THE CUP OF WRATH AND TREMBLING.
A flash of time, . . an instant of black, horrid eclipse, too brief for
the utterance of even a word or cry, ... and then,--with an appalling
roar, as of the splitting of huge rocks and the tearing asunder of
mighty mountains, the murky gloom was lifted, rent, devoured, and swept
away on all sides by a sudden bursting forth of Fire! ... Fire leaped
up alive in twenty different parts of the building, springing aloft in
spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to
give the impetuous flames their rapid egress, . . fire climbed lithely
round and round the immense carven columns, and ran, nimbly dancing and
crackling its way among the painted and begemmed decorations of the
dome, ... fire enwrapped the side-altars, and shrivelled the jewelled
idols at a breath, . . fire unfastened and shook down the
swinging-lamps, the garlands, the splendid draperies of silk and
cloth-of-gold...fire--fire everywhere! ... and the madly affrighted
multitude, stunned by the abrupt shock of terror, stood for a moment
paralyzed and inert, . . then, with one desperate yell of wild brute
fear and ferocity, they rushed headlong in a struggling, shrieking,
cursing, sweltering swarm toward the great closed portals of the
central aisle. As they did so, a tremendous weight of thunder seemed to
descend solidly on the roof with a thudding burst as though a thousand
walls had been battered down at one blow, . . the whole edifice rocked
and trembled in the terrific reverberation, and almost simultaneously,
the doors were violently jerked open, wrenched from their hinges, and
hurled, all burning and split with flame, against the forward-fighting
crowds! Several hundred fell under the fiery mass, a charred heap of
corpses,--the raging remainder pressed on in frenzied haste, clambering
over piles of burning dead,--trampling on scorched, disfigured faces
that perhaps but a moment since had been dear to them,--each and all
bent on forcing a way out to the open air. In the midst of the
overwhelming awfulness of the scene, Theos still retained sufficient
presence of mind to remember that, whatever happened, his first care
must be for Sah-luma, . . always for Sah-luma, no matter who else
perished! ... and he now held that beloved comrade closely clasped by
the arm, while he eagerly glanced about him on every side for some
outlet through which to make a good and swift escape.
The most immediate place of safety seemed to be the Inner Sanctuary of
Nagaya, . . it was untouched by the flames, and its Titanic pillars of
brass and bronze suggested, in their very massiveness, a nearly
impregnable harbor of refuge. The King had fled thither, and now stood,
like a statue of undaunted gloomy amazement, beside Lysia, who on her
part appeared literally frozen with terror. Her large, startled eyes,
roving here and there in helpless anxiety, alone gave any animation to
the deathly, rigid whiteness of her face, and she still mechanically
supported the Sacred Ebony Staff, without apparently being aware of the
fact that the Snake Deity, convulsed through all his coils with fright,
had begun to make there-from his rapid DESCENT. The priests, the
virgins,--the poor, unhappy little singing children,--flocked hurriedly
together, and darted to the back of the great Shrine, in the manifest
intention of reaching some private way of egress known only to
themselves,--but their attempts were evidently frustrated, for no
sooner had they gone than they sped back again, their faces scorched
and blackened, and uttering cries and woeful lamentations they flung
themselves wildly among the struggling crowds in the main body of the
Temple, and fought for life in the jaws of death, every one for Self,
and no one for another! Volumes of smoke rolled up from the ground, in
thick and suffocating clouds, accompanied by incessant sharp reports
like the close firing of guns, . . jets of flame and showers of cinders
broke forth fountain-like, scattering hot destruction on every hand, .
. while a few flying sparks caught the end of the "Silver Veil"--and
withered it into nothingness with one bright resolute flare!
Half maddened by the shrieks and dying groans that resounded everywhere
about him, and yet all the time feeling as though he were some
spectator set apart, and condemned to watch the progress of a ghastly
phantasmagoria in Hell, Theos was just revolving in his mind whether it
would or would not be possible to make a determined climb for escape
through one of the tall painted windows, some of which were not yet
reached by the fire, when, with a sudden passionate exclamation,
Sah-luma broke from his hold and rushed to the Sanctuary. Quick as
lightning, Theos followed him, . . followed him close, as he sprang up
the steps and confronted Lysia with eager, outstretched arms. The dead
Niphrita lay near him, . . fair as a sculptured saint, with the cruel
wound of sacrifice in her breast,--but he seemed not to see that
piteous corpse of Faithfulness! His grief for her death had been a mere
transient emotion, . . his stronger earthly passions re-asserted their
tempestuous sway,--and for sweet things perished and gone to heaven he
had no further care. On Lysia, and on Lysia's living beauty alone, his
eyes flamed their ardent glory.
"Come! ... Come!" he cried.. "Come, my love--my life! ... Let me save
thee! ... Or if I cannot save thee, let us die together!"
Scarcely had the words left his lips, when the King, with a swift
forward movement like the pounce of some desert-panther, turned
fiercely upon him, . . amazement, jealousy, distrust, revenge, all
gathering stormily in the black frown of his bent vindictive brows. His
great chest heaved pantingly--his teeth glittered wolfishly through his
jetty beard, . . and in the terrible nerve-tension of the moment, the
fury of the spreading conflagration was forgotten, at any rate, by
Theos, who, stricken numb and rigid by a shock of alarm too poignant
for expression, stared aghast at the three figures before
him...Sah-luma, Lysia, Zephoranim, . . especially Zephoranim, whose
bursting wrath threatened to choke his utterance.
"What sayest thou, Sah-luma?" he demanded in a sort of ferocious
gasping whisper ... "Repeat thy words! ... Repeat them!" ... and his
hand clutched at his dagger-hilt, while his restless, lowering glance
flashed from Lysia to the Laureate and from the Laureate back to Lysia
again.. "Death encompasses us, . . this is no time for trifling! ...
Speak!".. and his voice suddenly rose to a frantic shout of rage,
"Speak! What is this woman to thee?"
"Everything!".. returned Sah-luma with prompt and passionate
fearlessness, his glorious eyes blazing a proud defiance as he spoke..
"Everything that woman can be, or ever shall be, unto man! Call her by
whatsoever name a foolish creed enjoins, . . Virgin-Daughter of the
Sun, or High-Priestess of Nagaya,--she is nevertheless MINE!--and mine
only! I am her lover!"
"THOU!" and with a hoarse cry, Zephoranim sprang upon, and seized him
by the throat.. "Thou liest! I,--I, crowned King of Al-Kyris, I am her
lover!--chosen by her out of all men! ... and dost thou dare to pretend
that she hath preferred THEE, a mere singer of mad songs, to ME? ...
Thou unscrupulous knave! ... I tell thee she is MINE! .. Dost hear
me?--Mine.. mine.. MINE!" and he shrieked the last word out in a
perfect hurricane of passion,--"My Queen.. my mistress!--heart of my
heart!--soul of my soul! ... Let the city burn to ashes, and the whole
land be utterly consumed, in death as in life Lysia is mine! ... and
the gods themselves shall never part her from me!"
And suddenly releasing his grasp he hurled Sah-luma away as he might
have hurled aside a toy figure,--and a peal of reckless musical
laughter echoed mockingly through the vaulted shrine. It was Lysia's
laughter! ... and Theos's blood grew cold as he heard its cruel,
silvery ring ... even so had she laughed when Nir-jalis died!
Sah-luma reeled backward from the King's thrust, but did not
fall,--white and trembling, with his sad and splendid features, frozen
as it were into a sculptured mask of agonized beauty, he turned upon
the treacherous woman he loved the silent challenge of his eloquent
eyes. Oh, that look of piteous pain and wonder! a whole lifetime's
wasted opportunities seemed concentrated in its unspeakable reproach!
She met it with a sort of triumphant, tranquil indifference, . . an
uncontrollable wicked smile curved the corners of her red lips, . . the
sacred Ebony Staff had somehow slipped from her hands, and it now lay
on the ground, the half-uncoiled Serpent still clinging to it, in
glittering lengths that appeared to be quite motionless.
"Ah, Lysia, hast thou played me false?".. cried the unhappy Laureate at
last, as with a quick, impulsive movement, he caught her round jewelled
arm in a resolute grip.. "After all thy vows, thy endearments, thy
embraces, hast thou betrayed me? Speak truly! ... Art thou not all in
all to me? ... hast thou not given thyself body and soul into my
keeping? To this braggart King I deign no answer--one word of thine
will suffice! ... Be brave.. be faithful! ... Declare thy love for me,
even as thou hast oft declared it a thousand remembered times!"
Over the face of the beautiful Priestess swept a strange expression of
mingled fear, antagonism, loathing, and exultation. Her eyes wandered
to the red tongued leaping flames that tossed in eddying rings round
the Temple, running every second nearer to the place where she stood,
and in that one glance she seemed to recognize the hopelessness of
rescue and certainty of death. A careless, haughty acceptance of her
fate manifested itself in the pallid resolve of her drawn features, . .
but as she allowed her gaze to return and dwell on Sah-luma, the old,
malicious mirth flushed and gave lustre to her loveliness, and she
laughed again...a laugh of uttermost bitter scorn.
"Declare my love for thee!" she said in thrilling accents.. "Thou
boaster! Let the gods, who have kindled this fiery end for us, bear
witness to my hatred! I hate thee! ... Aye, even THEE!".. and she
pointed at him jeeringly, as he recoiled from her in wide eyed anguish
and amazement:--"No man have I ever loved, but thee have I hated most
of all! All men have I despised for their folly, greed and
vain-glory,--I have fought them with their own weapons of avarice,
cunning, cruelty, and falsehood,--but THOU hast been even beneath MY
contempt! 'Twas scarcely worth my while to fool thee, thou wert so
easily fooled! ... 'Twas idle sport to rouse thy passions, they were so
easily roused! Poet and Perjurer, . . Singer and Sophist! Thou to whom
the Genius of Poesy was as a pearl set in a swine's snout! ... thou
wert not worthy to be my dupe, seeing that thou camest to me already in
bonds, the dupe of thine own Self! Niphrata loved thee,--and thou didst
play with and torture her more unmercifully than wild beasts play with
and torture their prey; . . but thou couldst never trifle with ME! O
thou who hast taken so much pride in the breaking of many women's
hearts, learn that thou hast never stirred one throb of passion in
MINE! ... that I have loathed thy beauty while caressing thee, and
longed to slay thee while embracing thee! ... and that even now I would
I saw thee dead before me, ere I myself am forced to die!"
Pausing in the swift torrent of her words, her white breast heaved
violently with the rise and fall of her panting breath,--her dark,
brilliant eyes dilated, while the symbolic Jewel she wore, and the
crown of serpents' heads in her streaming hair, seemed to glitter about
her like so many points of lightning. At that instant one side of the
Sanctuary split asunder, giving way to a bursting wreath of flames.
Seeing this, she uttered a piercing cry, and stretched out her arms.
"Zephoranim! ... Save me!"
In a second, the King sprang toward her, but not before Sah-luma, wild
with wrath, had interposed himself between them.
"Back!" he exclaimed passionately, addressing the infuriated monarch..
"While I live, Lysia is mine!--let her hate and deny me as she
will!--and sooner than see her in thine arms, O King, I will slay her
where she stands!"
His bold attitude was magnificent,--his countenance more than beautiful
in its love betrayed despair, . . and for a moment the savage
Zephoranim paused irresolute, his scowling brows bent on his erstwhile
favorite Minstrel with an expression that hovered curiously between
bitterest enmity and reluctant reverence. There seemed to be a
struggling consciousness in his mind of the immortality of a Poet as
compared with the evanescent power of a King,--and also a quick
realization of the truth that, let his anger be what it would, they
twain were partakers in the same evil, and were mutually deceived by
the same false woman! But ere his saving sense of justice could
prevail, a ripple of discordant, delirious laughter broke once more
from Lysia's lips,--her eye shone vindictively,--her whole face became
animated with a sudden glow of fiendish triumph.
"Zephoranim!" she cried, "Hero! ... Warrior! ... King! ... Thou who
hast risked thy crown and throne and life for my sake and the love of
me! ... Wilt lose me now? ... Wilt let me perish in these raging
flames, to satisfy this wanton liar and unbeliever in the gods, to
whose disturbance of the Holy Ritual we surely owe this present fiery
disaster! Save me, O strong and noble Zephoranim! ... Save me, and with
me save the city and the people! KILL SAH-LUMA!"
O barbarous, inexorable words!--they rang like a desolating knell in
the ears of the bewildered, fear-stricken Theos, and startled him from
his rigid trance of speechless misery. Uttering an inarticulate dull
groan, he made a violent effort to rush forward--to serve as a living
shield of defence to his adored friend, . . to ward off the imminent
blow! Too late! too late! ... Zephoranim's dagger glittered in the air,
and rapidly descended ... One gasping cry! ... and Sah-luma lay
prone,--beautiful as a slain Adonis, . . the rich red blood pouring
from his heart, and a faint, stern smile frozen on the proud lips whose
dulcet singing-speech was now struck dumb forever! With a shriek of
agony, Theos threw himself beside his murdered comrade, . . heedless of
King, Priestess, flames, and all the out-breaking fury of earth and
heaven, he bent above that motionless form, and gazed yearningly into
the fair colorless face.
"Sah-luma! ... Sah-luma!"
No sign! ... No tremulous stir of breath! Dead--dead,--dead in his
prime of years--dead in the zenith of his glory!--all the delicate,
dreaming genius turned to dust and ashes! ... all the ardent light of
inspiration quenched in the never-lifting darkness of the grave! ...
and in the first delirious paroxysm of his grief Theos felt as though
life, time, and the world were ended for him also, with this one
suddenly destroyed existence!
"O thou mad King!" he cried fiercely, "Thou hast slain the chief wonder
of thy realm and reign! Die now when thou wilt, thou shalt only he
remembered as the murderer of Sah-luma! ... Sah-luma, whose name shall
live when thine is covered in shameful oblivion!"
Zephoranim frowned,--and threw the blood-stained dagger from him.
"Peace, clamorous fool!" he said, "Sah-luma hath gone but a moment
before me, . . as Poet he hath received precedence even in death! When
the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, . . and
whether I am hereafter remembered or forgotten I care not! I have lived
as a man should live,--fearing nothing and conquered by none,--except
perchance by Love, that hath brought many kings ere now to untimely
ruin!" Here his moody eyes lighted on Lysia. "How many lovers hast thou
had, fair soul?".. he demanded in a stern yet tremulous voice ... "A
thousand? ... I would swear this dead Minstrel of mine was one,--for
though I slew him at thy bidding I saw the truth in his dying eyes! ...
No matter!--We shall meet in Hades,--and there we shall have ample time
to urge our rival claims upon thy favor! Ah!".. and he suddenly laid
his two strong hands on her white uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her
reproachfully as she shrank a little beneath his close scrutiny, . .
"Thou divine Traitress! Have I not challenged the very heavens for thy
sake? ... and lo! the prophecy is fulfilled and Al-Kyris must fall! How
many men would have loved thee as I have loved? ... None! not even this
dead Sah-luma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure! Come! ... Let me
kiss thee once again ere death makes cold our lips! False or true, thou
art nevertheless fair!--and the wrathful gods know best how I worship
thy fairness!"
And folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately. She clung
to him like a lithe serpentine thing,--her eyes ablaze, her mouth
quivering with suppressed hysterical laughter. Pointing to Sah-luma's
body, she said in a strange excited whisper:
"Nay, hast thou slain him in very truth, Zephoranim! ... slain him
utterly? For I have heard that poets cannot die,--they live when the
whole world deems them dead,--they rise from their shut graves and
re-invest the earth with all the secrets of past time, . . Oh! my brain
reels! ... I talk mere madness! ... there is no afterwards of
death!--No, no! No gods, no anything but blankness.. forgetfulness..
and silence! ... for us, and for all men! ... How good it is!--how
excellently devised a jest! ... that the whole wide Universe should be
but a cheat of time! ... a bubble blown into Space, to float, break,
and perish,--all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless
Devil-Mystery!"
Shuddering, half-laughing, half-weeping, she clasped her hands round
the monarch's throat, and hid her wild eyes in his breast, while he,
unnerved by her distraction and his own inward torture, glared about
him on all sides for some glimmering chance of rescue, but could see
none. The flames were now attacking the Shrine on every side like a
besieging army,--their leaping darts of blue and crimson gleaming here
and there with indescribable velocity, . . and still Theos knelt by
Sah-luma's corpse in dry-eyed despair, endeavoring with feverish zeal
to stanch the oozing blood with a strip torn from his own garments, and
listening anxiously for the feeblest heart-throb, or smaller pulsation
of smouldering life in the senseless stiffening clay.
All at once a hideous scream assailed his ears,--another, and yet
another rang above the crackling roar of the gradually conquering fire,
. . and half-lifting Sah-luma's body in his arms, he looked up...O
horror, horror! his nerves contracted,--his blood seemed to turn to ice
in his veins, . . his head swam giddily, . . and he thought the moment
of his own death had come, for surely no man could behold the sight he
saw and yet continue to live on! Lysia the captor was made captive at
last! ..bound, helpless, imprisoned, and hopelessly doomed, ..Nagaya
had claimed his own! The huge Snake, terrified beyond all control at
the bursting breadth of fire environing the shrine, had turned in its
brute fear to the mistress it had for years been accustomed to obey,
and had now, with one stealthy noiseless spring, twisted its uppermost
coil close about her waist, where its restless head, alarmed eyes, and
darting fangs all glistened together like a blazing cluster of gems!
the more she struggled to release herself from its deathful embrace,
the tighter its body contracted and the more maddened with fright it
became. Shriek upon shriek broke from her lips and pierced the
suffocating air, . . while with all his great muscular force Zephoranim
the King strove in desperate agony to tear her from the awful clutch of
the monster he had but lately knelt to as divine! In vain, ..in vain!
... the strongest efforts were useless, ... the cruel, beautiful,
pitiless Priestess of Nagaya was condemned to suffer the same frightful
death she had so often mercilessly decreed for others! Closer and
closer grew the fearful Python's constricting clasp, . . nearer and
nearer swept the dancing battalion of destroying flames! ... For one
fleeting breath of time Theos stared aghast at the horrid scene, . .
then making a superhuman effort he raised Sah-luma's corpse entirely
from the ground and staggered with his burden away, . . away from the
burning Shrine, . . the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a
wasted Love and a dead passion!
* * * * * * *
Whither should he go! ... Down into the blazing area of the
fast-perishing Temple? Surely no safety could be found there, where the
fire was raging at its utmost height! ... yet he went on mechanically,
as though urged forward by some force superior to his own, . . always
clinging to the idea that his friend still lived and that if he could
only reach some place of temporary shelter he might yet be able to
restore him. It was possible the wound was not fatal, . . far more
possible to his mind than that so gloriously famed a Poet should be
dead!
So he dimly thought, while he stumbled dizzily along, . . his forehead
wet with clammy dews, . . his limbs trembling under the weight he bore,
. . his eyes half-blinded by the hot flying sparks and drifting smoke,
. . and his soul shaken and appalled by the ghastly sights that met his
view wheresoever he turned. Crushed and writhing bodies of men, women,
and children, half-living, half-dead, . . heaps of corpses, fast
blazing to ashes,--broken and falling columns, . . yawning gaps in the
ground, from which were cast forth volleys of red cinders and streams
of lava, ... all these multitudinous horrors surrounded him, as with
uncertain, faltering steps he moved on like a sick man walking in
sleep, carrying his precious burden! He knew nothing of where he was
bound,--he saw no outlet anywhere--no corner wherein the Fire-fiend had
not set up devouring dominion, . . but nevertheless he steadily
continued his difficult progress, clasping Sah-luma's corpse with a
strange tenacity, and concentrating all his attention on protecting it
from the withering touch of the ravenous flames. All at once,--as he
strove to force his way over a fallen altar from which the hideous
presiding stone idol had toppled headlong, killing in its descent some
twenty or thirty people whose bodies lay crushed beneath it,--a face
horribly disfigured and tortured into a mere burnt sketch of its former
likeness twisted itself up and peered at him, the face of Zabastes, the
Critic. His protruding eyes glistened with something of their old
malign expression as he perceived whose helpless form it was that was
being carried by.
"What! ... is the famous Sah-luma gone?" he gasped, his words half
choking him in their utterance as he stretched out a skinny hand and
caught at Theos's garments ... "Good youth, stay! ... Stay! ... Why
burden thyself with a corpse when thou mightest rescue a living man?
Save ME! ... Save ME! ... I was the Poet's adverse Critic, and who but
I should write his Eulogy now that he is no more! ... Pity! ... Pity,
most courteous, gentle sir! ... Save me if only for the sake of
Sah-luma's future honor! Thou knowest not how warmly, how generously,
how nobly, I can praise the dead!"
Theos gazed down upon him in unspeakable, melancholy scorn, . . was it
only through time-serving creatures such as this miserable Zabastes,
that the after-glory of perished poets was proclaimed to the world? ...
What then was the actual worth of Fame?
Shuddering, he wrenched himself away, and passed on silently, heedless
of the savage curses the despairing scribe yelled after him as he went,
and he involuntarily pressed the dead corpse of his beloved friend
closer to his heart, as though he thought he could re-animate it by
this mute expression of tenderness! Meanwhile the fire raged
continuously,--the Temple was fast becoming a pillared mass of flames,
. . and presently,--choked and giddy with the sulphurous vapors--he
stopped abruptly, struggling for breath. His time had come at last, he
thought, . . he with Sah-luma must die!
Just then a loud muttering and rolling of thunder swept in eddying
vibrations round him, followed by a sharp, splitting noise, . . raising
his aching eyes, he saw straight before him, a yawning gloomy archway,
like the solemn portal of a funeral vault.. dark, yet with a white
glimmer of steps leading outward, and a dim sparkle as of stars in
heaven. A rush of new vigor inspired him at this sight, and he resumed
his way, stumbling over countless corpses strewn among fallen blocks of
marble,--and every now and then looking back in awful fascination to
the fiery furnace of the body of the Temple, where of all the vast
numbers that had lately crowded it from end to end, there were only a
hundred or so remaining alive,--and these were fast perishing in
frightful agony. The Shrine of Nagaya was enveloped in thick black
smoke, crossed here and there by flashes of flame,--the bare outline of
its Titanic architecture was scarcely discernible! Yet the thought of
the dreadful end of Lysia, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, moved
him now to no emotion whatever--save..gladness! Some deadly evil seemed
burnt out of his life, . . moreover her command had slain Sah-luma! ...
Enough! ... no fate however horrible, could be more so than she in her
wanton wickedness deserved! ... But alas! her beauty! ... He dared not
think of its subtle, slumberous charm! ... and stung to a new sense of
desperation, he plunged recklessly toward the dusky aperture he had
seen, which appeared to enlarge itself mysteriously as he approached,
like the opening gateway of some magic cavern.
Suddenly a faint groan at his feet startled him,--and, looking down
hastily, he perceived an unfortunate man lying half crushed under the
ponderous fragment of a split column, which had fallen across his body
in such manner that any attempt to extricate him would have been worse
than useless. By the bright light of the leaping flames, Theos had no
difficulty in recognizing the pallid countenance of his late
acquaintance, the learned Professor of Positivism, Mira-Khabur, who was
evidently very near his woeful and most positive end! Struck by an
impulse of compassion he paused, . . yet what could he say? ..In such a
case, where rescue was impossible, all comfort seemed mockery,--and
while he stood silent and irresolute, he fancied the Professor smiled!
It was a very ghastly smile,--nevertheless it hid in it a curious touch
of bland and scrupulous inquiry.
"Is not this...a very.. remarkable occurrence?" ... asked a voice so
feeble and far away that it was difficult to believe it came from the
lips of the suffering sage. "Of course...it arises from...a volcanic
eruption! ... and the mystery of the red river.. is.. solved!" Here an
irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at
equanimity;--"It is NOT a phenomenon!".. and a gleam of obstinate
self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes, "Nothing is phenonmenal!
... only I am not able...to explain.... I have no time...no time...to
analyze.. my very ... singular...sensations!"
A rush of blood choked his utterance--his throat rattled, ... he was
dead! ... and the dreary speculative smile froze on his mouth in the
likeness of a solemn sneer. At that moment, a terrific swirling,
surging noise, like the furious boiling of an underground whirlpool,
rumbled heavily through the air, . . and lo! with a sudden, swift shock
that sent Theos reeling forward and almost falling, under the
burdensome weight he carried, the earth opened, . . disclosing a huge
pit of black nothingness,--an enormous chasm,--into which, with an
appalling clamor as of a hundred incessant peals of thunder, the whole
main area of the Temple, together with its mass of dead and dying human
beings, sank in less than five seconds!--the ground closing
instantaneously over its prey with a sullen roar, as though it were
some gigantic beast devouring food too long denied. And instead of the
vanished fane arose a mighty Pillar of Fire! ... a vast increasing
volume of scarlet and gold flame that spread outward and
upward,--higher and higher, in tapering lines and dome-like curves of
living light, . . while Theos, being hurled along resistlessly by the
force of the convulsion, had reached, though he knew not how, the dark
and quiet cell-like portal with its out-leading steps, . . the only
visible last hope and chance of safety, . . and he now leaned against
its cold stone arch, trembling in every limb, clasping the dead
Sah-luma close, and looking back in affrighted awe at the tossing
vortex of fury from which he had miraculously escaped. And,--as he
looked,--a host of spectral faces seemed to rise whitely out of the
flames and wonder at him! ... faces that were solemn, wistful, warning,
and beseeching by turns! ... they drifted through the fire and smiled,
and wept, and vanished, to reappear again and yet again! ... and as,
with painfully beating heart, he strove to combat the terror that
seized him at this strange spectacular delusion, all suddenly the heavy
wreaths of smoke that had till now hung over the Inner Shrine of Nagaya
parted like drapery drawn aside from a picture.. and for a brief
breathing space of direst agony he saw Lysia once more,--Lysia, in a
torture as horrible as any ever depicted in a bigot's idea of his
enemy's Hell! Round and round her writhing form the sacred Serpent was
twined in all his many coils,--with both hands she had grasped the
creature's throat in her frenzy, striving to thrust back its quivering
fangs from her breast, whereon the evil "Eye of Raphon" still gleamed
distinctly with its adamantine chilly stare, . . at her feet lay the
body of the King her lover, dead and wrapped in a ring of flames! ...
Alone--all, all alone, she confronted Death in its most appalling
shape.. her countenance was distorted, yet beautiful still with the
beauty of a maddened Medusa, . . white and glittering as a fair ghost
invoked from some deadly gulf of pain, she stood, a phantom-figure of
mingled loveliness and horror, circled on every side by fire!
With wild, straining eyes Theos gazed upon her thus, ... for the last
time! ... For with a crash that seemed to rend the very heavens, the
great bronze columns surrounding her, which had, up to the present,
resisted the repeated onslaughts of the flames, bent together all at
once and fell in a melting ruin.. and the victorious fire roared loudly
above them, enveloping the whole Shrine anew in dense clouds of smoke
and jets of flame,--Lysia had perished! All that proud loveliness, that
dazzling supremacy, that superb voluptuousness, that triumphant
dominion, . . swept away into a heap of undiscoverable ashes! And
Zephoranim's haughty spirit too had fled,--fled, stained with guilt and
most unroyal dishonor, all for the sake of one woman's fairness--the
fairness of body only--the brilliant mask of flesh that too often hides
the hideousness of a devil's nature!
For one moment Theos remained stupefied by the sheer horror of the
catastrophe,--then, recalling his bewildered wits to his aid, he peered
anxiously through the archway where he rested, . . there seemed to be a
dim red glow at the end of the downward-leading steps, as well as a
dusky azure tint, like a patch of midnight sky. The Temple was now
nothing but a hissing shrieking pyramid of flames,--the hot and
blinding glare was almost too intense for his eyes to endure,--yet so
fascinated was he by the sublime terror and grandeur of the spectacle,
that he could scarcely make up his mind to turn away from it! The
thought of Sah-luma, however, gave the needful spur to his flagging
energies, and without pausing to consider where he might be going, he
slowly and hesitatingly descended the steps before him, and presently
reached a sort of small open court paved with black marble. Here he
tenderly laid his burden down,--a burden grown weightier with each
moment of its bearing,--and letting his aching arms drop listlessly at
his sides, he looked up dreamily,--not all at once comprehending the
cause of the vast lurid light that crimsoned the air like a wide aurora
borealis everywhere about him, . . then,--as the truth suddenly flashed
on his mind, he uttered a loud, irrepressible cry of amazement and awe!
Far as his gaze could see,--east, west, north, south, the whole city of
Al-Kyris was in flames!--and the burning Temple of Nagaya was but a
mere spark in the enormous breadth of the general conflagration!
Palaces, domes, towers, and spires were tottering to red destruction, .
. fire...fire everywhere! ... nothing but fire,--save when a furious
gust of scorching wind blew aside the masses of cindery smoke, and
showed glimpses of sky and the changeless shining of a few cold quiet
stars. He cast one desperate glance from earth to heaven, . . how was
it possible to escape from this kindling furnace of utter annihilation!
... Where all were manifestly doomed, how could HE expect to be saved!
And moreover, if Sah-luma was indeed dead, what remained for him but to
die also!
* * * * * * *
Calming the frenzy of his thoughts by a strong effort, he began to
vaguely wonder why and how it happened that the place where he now was,
. . this small and insignificant court,--had so far escaped the fire,
and was as cool and sombre as a sacred tomb set apart for some hero,
... or Poet? Poet!--The word acted as a stimulant to his tired
struggling brain, and he all at once remembered what Sah-luma had said
to him at their first meeting: "There is but one Poet in Al-Kyris, and
I am he!"
O true, true! Only one Poet! ... Only one glory of the great city, that
now served him as funeral pyre!--only one name worth remembering in all
its perishing history.. the name of SAH-LUMA! Sah-luma, the beautiful,
the gifted, the famous, the beloved, . . he was dead! This thought, in
its absorbing painfulness, straightway drove out all others,--and
Theos, who had carried his comrade's corpse bravely and unshrinkingly
through a fiery vortex of imminent peril, now sank on his knees all
desolate and unnerved, his hot tears dropping fast on that fair, still,
white face that he knew would never flush to the warmth of life again!
"Sah-luma! Sah-luma!" he whispered, "My friend ... My more than
brother! Would I could have died for thee! ... Would thou couldst have
lived to fulfil the nobler promise of thy genius! ... Better far thou
hadst been spared to the world than I! ... for I am Nothing, . . but
thou wert Everything!"
And taking the clay-cold hands in his own, he kissed them reverently,
and, with an unconscious memory not born of his recent adventures,
folded them on the dead Laureate's breast in the fashion of a Cross.
As he did this an icy spasm seemed to contract his heart, . . seized by
a sudden insufferable anxiety, he stared like one spell-bound into
Sah-luma's wide-open, fixed, and glassy eyes. Dead eyes! ... yet how
full of mysterious significance! ... What--WHAT was their weird secret,
their imminent meaning! ... Why did their dark and frozen depths appear
to retain a strange, living undergleam of melting, sorrowful,
beseeching sweetness? ... like the eyes of one who prays to be
remembered, though changed after long absence! What hot and terrible
delirium was this that snatched at his whirling brain as he bent closer
and closer over the marble quiet countenance, and studied with a sort
of fierce intentness every line of those delicate, classic features, on
which high thought had left so marked an impress of dignity and power!
What a marvellous, half-reproachful, half-appealing smile lingered on
the finely-curved set lips! ... How wonderful, how beautiful, how
beloved beyond all words was this fair dead god of poesy on whom he
gazed with such a passion of yearning!
Stooping more and more, he threw his arms round the senseless form, and
partly lifting it from the ground, brought the wax-pallid face nearer
to his own.. so near that the cold mouth almost touched his, . . then
filled with an awful, unnamable misgiving, he scanned his murdered
comrade's perished beauty in puzzled, vague bewilderment, much as an
ignorant dullard might perplexedly scan the incomprehensible characters
of some hieroglyphic scroll. And, as he looked, a sharp pang shot
through him like a whizzing ball of fire, . . a convulsion of mental
agony shook his limbs,--he could have shrieked aloud in the extremity
of his torture, but the struggling cry died gasping in his throat.
Still as stone he kept his strained, steadfast gaze fixed on Sah-luma's
corpse, slowly absorbing the full horror of a tremendous Suggestion,
that like a scorching lava-flood swept into every subtle channel of his
brain. For the dead Sah-luma's eyes grew into the semblance of his own
eyes! ... the dead Sah-luma's face smiled spectrally back at him in the
image of his own face! ... it was as though he beheld the Picture of
himself, slain and reflected in a magician's mirror! Round him the very
heavens seemed given up to fire,--but he heeded it not,--the world
might be at an end and the day of Judgment, proclaimed,--nothing would
have stirred him from where he knelt, in that dreadful stillness of
mystic martyrdom, drinking in the gradual, glimmering consciousness of
a terrific Truth, . . the amazing, yet scarcely graspable solution of a
supernatural Enigma, ... an enigma through which, like a man lost in
the depths of a dark forest, he had wandered up and down, seeking
light, yet finding none!
"O God!" he dumbly prayed. "Thou, with whom all things are possible,
give eyes to this blind trouble of my heart! I am but as a grain of
dust before thee, . . a poor perishable atom, devoid of simplest
comprehension! ... Do Thou of Thy supernal pity teach me what I must
know!"
As he thought out this unuttered petition, a tense cord seemed to snap
suddenly in his brain, . . a rush of tears came to his relief, and
through their salt and bitter haze the face of Sah-luma appeared to
melt into a thin and spiritual brightness,--a mere aerial outline of
what it had once been, . . the glazed dark eyes seemed to flash living
lightning into his, . . the whole lost Personality of the dead Poet
seemed to environ him with a mysterious, potent, incorporeal
influence.. an influence that he felt he must now or never repel,
reject, and utterly RESIST! ... With a shuddering cry, he tore his
reluctant arms away from the beloved corpse, . . with trembling, tender
fingers he closed and pressed down the white eyelids of those
love-expressive eyes, and kissed the broad poetic brow!
"Whatever thou WERT or ART to me, Sah-luma," he murmured in sobbing
haste,--"thou knowest that I loved thee, though now I leave thee!
Farewell!"--and his voice broke in its strong agony--"O how much easier
to divide body from soul than part myself from thee! Sah-luma, beloved
Sah-luma! God give thee rest! ... God pardon thy sins,--and mine!"
And he pressed his lips once more on the folded rigid hands; . . as he
did so, he inadvertently touched the writing-tablet that hung from the
dead Laureate's girdle. The red glow of the fire around him enabled him
to see distinctly what was written on it, . . there were about twenty
lines of verse, in exquisitely clear and fine caligraphy, ... and, as
he read, he knew them well, . . they were the last lines of the poem
"Nourhalma"!
He dared trust his own strength no longer, . . one wild, adoring,
lingering, parting look at his dead rival in song, whom he had loved
better than himself,--and then,--full of a nameless fear, he fled! ...
fled recklessly, and with swift, mad fury as though demons followed in
pursuit, . . fled through the burning city, as a lost and frenzied
spirit might speed through the deserts of Hell! Everywhere about him
resounded the crackling hiss of the flames, and the crash of falling
buildings, . . mighty pinnacles and lofty domes melted and vanished
before is eyes in a blaze of brilliant destruction! ... on--on he went,
meeting confused, scattered crowds of people, whose rushing,
white-garmented figures looked like ghosts flying before a storm, . .
the cries and shrieks of women and children, and the groans of men were
mingled with the restless roaring of lions and other wild beasts burnt
out of their dens in the Royal Arena, the distant circle of which could
be dimly seen, surrounded by fountain-like jets of fire. Some of these
maddened animals ran against him, as he sped along the blazing
thoroughfares,--but he made no attempt to avoid them, nor was he
sensible of any other terror than that which was WITHIN HIMSELF and was
purely mental. On! ... On!--Still on he went,--a desperate, lonely man,
lost in a hideous nightmare of flame and fury, . . seeing nothing but
one vast flying rout of molten red and gold, . . speaking to none, . .
utterly reckless as to his own fate, . . only impelled on and on, but
whither he knew not, nor cared to know!
All at once his, strength gave way...his nerves seemed to break asunder
like so many over-wound harp-strings, . . a sudden silvery clanging of
bells rang in his ears, and with them came a sound of multitudinous
soft, small voices: "Kyrie Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!"
Hush! ... What was that? ... What did it mean? ... Halting
abruptly, he gave a wild glance round him,--up to the sky, where the
flaring flames spread in tangled lengths and webs of light, . . then,
straight before him to the City of Al-Kyris, now a wondrous vision of
redly luminous columns and cupolas, with the wet gleam of the river
enfolding its blazing streets and towers: . . and while he yet beheld
it, lo! IT RECEDED FROM HIS VIEW! Further, . . further!--further away,
till it seemed nothing but the toppling and smoldering of heavy clouds
after the conflagration of the sunset!
Hark, hark again! ... "Kyrie, Eleison! ... Kyrie, Eleison!" With a
sense of reeling rapture and awe he listened, . . he understood! ... he
found the NAME he had so long forgotten! "CHRIST, have mercy upon
me!"...he cried, and in that one urgent supplication he uttered all the
pent-up anguish of his soul! Blind and dizzy with the fevered whirl of
his own emotions, he stumbled forward and fell! ... fell heavily over a
block of stone, . . stunned by the shock, he lost consciousness, but
only for a moment; . . a dull aching in his temples roused him,--and
making a faint effort to rise, he turned slowly and languidly on his
arm, . . and with a long, deep, shuddering sigh...AWOKE!
He was on the Field of Ardath. Dawn had just broken. The east was
one wide, shimmering stretch of warm gold, and over it lay strips of
blue and gray, like fragments of torn battle-banners. Above him
sparkled the morning star, white and glittering as a silver lamp, among
the delicate spreading tints of saffron and green, . . and beside
him,--her clear, pure features flushed by the roseate splendor of the
sky, her hands clasped on her breast, and her sweet eyes full of an
infinite tenderness and yearning, knelt EDRIS!--Edris, his
flower-crowned Angel, whom last he had seen drifting upward and away
like a dove through the glory of the Cross in Heaven!