dark, clustering curls, and with the other slowly traced the sign

of the cross upon the smooth, broad fairness of his forehead.--"Take

it, my son! ... the only blessing I can give thee,--the blessing of the

Cross of Christ, which in spite of thy desertion claims thee, redeems

thee, and will yet possess thee for its own!"

And before Alwyn could recover from his astonishment sufficiently to

interrupt and repudiate this, to him, undesired form of benediction,

Heliobas had gone, and he was left alone. Lifting his head he stared

out into the further corridor, down which he just perceived a distant

glimmer of vanishing white robes,--and for a moment he was filled with

speechless indignation. It seemed to him that the sign thus traced on

his brow must be actually visible like a red brand burnt into his

flesh,--and all his old and violent prejudices against Christianity

rushed back upon him with the resentful speed of once baffled foes

returning anew to storm a citadel. Almost as rapidly, however, his

anger cooled,--he remembered that in his vision of the previous night,

the light that had guided him through the long, shadowy vista had

always preceded him in the form of a Cross,--and in a softer mood he

glanced at the ruby Star shining steadily above the otherwise darkened

altar. Involuntarily the words "We have seen His Star in the East and

have come to worship Him"--occurred to his memory, but he dismissed

them as instantly as they suggested themselves, and finding his own

thoughts growing perplexing and troublesome he hastily left the chapel.

Joining some of the monks who were gathered in a picturesque group

round the fire in the refectory he sat chatting with them for about

half an hour or so, hoping to elicit from them in the course of

conversation some particulars concerning the daily life, character, and

professing aims of their superior,--but in this attempt he failed. They

spoke of Heliobas as believing men may speak of saints, with hushed

reverence and admiring tenderness--but on any point connected with his

faith, or the spiritual nature of his theories, they held their peace,

evidently deeming the subject too sacred for discussion. Baffled in all

his inquiries Alwyn at last said good-night, and retired to rest in the

small sleeping-apartment prepared for his accommodation, where he

enjoyed a sound, refreshing, and dreamless slumber.

The next morning he was up at daybreak, and long before the sun had

risen above the highest peak of Caucasus, he had departed from the Lars

Monastery, leaving a handsome donation in the poor-box toward the

various charitable works in which the brethren were engaged, such as

the rescue of travellers lost in the snow, or the burial of the many

victims murdered on or near the Pass of Dariel by the bands of fierce

mountain robbers and assassins, that at certain seasons infest that

solitary region. Making the best of his way to the fortress of

Passanaur, he there joined a party of adventurous Russian climbers who

had just successfully accomplished the assent of Mount Kazbek, and in

their company proceeded through the rugged Aragua valley to Tiflis,

which he reached that same evening. From this dark and dismal-looking

town, shadowed on all sides by barren and cavernous hills, he

dispatched the manuscript of his mysteriously composed poem, together

with the letter concerning it, to his friend Villiers in England,--and

then, yielding to a burning sense of impatience within

himself,--impatience that would brook no delay,--he set out resolutely,

and at once, on his long pilgrimage to the "land of sand and ruin and

gold"--the land of terrific prophecy and stern fulfilment,--the land of

mighty and mournful memories, where the slow river Euphrates clasps in

its dusky yellow ring the ashes of great kingdoms fallen to rise no

more.

CHAPTER VIII.

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.

It was no light or easy journey he had thus rashly undertaken on the

faith of a dream,--for dream he still believed it to be. Many weary

days and nights were consumed in the comfortless tedium of travel, . .

and though he constantly told himself what unheard-of folly it was to

pursue an illusive chimera of his own imagination,--a mere phantasm

which had somehow or other taken possession of his brain at a time when

that brain must have been acted upon (so he continued to think) by

strong mesmeric or magnetic influence, he went on his way all the same

with a sort of dogged obstinacy which no fatigue could daunt or lessen.

He never lay down to rest without the faint hope of seeing once again,

if only in sleep, the radiant Being whose haunting words had sent him

on this quest of "Ardath,"--but herein his expectations were not

realized. No more flower-crowned angels floated before him--no sweet

whisper of love, encouragement, or promise came mysteriously on his

ears in the midnight silences,--his slumbers were always profound and

placid as those of a child and utterly dreamless.

One consolation he had however, ... he could write. Not a day passed

without his finding some new inspiration ... some fresh, quaint, and

lovely thought, that flowed of itself into most perfect and rhythmical

utterance,--glorious lines of verse glowing with fervor and beauty

seemed to fall from his pencil without any effort on his part,--and if

he had had reason in former times to doubt the strength of his poetical

faculty, it was now very certain he could do so longer. His mind was as

a fine harp newly strung, attuned, and quivering with the consciousness

of the music pent-up within it,--and as he remembered the masterpiece

of poesy he had written in his seeming trance, the manuscript of which

would soon be in the hands of the London publishers, his heart swelled

with a growing and irrepressible sense of pride. For he knew and

felt--with an undefinable yet positive certainty--that however much the

public or the critics might gainsay him, his fame as a poet of the very

highest order would ere long be asserted and assured. A deep

tranquillity was in his soul ... a tranquillity that seemed to increase

the further he went onward,--the restless weariness that had once

possessed him was past, and a vaguely sweet content pervade his being

like the odor of early roses pervading warm air ... he felt, he hoped,

he loved! ... and yet his feelings, hopes, and longings turned to

something altogether undeclared and indefinite, as softly dim and

distant as the first faint white cloud-signal wafted from the moon in

heaven, when, on the point of rising, she makes her queenly purpose

known to her waiting star-attendants.

Practically considered, his journey was tedious and for the most part

dull and uninteresting. In these Satan-like days of "going to and fro

in the earth and walking up and down in it" travelling has lost much of

its old romantic charm, . . the idea of traversing long distances no

more fills the expectant adventurer with a pleasurable sense of

uncertainty and mystery--he knows exactly what to anticipate.. it is

all laid out for him plainly on the level lines of the commonplace, and

nothing is left to his imagination. The Continent of Europe has been

ransacked from end to end by tourists who have turned it into a sort of

exhausted pleasure-garden, whereof the various entertainments are too

familiarly known to arouse any fresh curiosity,--the East is nearly in

the same condition,--hordes of British and American sight-seers scamper

over the empire-strewn soil of Persia and Syria with the unconcerned

indifference of beings to whom not only a portion of the world's

territory, but the whole world itself, belongs,--and soon there will

not be an inch of ground left on the narrow extent of our poor planet

that has not been trodden by the hasty, scrambling, irreverent

footsteps of some one or other of the ever-prolific, all-spreading

English-speaking race.

On his way Alwyn met many of his countrymen,--travellers who, like

himself, had visited the Caucasus and Armenia and were now en route,

some for Damascus, some for Jerusalem and the Holy Land--others again

for Cairo and Alexandria, to depart from thence homeward by the usual

Mediterranean line, . . but among these birds-of-passage acquaintance

he chanced upon none who were going to the Ruins of Babylon. He was

glad of this--for the peculiar nature of his enterprise rendered a

companion altogether undesirable,--and though on one occasion he

encountered a gentleman-novelist with a note-book, who was exceedingly

anxious to fraternize with him and discover whither he vas bound, he

succeeded in shaking off this would-be incubus at Mosul, by taking him

to a wonderful old library in that city where there were a number of

French translations of Turkish and Syriac romances. Here the

gentleman-novelist straightway ascended to the seventh heaven of

plagiarism, and began to copy energetically whole scenes and

descriptive passages from dead-and-gone authors, unknown to English

critics, for the purpose of inserting them hereafter into his own

"original" work of fiction--and in this congenial occupation he forgot

all about the "dark handsome man, with the wide brows of a Marc Antony

and the lips of a Catullus," as he had already described Alwyn in the

note-book before-mentioned. While in Mosul, Alwyn himself picked up a

curiosity in the way of literature,--a small quaint volume entitled

"The Final Philosophy Of Algazzali The Arabian." It was printed in two

languages--the original Arabic on one page, and, facing it, the

translation in very old French. The author, born A.D. 1058, described

himself as "a poor student striving to discern the truth of

things"--and his work was a serious, incisive, patiently exhaustive

inquiry into the workings of nature, the capabilities of human

intelligence, and the deceptive results of human reason. Reading it,

Alwyn was astonished to find that nearly all the ethical propositions

offered for the world's consideration to-day by the most learned and

cultured minds, had been already advanced and thoroughly discussed by

this same Algazzali. One passage in particular arrested his attention

as being singularly applicable to his own immediate condition, . . it

ran as follows,--

"I began to examine the objects of sensation and speculation to see if

they could possibly admit of doubt. Then, doubts crowded upon me in

such numbers that my incertitude became complete. Whence results the

confidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all our senses

is sight,--yet if we look at the stars they seem to be as small as

money-pieces--but mathematical proofs convince us that they are larger

than the earth. These and other things are judged by the SENSES, but

rejected by REASON as false. I abandoned the senses therefore, having

seen my confidence in their ABSOLUTE TRUTH shaken. Perhaps, said I,

there is no assurance but in the notions of reason? ... that is to say,

first principles, as that ten is more than three? Upon this the SENSES

replied: What assurance have you that your confidence in REASON is not

of the same nature as your confidence in US? When you relied on us,

reason stepped in and gave us the lie,--had not reason been there you

would have continued to rely on us. Well, nay there not exist some

other judge SUPERIOR to reason who, if he appeared, would refute the

judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted us? The

non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence.... I

strove to answer this objection, and my difficulties increased when I

came to reflect on sleep. I said to myself: During sleep you give to

visions a reality and consistence, and on awakening you are made aware

that they were nothing but visions. What assurance have you that all

you feel and know does actually exist? It is all true as respects your

condition at the moment,--but it is nevertheless possible that another

condition should present itself which should be to your awakened state,

that which your awakened state is now to your sleep,--SO THAT, AS

RESPECTS THIS HIGHER CONDITION YOUR WAKING IS BUT SLEEP."

Over and over again Alwyn read these words and pondered on the deep and

difficult problems they suggested, and he was touched to an odd sense

of shamed compunction, when at the close of the book he came upon

Algazzali's confession of utter vanquishment and humility thus simply

recorded:

"I examined my actions and found the best were those relating to

instruction and education, and even there I saw myself given up to

unimportant sciences all useless in another world. Reflecting on the

aim of my teaching, I found it was not pure in the sight of the Lord.

And that all my efforts were directed toward the acquisition of glory

to myself. Having therefore distributed my wealth I left Bagdad and

retired into Syria, where I remained in solitary struggle with my soul,

combating my passions and exercising myself in the purification of my

heart and in preparation for the other world."

This ancient philosophical treatise, together with the mystical passage

from the original text of Esdras and the selected verses from the

Apocrypha, formed all Alwyn's stock of reading for the rest of his

journey,--the rhapsodical lines of the Prophet he knew by heart, as one

knows a favorite poem, and he often caught himself unconsciously

repeating the strange words: "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 that were once familiar and my heart failed

within me for very fear..."

What did they mean, he wondered? or had they any meaning at all beyond

the faint, far-off suggestions of thought that may occasionally and

with difficulty be discerned through obscure and reckless ecstasies of

language which, "full of sound and fury, signify nothing"? Was there,

could there, be anything mysterious or sacred in this "wiste field"

anciently known as "Ardath"? These questions flitted hazily from time

to time through his brain, but he made no attempt to answer them either

by refutation or reason, ... indeed sober, matter-of-fact reason, he

was well aware, played no part in his present undertaking.

It was late in the afternoon of a sultry parching day when he at last

arrived at Hillah. This dull little town, built at the beginning of the

twelfth century out of the then plentifully scattered fragments of

Babylon, has nothing to offer to the modern traveller save various

annoyances in the shape of excessive heat, dust, or rather fine blown

sand,--dirt, flies, bad food, and general discomfort; and finding the

aspect of the place not only untempting, but positively depressing,

Alwyn left his surplus luggage at a small and unpretentious hostelry

kept by a Frenchman, who catered specially for archaeological tourists

and explorers, and after an hour's rest, set out alone and on foot for

the "eastern quarter" of the ruins,--namely those which are considered

by investigators to begin about two miles above Hillah. A little beyond

them and close to the river-bank, according to the deductions he had

received, dwelt the religious recluse for whom he brought the letter of

introduction from Heliobas,--a letter bearing on its cover a

superscription in Latin which translated ran thus:--"To the venerable

and much esteemed Elzear of Melyana, at the Hermitage, near Hillah. In

faith, peace, and good-will. Greeting." Anxious to reach Elzear's abode

before nightfall, he walked on as briskly as the heat and heaviness of

the sandy soil would allow, keeping to the indistinctly traced path

that crossed and re-crossed at intervals the various ridges of earth

strewn with pulverized fragments of brick, bitumen, and pottery, which

are now the sole remains of stately buildings once famous in Babylon.

A low red sun was sinking slowly on the edge of the horizon, when,

pausing to look about him, he perceived in the near distance, the dark

outline of the great mound known as Birs-Nimroud, and realized with a

sort of shock that he was actually surrounded on all sides by the

crumbled and almost indistinguishable ruins of the formerly superb

all-dominant Assyrian city that had been "as a golden cup in the Lord's

hand," and was now no more in very truth than a "broken and an empty

vessel." For the words, "And Babylon shall become heaps," have

certainly been verified with startling exactitude--"heaps" indeed it

has become,--nothing BUT heaps,--heaps of dull earth with here and

there a few faded green tufts of wild tamarisk, which while faintly

relieveing the blankness of the ground, at the same time intensify its

monotonous dreaminess. Alwyn, beholding the mournful desolation of the

scene, felt a strong sense of disappointment,--he had expected

something different,--his imagination had pictured these historical

ruins as being of larger extent and more imposing character. His eyes

rested rather wearily on the slow, dull gleam of the Euphrates, as it

wound past the deserted spaces where "the mighty city the astonishment

of nations" had once stood, ... and poet though he was to the very core

of his nature, he could see nothing poetical in these spectral mounds

and stone heaps, save in the significant remembrance they offered of

the old Scriptual prophecy--"Babylon is fallen--is fallen! Her princes,

her wise men, her captains, her rulers, and her mighty men shall sleep

a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the King who is the Lord of

Hosts." And truly it seemed as if the curse which had blighted the

city's bygone splendor had doomed even its ruins to appear contemptible.

Just then the glow of the disappearing sun touched the upper edge of

Birs-Nimroud, giving it for one instant a weird effect, as though the

ghost of some Babylonian watchman were waving a lit torch from its

summit,--but the lurid glare soon faded and a dead gray twilight

settled solemnly down over the melancholy landscape. With a sudden

feeling of dejection and lassitude upon him, Alwyn, heaving a deep

sigh, went onward, and soon perceived, lying a little to the north of

the river, a small, roughly erected tenement with a wooden cross on its

roof. Rightly concluding that this must be Elzear of Melyana's

hermitage, he quickly made his way thither and knocked at the door.

It was opened to him at once by a white-haired, picturesque old man,

who received him with a mute sign of welcome, and who at the same time

laid one hand lightly but expressively on his own lips to signify that

he was dumb. This was Elzear himself. He was attired in the same sort

of flowing garb as that worn by the monks of Dariel, and with his tall,

spare figure, long, silvery beard and deep-sunken yet still brilliant

dark eyes, he might have served as a perfect model for one of the

inspired prophets of bygone ancient days. Though Nature had deprived

him of speech, his serene countenance spoke eloquently in his favor,

its mild benevolent expression betokening that inward peace of the

heart which so often renders old age more beautiful than youth. He

perused with careful slowness the letter Alwyn presented to him,--and

then, inclining his head gravely, he made a courteous and comprehensive

gesture, to intimate that himself and all that his house contained were

at the service of the newcomer. He proceeded to testify the sincerity

of this assurance at once by setting a plentiful supply of food and

wine before his guest, waiting upon him, moreover, while he ate and

drank, with a respectful humility which somewhat embarrassed Alwyn, who

wished to spare him the trouble of such attendance and told him so many

times with much earnestness. But all to no purpose--Elzear only smiled

gently and continued to perform the duties of hospitality in his own

way ... it was evidently no use interfering with him. Later on he

showed his visitor a small cell-like apartment containing a neat bed,

together with a table, a chair, and a large Crucifix, which latter

object was suspended against the wall, . . and indicating by eloquent

signs that here the weariest traveller might find good repose, he made

a low salutation and departed altogether for the night.

What a still place the "Hermitage" was, thought Alwyn, as soon as

Elzear's retreating steps had died away into silence. There was not a

sound to be heard anywhere, ... not even the faint rustle of leaves

stirred by the wind. And what a haunting, grave, wistfully tender

expression filled the face of that sculptured Image on the Cross, which

in intimate companionship with himself seemed to possess the little

room! He could not bear the down-drooping appealing, penetrating look

in those heavenly-kind yet piteous Eyes, ... turning abruptly away he

opened the narrow window, and folding his arms on the sill surveyed the

scene before him. The full moon was rising slowly, ... round and large,

she hung like a yellow shield on the dark, dense wall of the sky. The

Rums of Babylon were plainly visible.. the river shone like a golden

ribbon,--the outline of Birs-Nimoud was faintly rimmed with light, and

had little streaks of amber radiance wandering softly up and down its

shadowy slopes.

"'AND I WENT INTO THE FIELD CALLED ARDATH AND THERE I SAT AMONG THE

FLOWERS!'" mused Alwyn half aloud, his dreamy gaze fixed on the

gradually brightening heavens ... "Why not go there at once ... NOW!"

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIELD OF FLOWERS.

This idea had no sooner entered his mind than he prepared to act upon

it,--though only a short while previously, feeling thoroughly overcome

by fatigue, he had resolved to wait till next day before setting out

for the chief goal of his long pilgrimage. But now, strangely enough,

all sense of weariness had suddenly left him,--a keen impatience burned

in his veins,--and a compelling influence stronger than himself seemed

to urge him on to the instant fulfillment of his purpose. The more he

thought about it the more restless he became, and the more eagerly

desirous to prove, with the least possible delay, the truth or the

falsity of his mystic vision at Danel. By the light of the small lamp

left on the table he consulted his map,--the map Heliobas had

traced,--and also the written directions that accompanied it--though

these he had read so often over and over again that he knew them by

heart. They were simply and concisely worded thus: "On the east bank of

the Euphrates, nearly opposite the 'Hermitage,' there is the sunken

fragment of a bronze Gate, formerly belonging to the Palace of the

Babylonian Kings. Three miles and a half to the southwest of this

fragment and in a direct line with it, straight across country, will be

found a fallen pillar of red granite half buried in the earth. The

square tract of land extending beyond this broken column is the field

known to the Prophet Esdras as the 'FIELD OF ARDATH'"

He was on the east bank of the Euphrates already,--and a walk of three

miles and a half could surely be accomplished in an hour or very little

over that time. Hesitating no longer he made his way out of the house,

deciding that if he met Elzear he would say he was going for a

moonlight stroll before retiring to rest. That venerable recluse,

however, was nowhere to be seen,--and as the door of the "Hermitage"

was only fastened with a light latch he had no difficulty in effecting

a noiseless exit. Once in the open air he stopped, . . startled by the

sound of full, fresh, youthful voices singing in clear and harmonious

unison ... "KYRIE ELEISON! CHRISTE ELEISON! KYRIE ELEISON!" He

listened, . . looking everywhere about him in utter amazement. There

was no habitation in sight save Elzear's,--and the chorus certainly did

not proceed from thence, but rather seemed to rise upward through the

earth, floating in released sweet echoes to and fro upon the hushed

air. "KYRIE ELEISON! ... CHRISTE ELEISON!" How it swayed about him like

a close chime of bells!

He stood motionless, perplexed and wondering, ... was there a

subterranean grotto near at hand where devotional chants were

sung?--or, . . and a slight tremor ran through him at the thought, . .

was there something supernatural in the music, notwithstanding its

human-seeming speech and sound? Just then it ceased, ... all was again

silent as before, . . and angry with himself for his own foolish

fancies, he set about the task of discovering the "sunken fragment"

Heliobas had mentioned. Very soon he found it, driven deep into the

soil and so blackened and defaced by time that it was impossible to

trace any of the elaborate carvings that must have once adorned it. In

fact it would not have been recognizable as a portion of a gate at all,

had it not still possessed an enormous hinge which partly clung to it

by means of one huge thickly rusted nail, dose beside it, grew a tree

of weird and melancholy appearance--its trunk was split asunder and one

half of it was withered. The other half leaning mournfully on one side

bent down its branches to the ground, trailing a wealth of long, glossy

green leaves in the dust of the ruined city. This was the famous tree

called by the natives Athel, of which old legends say that it used to

be a favorite evergreen much cultivated and prized by the Babylonian

nobility, who loving its pleasant shade, spared no pains to make it

grow in their hanging gardens and spacious courts, though its nature

was altogether foreign to the soil. And now, with none to tend it or

care whether it flourishes or decays, it faithfully clings to the

deserted spot where it was once so tenderly fostered, showing its

sympathy with the surrounding desolation, by growing always in split

halves, one withered and one green--a broken-hearted creature, yet

loyal to the memory of past love and joy. Alwyn stood under its dark

boughs, knowing nothing of its name or history,--every now and then a

wailing whisper seemed to shudder through it, though there was no

wind,--and he heard the eerie lamenting sigh with an involuntary sense

of awe. The whole scene was far more impressive by night than by

day,--the great earth mounds of Babylon looked like giant graves

inclosing a glittering ring of winding waters. Again he examined the

imbedded fragment of the ancient gate,--and then feeling quite certain

of his starting-point he set his face steadily toward the

southwest,--there the landscape before him lay flat and bare in the

beamy lustre of the moon. The soil was sandy and heavy to the

tread,--moreover it was an excessively hot night,--too hot to walk

fast. He glanced at his watch,--it was a few minutes past ten o'clock.

Keeping up the moderate pace the heat enforced, it was possible he

might reach the mysterious field about half-past eleven, . . perhaps

earlier. And now his nerves began to quiver with strong excitement, . .

had he yielded to the promptings of his own feverish impatience, he

would most probably have run all the way in spite of the sultriness of

the air,--but he restrained this impulse, and walked leisurely on

purpose, reproaching himself as he went along for the utter absurdity

of his expectations.

"Was ever madman more mad than I!" he murmured with some

self-contempt--"What logical human being in his right mind would be

guilty of such egregious folly! But am I logical? Certainly not! Am I

in my right mind? I think I am,--yet I may be wrong. The question

remains, ... what IS logic? ... and what IS being in one's right mind?

No one can absolutely decide! Let me see if I can review calmly my

ridiculous position. It comes to this,--I insist on being mesmerized

... I have a dream, ... and I see a woman in the dream"--here he

suddenly corrected himself ... "a woman did I say? No! ... she was

something far more than that! A lovely phantom--a dazzling creature of

my own imagination ... an exquisite ideal whom I will one day

immortalize ... yes!--IMMORTALIZE in song!"

He raised his eyes as he spoke to the dusky firmament thickly studded

with stars, and just then caught sight of a fleecy silver-rimmed cloud

passing swiftly beneath the moon and floating downwards toward the

earth,--it was shaped like a white-winged bird, and was here and there

tenderly streaked with pink, as though it had just travelled from some

distant land where the sun was rising. It was the only cloud in the

sky,--and it had a peculiar, almost phenomenal effect by reason of its

rapid motion, there being not the faintest breeze stirring. Alwyn

watched it gliding down the heavens till it had entirely disappeared,

and then began his meditations anew.

"Any one,--even without magnetic influence being brought to bear upon

him, might have visions such as mine! Take an opium-eater, for

instance, whose life is one long confused vista of visions,--suppose he

were to accept all the wild suggestions offered to his drugged brain,

and persist in following them out to some sort of definite

conclusion,--the only place for that man would be a lunatic asylum.

Even the most ordinary persons, whose minds are never excited in any

abnormal way, are subject to very curious and inexplicable dreams,--but

for all that, they are not such fools as to believe in them. True,

there is my poem,--I don't know how I wrote it, yet written it is, and

complete from beginning to end--an actual tangible result of my vision,

and strange enough in its way, to say the least of it. But what is

stranger still is that I LOVE the radiant phantom that I saw ... yes,

actually love her with a love no mere woman, were she fair as Troy's

Helen, could ever arouse in me! Of course,--in spite of the contrary

assertions made by that remarkably interesting Chaldean monk

Heliobas,--I feel I am the victim of a brain-delusion,--therefore it is

just as well I should see this 'field of Ardath' and satisfy myself

that nothing comes of it--in which case I shall be cured of my craze."

He walked on for some time, and presently stopped a moment to examine

his map by the light of the moon. As he did so, he became aware of the

extraordinary, almost terrible, stillness surrounding him. He had

thought the "Hermitage" silent as a closed tomb--but it was nothing to

the silence here. He felt it inclosing him like a thick wall on all

sides,--he heard the regular pulsations of his own heart--even the

rushing of his own blood--but no other sound was audible. Earth and the

air seemed breathless, as though with some pent-up mysterious

excitement,--the stars were like so many large living eyes eagerly

gazing down on the solitary human being who thus wandered at night in

the land of the prophets of old--the moon itself appeared to stare at

him in open wonderment. He grew uncomfortably conscious of this

speechless watchfulness of nature,--he strained his ears to listen, as

it were to the deepening dumbness of all existing things,--and to

conquer the strange sensations that were overcoming him, he proceeded

at a more rapid pace,--but in two or three minutes came again to an

abrupt halt. For there in front of him, right across his path, lay the

fallen pillar which, according to Heliobas, marked the boundary to the

field he sought! Another glance at his map decided the position ... he

had reached his journey's end at last! What was the time? He looked--it

was just twenty minutes past eleven.

A curious, unnatural calmness suddenly possessed him, ... he surveyed

with a quiet, almost cold, unconcern the prospect before him,--a wide

level square of land covered with tufts of coarse grass and clumps of

wild tamarisk, ... nothing more. This was the Field of Ardath ... this

bare, unlovely wilderness without so much as a tree to grace its

outline! From where he stood he could view its whole extent,--and as he

beheld its complete desolation he smiled,--a faint, half-bitter smile.

He thought of the words in the ancient book of "Esdras:" "And the Angel

bade me enter a waste field, and the field was barren and dry save of

herbs, and the name of the field was Ardath. And I wandered therein

through the hours of the long night, and the silver eyes of the field

did open before me and therein I saw signs and wonders."

"Yes,--the field is 'barren and dry' enough in all conscience!" he

murmured listlessly--"But as for the 'silver eyes' and the 'signs and

wonders,' they must have existed only in the venerable Prophet's

imagination, just as my flower-crowned Angel-maiden exists in mine.

Well! ... now, Theos Alwyn" ... he continued, apostrophizing himself

aloud,--"Are you contented? Are you quite convinced of your folly? ...

and do you acknowledge that a fair Dream is as much of a lie and a

cheat as all the other fair-seeming things that puzzle and torture poor

human nature? Return to your former condition of reasoning and

reasonable skepticism,--aye, even atheism if you will, for the

materialists are right, ... you cannot prove a God or the possibility

of any purely spiritual life. Why thus hanker after a phantom

loveliness? Fame--fame! Win fame! ... that is enough for you in this

world, ... and as for a next world, who believes in it?--and who,

believing, cares?"

Soliloquizing in this fashion, he set his foot on Ardath itself,

determining to walk across and around it from end to end. The grass was

long and dry, yet it made no rustle beneath his tread ... he seemed to

be shod with the magic shoes of silence. He walked on till he reached

about the middle of the field, where perceiving a broad flat stone near

him, he sat down to rest. There was a light mist rising,--a thin

moonlit-colored vapor that crept slowly upward from the ground and

remained hovering like a wide, suddenly-spun gossamer web, some two or

three inches above it, thus giving a cool, luminous, watery effect to

the hot and arid soil.

"According to the Apocrypha, Esdras 'sat among the flowers,'" he idly

mused--"Well! ... perhaps there were flowers in those days,--but it is

very evident there are none now. A more dreary, utterly desolate place

than this famous 'Ardath' I have never seen!"

At that moment a subtle fragrance scented the still air, ... a

fragrance deliciously sweet, as of violets mingled with myrtle. He

inhaled the delicate odor, surprised and confounded.

"Flowers after all!" he exclaimed.... "Or maybe some aromatic herb..."

and he bent down to examine the turf at his feet. To his amazement he

perceived a thick cluster of white blossoms, star-shaped and

glossy-leaved, with deep golden centres, wherein bright drops of dew

sparkled like brilliants, and from whence puffs of perfume rose like

incense swung at unseen altars! He looked at them in doubt that was

almost dread, ... were they real? ... were these the "silver eyes" in

which Esdras had seen "signs and wonders"? ... or was he hopelessly

brain-sick with delusions, and dreaming again?

He touched them hesitatingly ... they were actual living things, with

creamy petals soft as velvet,--he was about to gather one of

them,--when all at once his attention was caught and riveted by

something like a faint shadow gliding across the plain. A smothered cry

escaped his lips, ... he sprang erect and gazed eagerly forward, half

in hope,--half in fear. What slight Figure was that, pacing slowly,

serenely, and all alone in the moonlight? ... Without another instant's

pause he rushed impetuously toward it,--heedless that as he went, he

trod on thousands of those strange starry blossoms, which now, with

sudden growth, covered and whitened every inch of the ground, thus

marvellously fulfilling the words spoken of old: . . "Behold the field

thou thoughest barren; how great a glory hath the moon unveiled!"

CHAPTER X.

GOD'S MAIDEN EDRIS.

He ran on swiftly for a few paces,--then coming more closely in view of

the misty Shape he pursued, he checked himself abruptly and stood

still, his heart sinking with a bitter and irrepressible sense of

disappointment. Here surely was no Angel wanderer from unseen spheres!

... only a girl, clad in floating gray draperies that clung softly to

her slim figure, and trailed behind her as she moved sedately along

through the snow-white blossoms that bent beneath her noiseless tread.

He had no eyes for the strange flower-transfiguration of the lately

barren land,--all his interest was centered on the slender, graceful

form of the mysterious Maiden. She, meanwhile, went on her way, till

she reached the western boundary of the field,--there she turned, ...

hesitated a moment, ... and then came back straight toward him. He

watched her approach as though she were some invisible fate,--and a

tremor shook his limbs as she drew nearer ... still nearer! He could

see her distinctly now, all but her face,--that was in shadow, for her

head was bent and her eyes were downcast. Her long, fair hair flowed in

a loose rippling mass over her shoulders ... she wore a wreath of the

Ardath flowers, and carried a cluster of them clasped between her

small, daintily shaped hands. A few steps more, and she was close

beside him--she stopped as if in expectation of some word or sign ...

but he stood mute and motionless, not daring to speak or stir.

Then--without raising her eyes--she passed, ... passed like a flitting

vapor,--and he remained as though rooted to the spot, in a sort of

vague, dumb bewilderment! His stupefaction was brief however--rousing

himself to swift resolution, he hastened, after her.

"Stay! stay!" he cried aloud.

Obedient to his call she paused, but did not turn. He came up with her.

... he caught at her robe, soft to the touch as silken gauze, and

overwhelmed by a sudden emotion of awe and reverence, he sank on his

knees.

"Who, and what are you?" he murmured in trembling tones--"Tell me! If

you are mortal maid I will not harm you, I swear! ... See! ... I am

only a poor crazed fool that loves a Dream, ... that stakes his life

upon a chance of Heaven, ... pity me as you are gentle! ... but do not

fear me ... only speak!"

No answer came. He looked up--and now in the rich radiance of the moon

beheld her face ... how like, and yet how altogether unlike it was to

the face of the Angel in his vision! For that ethereal Being had seemed

dazzlingly, supremely beautiful beyond all mortal power of

description,--whereas this girl was simply fair, small, and delicate,

with something wistful and pathetic in the lines of her sweet mouth,

and shadows as of remembered sorrows slumbering in the depths of her

serene, dove-like eyes. Her fragile figure drooped wearily as though

she were exhausted by some long fatigue, ... yet, ... gazing down upon

him, she smiled, ... and in that smile, the faint resemblance she bore

to his Spirit-ideal flashed out like a beam of sunlight, though it

vanished again as quickly as it had shone. He waited eagerly to hear

her voice, ... waited in a sort of breathless suspense,--but as she

still kept silence, he sprang up from his kneeling attitude and seized

her hands ... how soft they were and warm!--he folded them in his own

and drew her closer to himself ... the flowers she held fell from her

grasp, and lay in a tumbled fragrant heap between them. His brain was

in a whirl--the Past and the Future--the Real and the Unreal--the

Finite and the Infinite--seemed all merging into one another without

any shade of difference or division!

"We have met very strangely, you and I!"--he said, scarcely conscious

of the words he uttered--"Will you not tell me your name?"

A faint sigh escaped her.

"My name is Edris," she answered, in low musical accents, that carried

to his sense of hearing a suggestion, of something sweet and familiar.

"Edris!" he repeated--"Edris!" and gazing at her dreamily he raised her

hands to his lips and kissed them gently--"My fairest Edris! From

whence do you come?"

She met his eyes with a mild look of reproach and wonderment.

"From a far, far country, Theos!" and he started as she thus addressed

him--"A land where no love is wasted and no promise forgotten!"

Again that mystic light passed over her pale face--the blossom-coronal

she wore seemed for a moment to glitter like a circlet of stars. His

heart beat quickly--could he believe her? ... was she in very truth

that shining Peri whose aerial loveliness had so long haunted his

imagination? Nay!--it was impossible! ... for if she were, why should

she veil her native glory in such simple maiden guise?

Searchingly he studied every feature of her countenance, and as he did

so his doubts concerning her spirit-origin became more and more

confirmed. She was a living, breathing woman--an actual creature of

flesh and blood,--yet how account for her appearance on the field of

Ardath? This puzzled him ... till all at once a logical explanation of

the whole mystery dawned upon his mind. Heliobas had sent her hither on

purpose to meet him! Of course! how dense he had been not to see

through so transparent a scheme before! The clever Chaldean had

resolved that he, Theos Alwyn, should somehow be brought to accept his

trance as a real experience, so that henceforth his faith in "things

unseen and eternal" might be assured. Many psychological theorists

would uphold such a deceit as not only permissible, but even

praise-worthy, if practiced for the furtherance of a good cause. Even

the venerable hermit Elzear might have shared in the conspiracy, and

this "Edris," as she called herself, was no doubt perfectly trained in

the part she had to play! A plot for his conversion! ... well! ... he

would enter into it himself, he resolved! ... why not? The girl was

exquisitely fair,--a veritable Psyche of soft charms!--and a little

lovemaking by moonlight would do no harm, . .... here he suddenly

became aware that while these thoughts were passing through his brain

he had unconsciously allowed her hands to slip from his hold, and she

now stood apart at some little distance, her eyes fixed full upon him

with an expression of most plaintive piteousness. He made a hasty step

or two toward her,--and as he did so, his pulses began to throb with an

extraordinary sensation of pleasure,--pleasure so keen as to be almost

pain.

"Edris!".. he whispered,--"Edris..." and stopped irresolutely.

She looked up at him with the appealing wistfulness of a lost and

suffering child, and a slight shudder ran through all her delicate

frame.

"I am cold, Theos!" she murmured half beseechingly, stretching out her

hands to him once more,--hands as fine and fair as lily-leaves,--little

white hands which he gazed at wonderingly, yet did not take.. "Cold and

very weary! The way has been long, and the earth is dark!"

"Dark?" repeated Alwyn mechanically, still absorbed in the dubious

contemplation of her lovely yielding form, her sweet upturned face and

gold-glistening hair--"Dark? ... here? ... beneath the brightness of

the moon? Nay,--I have seen many a full day look less radiant than this

night of stars!"

Her eyes dwelt upon him with a certain pathetic bewilderment,--she let

her extended arms drop wearily at her sides, and a shadow of pained

recollection crossed the fairness of her features.

"Ah, I forgot! ..." and she sighed deeply--"This is that strange, sad

world where Darkness is called Light."

At these words uttered with so much sorrowful meaning, a quick thrill

stirred Alwyn's blood, an inexplicable sharp thrill, that was like the

touch of scorching flame. He gazed at her perplexedly ... his pride

resented what he imagined to be the deception practiced upon him, but

at the same time he was not insensible to the weird romance of the

situation.

He began to consider that as this fair girl, trained so admirably in

mystical speech and manner, had evidently been sent on purpose to meet

him, he could scarcely be blamed for taking her as she presented

herself, and enjoying to the full a thoroughly novel and picturesque

adventure.

His eyes flashed as he surveyed her standing there before him, utterly

unprotected and at his mercy--his old, languid, skeptical smile played

on his proud lips,--that smile of the marble Antinous which says "Bring

me face to face with Truth itself and I shall still doubt!".. An

expression of reluctant admiration and awakening passion dawned on his

countenance, ... he was about to speak,--when she whose looks were

fastened on him with intense, powerful, watchful, anxious entreaty,

suddenly wrung her hands together as though in despair, and gave vent

to a desolate sobbing cry that smote him to the very heart.

"Theos! Theos!" and her voice pealed out on the breathless air in

sweet, melodious, broken echoes.. "Oh, my unfaithful Beloved, what can

I do for thee! A love unseen thou wilt not understand,--a love made

manifest thou wilt not recognize! Alas!--my journey is in vain ... my

errand hopeless! For while thine unbelief resists my pleading, how can

I lead thee from danger into safety? ... how bridge the depths between

our parted souls? ... how win for thee pardon and blessing from Christ

the King!"

Bright tears filled her eyes and fell fast and thick through her long,

drooping lashes, and Alwyn, smitten with remorse at the sight of such

grief, sprang to her side overcome by shame, love, and penitence.

"Weeping? ... and for me?"--he exclaimed--"Sweet Edris! ... Gentlest of

maidens! ... Weep not for one unworthy, . . but rather smile and speak

again of love! ..." and now his words pouring forth impetuously, seemed

to utter themselves independently of any previous thought,--"Yes! speak

only of love,--and the discourse of those tuneful lips shall be my

gospel, . . the glance of those, soft eyes my creed, . . and as for

pardon and blessing I crave none but thine! I sought a Dream.. I have

found a fair Reality ... a living proof of Love's divine omnipotence!

Love is the only god--who would doubt his sovereignty, or grudge him

his full measure of worship? ... Not I, believe me!"--and carried away

by the force of a resistless inward fervor, he threw himself once more

at her feet--"See!--here do I pay my vows at Love's high

altar!--heart's desire shall be the prayer--heart's ecstasy the praise!

... together we will celebrate our glad service of love, and heaven

itself shall sanctify this Eve of St. Edris and All Angels!"

She listened,--looking down upon him with grave, half timid

tenderness,--her tears dried, and a sudden hope irradiated her fair

face with a soft, bright flush, as lovely as the light of morning

falling on newly opened flowers. When he ceased, she spoke--her accents

breaking through the silence like clear notes of music sweetly sung.

"So be it!" she said ... "May Heaven truly sanctify all pure thoughts,

and free the soul of my Beloved from sin!"

And slowly bending forward, as a delicate iris-blossom bends to the

sway of the wind, she laid her hands about his neck, and touched his

lips with her own...

Ah! ... what divine ecstasy,--what wild and fiery transport filled him

then! ... Her kiss, like a penetrating lighting-flash, pierced to the

very centre of his being,--the moonbeams swam round him in eddying

circles of gold--the white field heaved to and fro, ... he caught her

waist and clung to her, and in the burning marvel of that moment he

forget everything, save that, whether spirit or mortal, she was in

woman's witching shape, and that all the glamour of her beauty was his

for this one night at least, . . this night which now in the

speechless, glorious delirium of love that overwhelmed him, seemed like

the Mahometan's night of Al-Kadr, "better than a thousand months!"

Drawn to her by some subtle mysterious attraction which he could

neither explain nor control, and absorbed in a rapture beyond all that

his highest and most daring flights of poetical fancy had ever

conceived, he felt as though his very life were ebbing out of him to

become part of hers, and this thought was strangely sweet,--a perfect

consummation of all his best desires! ...

All at once a cold shudder ran freezingly through his veins,--a

something chill and impalpable appeared to pass between him and her

caressing arms--his limbs grew numb and heavy--his sight began to fail

him ... he was sinking ... sinking, he knew not where, when suddenly

she withdrew herself from his embrace. Instantly his strength came back

to him with a rush--he sprang to his feet and stood erect, breathless,

dizzy, and confused--his pulses beating like hammer-strokes and every

fiber in his frame quivering with excitement.

Entranced, impassioned, elated,--filled with unutterable

incomprehensible joy, he would have clasped her again to his

heart,--but she retreated swiftly from him, and standing several paces

off, motioned him not to approach her more nearly. He scarcely heeded

her warning gesture, ... plunging recklessly through the flowers he had

almost reached her side, when to his amazement and fear, his eager

progress was stopped!

Stopped by some invisible, intangible barrier, which despite all his

efforts, forcibly prevented him from advancing one step further,--she

was close within an arm's length of him--and yet he could not touch

her! ... Nothing apparently divided them, save a small breadth of the

Ardath blossoms gleaming ivory-soft in the moonlight ... nevertheless

that invincible influence thrust him back and held him fast, as though

he were chained to the ground with weights of iron!

"Edris!". he cried loudly, his former transport of delight changed into

agony.. "Edris! ... Come to me! I cannot come to you! What is this that

parts us?"

"Death!" she answered.. and the solemn word seemed to toll slowly

through the still air like a knell.

He stood bewildered and dismayed. Death! What could she mean? What in

the name of all her beautiful, delicate, glowing youth, had she to do

with death? Gazing at her in mute wonder, he saw her stoop and gather

one flower from the clusters growing thickly around her--she held it

shieldwise against her breast, where it shone like a large white jewel,

and regarded him with sweet, wistful eyes full of a mournful longing.

"Death lies between us, my Beloved!" she continued--"One line of shadow

... only one little line! But thou mayest not pass it, save when God

commands,--and I--I cannot! For I know naught of death, . . save that

it is a heavy dreamless sleep allotted to over-wearied mortals, wherein

they gain brief rest 'twixt many lives,--lives that, like recurring

dawns, rouse them anew to labor. How often hast thou slept thus, my

Theos, and forgotten me!"

She paused, ... and Alwyn met her clear, steadfast looks with a swift

glance of something like defiance. For as she spoke, his previous idea

concerning her came back upon him with redoubled force. He was keenly

conscious of the vehement fever of love into which her presence had

thrown him,--but all the same he was unable to dispossess himself of

the notion that she was a pupil and an accomplice of Heliobas,

thoroughly trained and practiced in his mysterious doctrine, and that

therefore she most probably had some magnetic power in herself that at

her pleasure not only attracted him TO her, but also held him thus

motionless at a distance, FROM her.

She talked, of course, in an indefinite mystic way either to intimidate

or convince him ... but, . . and he smiled a little.. in any case it

only rested with himself to unmask this graceful pretender to angelic

honors! And while he thought thus, her soft tones trembled on the

silence again, ... he listened as a dreaming mariner might listen to

the fancied singing of the sea-fairies.

"Through long bright aeons of endless glory," she said--"I have waited

and prayed for thee! I have pleaded thy cause before the blinding

splendors of God's Throne, I have sung the songs of thy native

paradise, but thou, grown dull of hearing, hast caught but the echo of

the music! Life after life hast thou lived, and given no thought to

me--yet I remember and am faithful! Heaven is not all Heaven to me

without thee, my Beloved, . . and now in this time of thy last

probation, . . now, if thou lovest me indeed ..."

"Love thee?" suddenly exclaimed Theos, half beside himself with the

strange passion of yearning her words awakened in him--"Love thee,

Edris?--Aye! ... as the gods loved when earth was young! ... with the

fullness of the heart and the vigor of glad life even so I love thee!

What sayest thou of Heaven? ... Heaven is here--here on this bridal

field of Ardath, o'er-canopied with stars! Come, sweet one, . . cease

to play this mystic midnight fantasy--I have done with dreams! ...

Edris, be thyself! ... for them art Woman, not Angel--thy kiss was warm

as wine! Nay, why shrink from me? ." this, as she retreated still

further away, her eyes flashing with unearthly brilliancy, . . "I will

make thee a queen, fair Edris, as poets ever make queens of the women

they love,--my fame shall be a crown for thee to wear,--a crown that

the whole world, gazing on, shall envy!"

And in the heat and ardor of the moment, forgetful of the unseen

barrier that divided her from him, he made a violent effort to spring

forward--when lo! a wave of rippling light appeared to break from

beneath her feet, . . it rolled toward him, and completely flooded the

space between them like a glittering pool,--and in it the flowers of

Ardath swayed to and fro as water-lilies on a woodland lake sway to the

measured dash of passing oars! Starting back with a cry of terror, he

gazed wildly on this miracle,--a voice richer than all music rang

silvery clear across the liquid radiance.

"Fame!" said the voice ... "Wouldst thou crown Me, Theos, with so

perishable a diadem?"

Paralyzed and speechless, he lifted his straining, dazzled eyes--was

THAT Edris?--that lustrous figure, delicate as a sea-mist with the sun

shining through? He stared upon her as a dying man might stare for the

last time on the face of his nearest and dearest, ... he saw her soft

gray garments change to glistening white, ... the wreath she wore

sparkled as with a million dewdrops.. a roseate halo streamed above her

and around her,--long streaks of crimson flared down the sky like

threads of fire swung from the stars,--and in the deepening glory, her

countenance, divinely beautiful, yet intensely sad, expressed the

touching hope and fear of one who makes a final farewell appeal. Ah

God! ... he knew her now! ... too late, too late he knew her! ... the

Angel of his vision stood before him! ... and humbled to the very dust

and ashes of despair he loathed himself for his unworthiness and lack

of faith!

"O doubting and unhappy one!" she went on, in accents sweeter than a

chime of golden bells--"Thou art lost in the gloom of the Sorrowful

Star where naught is known of life save its shadow! Lost.. and as yet I

cannot rescue thee--ah! forlorn Edris that I am, left lonely up in

Heaven! But prayers are heard, and God's great patience never

tires,--learn therefore 'FROM THE PERILS OF THE PAST, THE PERILS OF THE

FUTURE'--and weigh against an immortal destiny of love the worth of

fame!"

Wider and more dazzling grew the brilliancy surrounding her--raising

her eyes, she clasped her hands in an attitude of impassioned

supplication ... .

"O fair King Christ!" she cried, and her voice seemed to strike a

melodious passage through the air.. "THOU canst prevail!" A burst of

music answered her, . . music that rushed wind-like downwards and swept

in strong vibrating chords over the land,--again the "KYRIE ELEISON!

CHRISTE ELEISON! KYRIE ELEISON!" pealed forth in the same full

youthful-toned chorus that had before sounded so mysteriously outside

Elzear's hermitage--and the separate crimson rays glittering

aurora-wise about her radiant figure, suddenly melted all together in

the form of a great cross, which, absorbing moon and stars in its fiery

redness, blazed from end to end of the eastern horizon!

Then, like a fair white dove or delicate butterfly she rose ... she

poised herself above the bowing Ardath bloom ... anon, soaring aloft,

she floated higher.... higher! ... and ever higher, serenely and with

aerial slow ease,--till drawn into the glory of that wondrous flaming

cross whose outstretched beams seemed waiting to receive her,--she

drifted straight up wards through its very centre.... and so vanished!

...

Theos stared aghast at the glowing sky ... whither had she gone? Her

words still rang in his ears,--the warmth of her kiss still lingered on

his lips,--he loved her! ... he worshipped her! ... why, why had she

left him "lost" as she herself had said, in a world that was mere

emptiness without her? He struggled for utterance...

"Edris ... !" he whispered hoarsely--"Edris! ... My Angel-love! ...

come back! Come back ... pity me! ... forgive! ... Edris!"

His voice died in a hard sob of imploring agony,--smitten to the very

soul by a remorse greater than he could bear, his strength failed him,

and he fell senseless, face forward among the flowers of the Prophet's

field; . . flowers that, circling snowily around his dark and prostrate

form, looked like fairy garlands bordering a Poet's Grave!

PART II.--IN AL-KYRIS.

"That which hath been, is now: and that which is to be, hath

already been: . . and God requireth that which is past."

ECCLESIASTES.