That afternoon a pleasant sense of peace and restfulness seemed to

settle upon the little household; delicious strains of melody filled

the air; Féraz, refreshed in mind and body by a sound sleep, was

seated at the piano, improvising strange melodies in his own

exquisitely wild and tender fashion; while El-Râmi, seated at his

writing-table, indited a long letter to Dr. Kremlin at Ilfracombe,

giving in full the message left for him by the mysterious monk from

Cyprus respecting the “Third Ray” or signal from Mars.

“Do not weary yourself too much with watching this phenomenon,” he

wrote to his friend. “From all accounts, it will be a difficult matter

to track so rapid a flash on the Disc as the one indicated, and I have

fears for your safety. I cannot give any satisfactory cause for my

premonition of danger to you in the attempt, because, if we do not

admit an end to anything, then there can be no danger even in death

itself, which we are accustomed to look upon as an ‘end,’ when it may

be _proved_ to be only a beginning. But, putting aside the idea of

‘danger’ or ‘death,’ the premonition remains in my mind as one of

‘change’ for you; and perhaps you are not ready or willing even to

accept a different sphere of action from your present one, therefore I

would say, take heed to yourself when you follow the track of the

‘Third Ray.’”

Here his pen stopped abruptly; Féraz was singing in a soft

mezza-voce, and he listened:

O Sweet, if love obtained must slay desire,

And quench the light and heat of passion’s fire;

If you are weary of the ways of love,

And fain would end the many cares thereof,

I prithee tell me so that I may seek

Some place to die in ere I grow too weak

To look my last on your belovèd face.

Yea, tell me all! The gods may yet have grace

And pity enough to let me quickly die

Some brief while after we have said ‘Good-bye!’

Nay, I have known it well for many days

You have grown tired of all tender ways;

Love’s kisses weary you, love’s eager words,

Old as the hills and sweet as singing-birds,

Are fetters hard to bear! O love, be free!

You will lose little joy in losing me;

Let me depart, remembering only this,

That once you loved me, and that once your kiss

Crown’d me with joy supreme enough to last

Through all my life till that brief life be past.

Forget me, Sweetest-heart, and nevermore

Turn to look back on what has gone before,

Or say, ‘Such love was brief, but wondrous fair;

The past is past for ever; have no care

Or thought for me at all, no tear or sigh,

Or faint regret; for, Dearest, I shall die

And dream of you i’ the dark, beneath the grass;

And o’er my head perchance your feet may pass,

Lulling me faster into sleep profound

Among the fairies of the fruitful ground.

Love, wearied out by love, hath need of rest.

And, when all love is ended, Death is best.

The song ceased; but, though the singer’s voice no longer charmed the

silence, his fingers still wandered over the keys of the piano,

devising intricate passages of melody as delicate and devious as the

warbling of nightingales. El-Râmi, unconsciously to himself, heaved a

deep sigh, and Féraz, hearing it, looked round.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No. I love to hear you; but, like many youthful poets, you sing of

what you scarcely understand--love, for instance; you know nothing of

love.”

“I imagine I do,” replied Féraz meditatively. “I can picture my ideal

woman; she is----”

“Fair, of course!” said El-Râmi, with an indulgent smile.

“Yes, fair; her hair must be golden, but not uniformly so--full of

lights and shadows, suggestive of some halo woven round her brows by

the sunlight, or the caressing touch of an angel. She must have deep,

sweet eyes in which no actual colour is predominant; for a pronounced

blue or black does away with warmth of expression. She must not be

tall, for one cannot caress tall women without a sense of the

ludicrous spoiling sentiment----”

“Have you tried it?” asked El-Râmi, laughing.

Féraz laughed too.

“You know I have not; I only imagine the situation. To explain more

fully what I mean, I would say one could more readily draw into one’s

arms the Venus of Medicis than that of Milo--one could venture to

caress a Psyche, but scarcely a Juno. I have never liked the idea of

tall women; they are like big handsome birds--useful, no doubt, but

not half so sweet as the little fluttering singing ones.”

“Well, and what other attributes must this imagined lady of yours

possess?” asked El-Râmi, vaguely amused at his brother’s earnestness.

“Oh, many more charms than I could enumerate,” replied Féraz. “And of

one thing I am certain, she is not to be found on this earth. But I am

quite satisfied to wait; I shall find her, even as she will find me

some day. Meanwhile I ‘imagine’ love, and in imagination I almost feel

it.”

He went on playing, and El-Râmi resumed the writing of his letter to

Kremlin, which he soon finished and addressed ready for post. A gentle

knock at the street door made itself heard just then through the ebb

and flow of Féraz’s music, and Féraz left off his improvisation

abruptly and went to answer the summons. He returned, and announced

with some little excitement:

“Madame Irene Vassilius.”

El-Râmi rose and advanced to meet his fair visitor, bowing

courteously.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Madame,” he said, the sincerity of

his welcome showing itself in the expression of his face, “and an

unmerited honour for which I am grateful.”

She smiled, allowing her hand to rest in his for a moment; then,

accepting the low chair which Féraz placed for her near his brother’s

writing-table, she seated herself, and lifted her eyes to El-Râmi’s

countenance--eyes which, like those of Féraz’s “ideal ladye-love,”

were “deep and sweet, and of no pronounced colour.”

“I felt you would not resent my coming here as an intrusion,” she

began; “but my visit is not one of curiosity. I do not want to probe

you as to your knowledge of my past, or to ask you anything as to my

future. I am a lonely creature, disliked by many people, and in the

literary career I have adopted I fight a desperately hard battle, and

often crave for a little--just a little sympathetic comprehension. One

or two questions puzzle me which you might answer if you would. They

are on almost general subjects; but I should like to have your

opinion.”

“Madame, if you, with your exceptional gifts of insight and instinct,

are baffled in these ‘general’ questions,” said El-Râmi, “shall not I

be baffled also?”

“That does not follow,” replied Irene, returning his glance steadily,

“for you men always claim to be wiser than women. I do not agree with

this fiat, so absolutely set forth by the lords of creation; yet I am

not what is termed ‘strong-minded,’ I simply seek justice. Pray stay

with us,” she added, turning to Féraz, who was about to retire, as he

usually did whenever El-Râmi held an interview with any visitor;

“there is no occasion for you to go away.”

Féraz hesitated, glancing at his brother.

“Yes, by all means remain here, Féraz,” said El-Râmi gently, “since

Madame Vassilius desires it.”

Delighted with the permission, Féraz ensconced himself in a corner

with a book, pretending to read, but in reality listening to every

word of the conversation. He liked to hear Irene’s voice--it was

singularly sweet and ringing, and at times had a peculiar thrill of

pathos in it that went straight to the heart.

“You know,” she went on, “that I am, or am supposed to be, what the

world calls ‘famous.’ That is, I write books which the public clamour

for and read, and for which I receive large sums of money. I am able

to live well, dress well, and look well, and I am known as one of

society’s ‘celebrities.’ Well, now, can you tell me why, for such poor

honours as these, men, supposed to be our wiser and stronger

superiors, are so spitefully jealous of a woman’s fame?”

“Jealous?” echoed El-Râmi dubiously, and with something of

hesitation. “You mean----”

“I mean what I say,” continued Madame Vassilius calmly; “neither more

nor less. Spitefully jealous is the term I used. Explain to me this

riddle: Why do men encourage women to every sort of base folly and

vanity that may lead them at length to become the slaves of man’s lust

and cruelty, and yet take every possible means to oppose and hinder

them in their attempts to escape from sensuality and animalism into

intellectual progress and pre-eminence? In looking back on the history

of all famous women, from Sappho downwards to the present time, it is

amazing to consider what men have said of them. Always a sneer at

‘women’s work.’ And, if praise is at any time given, how grudging and

half-hearted it is! Men will enter no protest against women who

uncover their bare limbs to the public gaze and dance lewdly in

music-halls and theatres for the masculine delectation; they will

defend the street prostitute; they will pledge themselves and their

family estates in order to provide jewels for the newest ‘ballerina’;

but for the woman of intellect they have nothing but a shrug of

contempt. If she produces a great work of art in literature, it is

never thoroughly acknowledged; and the hard blows delivered on

Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Georges Sand, and others of their

calibre, far outweighed their laurels. George Eliot and Georges Sand

took men’s names in order to shelter themselves a little from the

pitiless storm that assails literary work known to emanate from a

woman’s brain; but let a man write the veriest trash that ever was

printed, he will still be accredited by his own sex with something

better than ever the cleverest woman could compass. How is it that the

‘superior’ sex are cowardly enough to throw stones at those among the

‘inferior,’ who surpass their so-called lords and masters both in

chastity and intellect?”

She spoke earnestly, her eyes shining with emotion; she looked lovely,

thus inspired by the strength of her inward feelings. El-Râmi was

taken aback. Like most Orientals, he had to a certain extent despised

women and their work. But, then, what of Lilith? Without her aid would

his discoveries in spiritual science have progressed so far? Had he or

any man a right to call woman the “inferior” sex?

“Madame,” he said slowly and with a vague embarrassment, “you bring an

accusation against our sex which it is impossible to refute, because

it is simply and undeniably true. Men do not love either chastity or

intellect in women.”

He paused, looking at her, then went on:

“A chaste woman is an embodied defiance and reproach to man; an

intellectual woman is always a source of irritation, because she is

invariably his superior. By this I mean that when a woman is

thoroughly gifted she is gifted all round; an intellectual man is

generally only gifted in one direction. For example, a great poet,

painter, or musician, may be admirable in his own line, but he

generally lacks in something; he is stupid, perhaps, in conversation,

or he blunders in some way by want of tact; but a truly brilliant

woman has all the charms of mental superiority, generally combined

with delicate touches of satire, humour, and wit,--points which she

uses to perfection against the lumbering animal Man, with the result

that she succeeds in pricking him in all his most vulnerable parts. He

detests her accordingly, and flies for consolation to the empty-headed

dolls of the music-hall, who flatter him to the top of his bent, in

order to get as much champagne and as many diamonds as they can out of

him. Man must be adored; he insists upon it, even if he pays for it!”

“It is a pity he does not make himself a little more worthy of

adoration,” said Irene, with a slight scornful smile.

“It is,” agreed El-Râmi; “but most men, even the ugliest and

stupidest, consider themselves perfect.”

“Do you?” she asked suddenly.

“Do I consider myself perfect?” El-Râmi smiled and reflected on this

point. “Madame, if I am frank with you, and with myself, I must answer

‘Yes!’ I am made of the same clay as all my sex, and consider myself

worthy to be the conqueror of any woman under the sun! Ask any

loathsome, crooked-backed dwarf that sweeps a crossing for his

livelihood, and his idea of his own personal charm will be the same.”

Féraz laughed outright; Madame Vassilius looked amused and

interested.

“You can never eradicate from the masculine nature,” proceeded

El-Râmi, “the idea that our attentions, no matter how uncouth, are,

and always must be, agreeable to the feminine temperament. Here you

have the whole secret of the battle carried on by men against women

who have won the prize of a world-wide fame. An intellectual woman

sets a barrier between herself and the beasts; the beasts howl, but

cannot leap it; hence their rage. You, Madame, are not only

intellectual, but lovely to look at; you stand apart, a crowned queen,

seeking no assistance from men; by your very manner you imply your

scorn of their low and base desires. They _must_ detest you in

self-defence; most of your adverse critics are the poorly-paid hacks

of the daily journals, who envy you your house, your horses, your good

fortune, and your popularity with the public; if you want them to

admire you, go in for a big scandal. Run away with some blackguard;

have several husbands; do something to tarnish your woman’s

reputation; be a vulture or a worm, not a star; men do not care for

stars, they are too distant, too cold, too pure!”

“Are you speaking satirically,” asked Madame Vassilius, “or in grim

earnest?”

“In grim earnest, fair lady,” and El-Râmi rose from his chair and

confronted her with a half-smile. “In grim earnest, men are brutes!

The statement is one which is frequently made by what is called the

‘Shrieking Sisterhood’; but I, a man, agree to it in cold blood,

without conditions. We are stupid brutes; we work well in gangs, but

not so well singly. As soldiers, sailors, builders, engineers,

labourers, all on the gang method, we are admirable. The finest

paintings of the world were produced by bodies of men working under

one head, called ‘schools,’ but differing from our modern ‘schools’ in

this grand exception, that, whereas _now_ each pupil tries his hand at

something of his own, _then_ all the pupils worked at the one design

of the Master. Thus were painted the frescoes of Michael Angelo, and

the chief works of Raphael. Now the rule is ‘every man for himself and

the devil take the hindmost.’ And very poorly does ‘each man for

himself’ succeed. Men must always be helped along, either by each

other--or ... by ... a woman! Many of them owe all their success in

life to the delicate management and patient tact of woman, and yet

never have the grace to own it. Herein we are thankless brutes as well

as stupid. But, as far as I personally am concerned, I am willing to

admit that all my best discoveries, such as they are, are due to the

far-reaching intelligence and pure insight of a woman.”

This remark utterly amazed Féraz; Madame Vassilius looked surprised.

“Then,” she said, smiling slightly, “of course you love some one?”

A shadow swept over El-Râmi’s features.

“No, Madame; I am not capable of love, as this world understands

loving. Love has existence, no doubt, but surely not as Humanity

accepts it. For example, a man loves a woman; she dies; he gradually

forgets her, and loves another, and so on. That is not love, but it is

what society is satisfied with, as such. You are quite right to

despise such a fleeting emotion for yourself; it is not sufficient for

the demands of your nature; you seek something more lasting.”

“Which I shall never find,” said Irene quietly.

“Which you will find, and which you must find,” declared El-Râmi.

“All longings, however vague, whether evil or good, are bound to be

fulfilled, there being no waste in the economy of the universe. This

is why it is so necessary to weigh well the results of desire before

encouraging it. I quite understand your present humour, Madame--it is

one of restlessness and discontent. You find your crown of fame has

thorns; never mind! wear it royally, though the blood flows from the

torn brows. You are solitary at times, and find the solitude irksome;

Art serves her children thus--she will accept no half-love, but takes

all. Were I asked to name one of the most fortunate of women, I think

I should name you, for, notwithstanding the progress of your

intellectual capacity, you have kept your faith.”

“I have kept my religion, if you mean that,” said Irene, impressed by

his earnestness; “but it is not the religion of the churches.”

He gave an impatient gesture.

“The religion of the churches is a mere Show-Sunday,” he returned. “We

all know that. When I say you have kept your faith, I mean that you

can believe in God without positive proofs of Him. That is a grand

capability in this age. I wish I had it!”

Irene Vassilius looked at him wonderingly.

“Surely you believe in God?”

“Not till I can _prove_ Him!” and El-Râmi’s eyes flashed defiantly.

“Vice triumphant, and Virtue vanquished, do not explain Him to me.

Torture and death do not manifest to my spirit His much-talked-of

‘love and goodness.’ I must unriddle His secret; I must pierce into

the heart of His plan, before I join the enforced laudations of the

multitude; I must know and feel that it is the truth I am proclaiming,

before I stand up in the sight of my fellows and say, ‘O God, Thou art

the Fountain of Goodness, and all Thy works are wise and wonderful!’”

He spoke with remarkable power and emphasis; his attitude was full of

dignity. Madame Vassilius gazed at him in involuntary admiration.

“It is a bold spirit that undertakes to catechise the Creator and

examine into the value of His creation,” she said.

“If there is a Creator,” said El-Râmi, “and if from Him all things do

come, then from Him also comes my spirit of inquiry. I have no belief

in a devil, but, if there were one, the Creator is answerable for him,

too. And to revert again to your questions, Madame, shall we not in a

way make God somewhat responsible for the universal prostitution of

woman? It is a world-wide crime, and only very slight attempts as yet

have been made to remedy it, because the making of the laws is in the

hands of men--the criminals. The Englishman, the European generally,

is as great a destroyer of woman’s life and happiness as any Turk or

other barbarian. The life of the average woman is purely animal; in

her girlhood she is made to look attractive, and her days pass into

the consideration of dress, appearance, manner, and conversation; when

she has secured her mate, her next business is to bear him children.

The children reared, and sent out into the world, she settles down

into old age, wrinkled, fat, toothless, and frequently quarrelsome;

the whole of her existence is not a grade higher than that of a

leopardess or other forest creature, and sometimes not so exciting.

When a woman rises above all this, she is voted by the men

‘unwomanly’; she is no longer the slave or the toy of their passions;

and that is why, my dear Madame, they give the music-hall dancer their

diamonds, and heap upon _you_ their sneers.”

Irene sat silent for some minutes, and a sigh escaped her.

“Then it is no use trying to be a little different from the rest,” she

said wearily; “a little higher, a little less prone to vulgarity? If

one must be hated for striving to be worthy of one’s vocation----”

“My dear lady, you do not see that men will never admit that

literature _is_ your vocation! No, not even if you wrote as grand a

tragedy as ‘Macbeth.’ Your vocation, according to them, is to adore

their sex, to look fascinating, to wear pretty clothes, and purr

softly like a pleased cat when they make you a compliment; not to

write books that set everybody talking. They would rather see you

dragged and worn to death under the burden of half a dozen children,

than they would see you stepping disdainfully past them, in all the

glory of fame. Yet be content,--you have, like Mary in the Gospel,

‘chosen the better part;’ of that I feel sure, though I am unable to

tell you why or how I feel it.”

“If you feel sure of certain things without being able to explain how

or why you feel them,” put in Féraz suddenly, “is it not equally easy

to feel sure of God without being able to explain how or why He

exists?”

“Admirably suggested, my dear Féraz,” observed El-Râmi, with a

slight smile. “But please recollect that, though it may be easy to you

and a fair romancist like Madame Vassilius to feel sure of God, it is

not at all easy to me. I am not sure of Him; I have not seen Him, and

I am not conscious of Him. Moreover, if an average majority of people

taken at random could be persuaded to speak the truth for once in

their lives, they would all say the same thing--that they are not

conscious of Him. Because if they were--if the world were--the emotion

of fear would be altogether annihilated; there would never be any

‘panic’ about anything; people would not shriek and wail at the

terrors of an earthquake, or be seized with pallor and trembling at

the crash and horror of an unexpected storm. Being sure of God would

mean being sure of Good; and I’m afraid none of us are convinced in

that direction. But I think and believe that, if we indeed felt sure

of God, evil would be annihilated as well as fear. And the mystery is,

why does He not _make_ us sure of Him? It must be in His power to do

so, and would save both Him and us an infinite deal of trouble.”

Féraz grew restless and left his place, laying down the volume he had

been pretending to read.

“I wish you would not be so horribly, cruelly _definite_ in your

suggestions,” he said rather vexedly. “What is the good of it? It

unsettles one’s mind.”

“Surely your mind is not unsettled by a merely reasonable idea

reasonably suggested?” returned El-Râmi calmly. “Madame Vassilius

here is not ‘unsettled,’ as you call it.”

“No,” said Irene slowly; “but I had thought you more of a spiritual

believer----”

“Madame,” said El-Râmi impressively, “I am a spiritual believer, but

in this way: I believe that this world and all worlds are composed of

Spirit and Matter, and not only do I believe it, but I _know_ it! The

atmosphere around us and all planets is composed of Spirit and Matter;

and every living creature that breathes is made of the same dual

mixture. Of the Spirit that forms part of Matter and dominates it, I,

even _I_ have some control; and others who come after me, treading in

the same lines of thought, will have more than I. I can influence the

spirit of man; I can influence the spirit of the air; I can draw an

essence from the earth upwards that shall seem to you like the wraith

of some one dead; but if you ask me whether these provable,

practicable scientific tests or experiments on the spirit, that is

part of Nature’s very existence, are manifestations of God or the

Divine, I say--No. God would not permit Man to play at will with His

eternal Fires; whereas, with the spirit essence that can be chemically

drawn from earth and fire and water, I, a mere studious and

considering biped, can do whatsoever I choose. I know how the legends

of phantoms and fairies arose in the world’s history, because at one

time, one particular period of the prehistoric ages, the peculiar, yet

natural combination of the elements and the atmosphere _formed_

‘fantasma’ which men saw and believed in. The last trace of these now

existing is the familiar ‘mirage’ of cities with their domes and

steeples seen during certain states of the atmosphere in mid-ocean.

Only give me the conditions, and I will summon up a ghostly city too.

I can form numberless phantasmal figures now, and more than this, I

can evoke for your ears, from the very bosom of the air, music such as

long ago sounded for the pleasure of men and women dead. For the air

is a better phonograph than Edison’s, and has the advantage of being

eternal.”

“But such powers are marvellous!” exclaimed Irene. “I cannot

understand how you have attained to them.”

“Neither can others less gifted understand how you Madame, have

attained your literary skill,” said El-Râmi “All art, all science,

all discovery, is the result of a concentrated Will, an indomitable

Perseverance. My ‘powers,’ as you term them, are really very slight,

and, as I said before, those who follow my track will obtain far

greater supremacy. The secret of phantasmal splendour or ‘vision,’ as

also the clue to what is called ‘unearthly music’--anything and

everything that is or pretends to be of a supernatural character in

this world--can be traced to natural causes, and the one key to it all

is the great fact that nothing in the Universe is lost. Bear that

statement well in mind. Light preserves all scenes; Air preserves all

sounds. Therefore, it follows that if the scenes are there, and the

sounds are there, they can be evoked again, and yet again, by him who

has the skill to understand the fluctuations of the atmospheric waves,

and the incessantly recurring vibrations of light. Do not imagine that

even a thought, which you very naturally consider your own, actually

remains a fixture in your brain from whence it was germinated. It

escapes while you are in the very act of thinking it; its subtle

essence evaporates into the air you breathe and the light you absorb.

If it presents itself to you again, it will probably be in quite a

different form, and perhaps you will hardly recognise it. All thought

escapes thus; you cannot keep it to yourself any more than you can

have breath without breathing.”

“You mean that a thought belongs to all, and not to one individual?”

said Irene.

“Yes, I mean that,” replied El-Râmi; “and thought, I may say, is the

only reflex I can admit of possible Deity, because thought is free,

absolute, all-embracing, creative, perpetual, and unwearied. Limitless

too--great Heaven, how limitless! To what heights does it not soar? In

what depths does it not burrow? How daring, how calm, how indifferent

to the ocean-swell of approaching and receding ages! Your modern

Theosophist, calmly counting his gains from the blind incredulity and

stupidity of the unthinking masses, is only copying, in a very

Liliputian manner, the grand sagacity and cunning of the ancient

Egyptian ‘magi,’ who, by scientific trickery, ruled the ignorant

multitude; it is the same thought, only dressed in modern aspect.

Thought, and the proper condensation, controlling and usage of

thought, is Power,--Divinity, if you will. And it is the only existing

Force that can make gods of men.”

Irene Vassilius sat silent, fascinated by his words, and still more

fascinated by his manner. After a few minutes she spoke--

“I am glad you admit,” she said gently, “that this all-potent Thought

may be a reflex of the Divine,--for we can have no reflections of

light without the Light itself. I came to you in a somewhat

discontented humour,--I am happier now. I suppose I ought to be

satisfied with my lot,--I am certainly more fortunately situated than

most women.”

“You are, Madame”--said El-Râmi, smiling pensively and fixing his

dark eyes upon her with a kind expression,--“And your native good

sense and wit will prevent you, I hope, from marring the good which

the gods have provided for you. Do not marry yet,--it would be too

great a disillusion for you. The smallest touch of prose is sufficient

to destroy the delicacy of love’s finer sentiments; and marriage, as

the married will tell you, is all prose,--very prosy prose too. Avoid

it!--prosy prose is tiresome reading.”

She laughed, and rose to take her leave.

“I saw your brother with Mr. Ainsworth yesterday,” she observed--“And

I could not understand how two such opposite natures could possibly

agree.”

“Oh, we did not agree,--we have not agreed,” said Féraz hastily,

speaking for himself--“It is not likely we shall see much of each

other.”

“I am glad to hear it”--and she extended her hand to him, “You are

very young, and Roy Ainsworth is very old, not in years, but in heart.

It would be a pity for you to catch the contagion of our modern

pessimism.”

“But----” Féraz hesitated and stammered, “it was you, was it not,

Madame, who suggested to Mr. Ainsworth that he should take me as the

model for one of the figures in his picture?”

“Yes, it was I,” replied Irene with a slight smile--“But I never

thought you would consent,--and I felt sure that, even if you did, he

would never succeed in rendering your expression, for he is a mere

surface-painter of flesh, not soul--still, all the same, it amused me

to make the suggestion.”

“Yes,--woman-like,” said El-Râmi--“You took pleasure in offering him

a task he could not fulfil. There you have another reason why

intellectual women are frequently detested--they ask so much and give

so little.”

“You wrong us,” answered Irene swiftly. “When we love, we give all!”

“And so you give too much!” said El-Râmi gravely--“It is the common

fault of women. You should never give ‘all’--you should always hold

back something. To be fascinating, you should be enigmatical. When

once man is allowed to understand your riddle thoroughly, the spell is

broken. The placid, changeless, monotonously amiable woman has no

power whatever over the masculine temperament. It is Cleopatra that

makes a slave of Antony, not blameless and simple Octavia.”

Irene Vassilius smiled.

“According to such a theory, the angels must be very tame and

uninteresting individuals,” she said.

El-Râmi’s eyes grew lustrous with the intensity of his thought.

“Ah, Madame, our conception of angels is a very poor and false one,

founded on the flabby imaginations of ignorant priests. An Angel,

according to my idea, should be wild and bright and restless as

lightning, speeding from star to star in search of new lives and new

loves, with lips full of music and eyes full of fire, with every fibre

of its immortal being palpitating with pure yet passionate desires for

everything that can perfect and equalise its existence. The pallid,

goose-winged object represented to us as inhabiting a country of

No-Where without landscape or colour, playing on an unsatisfactory

harp and singing ‘Holy, holy’ for ever and ever, is no Angel, but

rather a libel on the whole systematic creative plan of the Universe.

Beauty, brilliancy, activity, glory and infinite variety of thought

and disposition--if these be not in the composition of an Angel, then

the Creator is but poorly served!”

“You speak as if you had seen one of these immortals?” said Irene,

surprised.

A shadow darkened his features.

“Not I, Madame--except once--in a dream! You are going!--then

farewell! Be happy,--and encourage the angelic qualities in

yourself--for, if there be a Paradise anywhere, you are on the path

that leads to it.”

“You think so?” and she sighed--“I hope you may be right,--but

sometimes I fear, and sometimes I doubt. Thank you for all you have

said,--it is the first time I have met with so much gentleness,

courtesy and patience from one of your sex. Good-bye!”

She passed out, Féraz escorting her to her carriage, which waited at

the door; then he returned to his brother with a slow step and

meditative air.

“Do men really wrong women so much as she seems to think?” he asked.

El-Râmi paused a moment,--then answered slowly:

“Yes, Féraz, they do; and, as long as this world wags, they will! Let

God look to it!--for the law of feminine oppression is His--not ours!”

XXIX.

That same week was chronicled one of the worst gales that had ever

been known to rage on the English coast. From all parts of the country

came accounts of the havoc wrought on the budding fruit-trees by the

pitiless wind and rain,--harrowing stories of floods and shipwrecks

came with every fresh despatch of news,--great Atlantic steamers were

reported “missing,” and many a fishing-smack went down in sight of

land, with all the shrieking, struggling souls on board. For four days

and four nights the terrific hurricane revelled in destruction, its

wrath only giving way to occasional pauses of heavy silence more awful

than its uproar; and, by the rocky shores of Ilfracombe, the scene of

nature’s riot, confusion and terror attained to a height of

indescribable grandeur. The sea rose in precipitous mountain-masses,

and anon wallowed in black abysmal chasms,--the clouds flew in a

fierce rack overhead like the forms of huge witches astride on

eagle-shaped monsters,--and with it all there was a close heat in the

air, notwithstanding the tearing wind,--a heat and a sulphureous

smell, suggestive of some pent-up hellish fire that but waited its

opportunity to break forth and consume the land. On the third day of

the gale, particularly, this curious sense of suffocation was almost

unbearable, and Dr. Kremlin, looking out of his high tower window in

the morning at the unquiet sky and savage sea, wondered, as the wind

scudded past, why it brought no freshness with it, but only an

increased heat, like the “simoom” of the desert.

“It is one of those days on which it would seem that God is really

angry,” mused Kremlin--“angry with Himself, and still more angry with

His creature.”

The wind whistled and shrieked in his ears as though it strove to

utter some wild response to his thought,--the sullen roaring and

battling of the waves on the beach below sounded like the clashing

armour of contesting foes,--and the great Disc in the tower revolved,

or appeared to revolve, more rapidly than its wont, its incessant

whirr-whirring being always distinctly heard above the fury of the

storm. To this, his great work, the chief labour of his life, Dr.

Kremlin’s eyes turned wistfully, as, after a brief observation of the

turbulent weather, he shut his window fast against the sheeting rain.

Its shining surface, polished as steel, reflected the lights and

shadows of the flying storm-clouds, in strange and beautiful groups

like moving landscapes--now and then it flashed with a curious

lightning glare of brilliancy as it swung round to its appointed

measure, even as a planet swings in its orbit. A new feature had been

added to the generally weird effect of Kremlin’s strange studio or

workshop,--this was a heavy black curtain made of three thicknesses of

cloth sewn closely together, and weighted at the end with

bullet-shaped balls of lead. It was hung on a thick iron pole, and ran

easily on indiarubber rings,--when drawn forward it covered the Disc

completely from the light without interfering with any portion of its

mechanism. Three days since, Kremlin had received El-Râmi’s letter

telling him what the monk from Cyprus had said concerning the “Third

Ray” or the messages from Mars, and, eagerly grasping at the smallest

chance of any clue to the labyrinth of the Light-vibrations, he had

lost no time in making all the preparations necessary for this grand

effort, this attempt to follow the track of the flashing signal whose

meaning, though apparently unintelligible, might yet with patience be

discovered. So, following the suggestions received, he had arranged

the sable drapery in such a manner that it could be drawn close across

the Disc, or, in a second, be flung back to expose the whole surface

of the crystal to the light,--all was ready for the trial, when the

great storm came and interfered. Dense clouds covered the

firmament,--and not for one single moment since he received the monk’s

message had Kremlin seen the stars. However, he was neither

discouraged nor impatient,--he had not worked amid perplexities so

long to be disheartened now by a mere tempest, which in the ordinary

course of nature would wear itself out, and leave the heavens all the

clearer both for reflection and observation. Yet he, as a

meteorologist, was bound to confess that the fury of the gale was of

an exceptional character, and that the height to which the sea lifted

itself before stooping savagely towards the land and breaking itself

in hissing spouts of spray was stupendous, and in a manner appalling.

Karl, his servant, was entirely horrified at the scene,--he hated the

noise of the wind and waves, and more than all he hated the incessant

melancholy scream of the sea-birds that wheeled in flocks round and

round the tower.

“It is for all the world like the shrieks of drowning men”--he said,

and shivered, thinking of the pleasantly devious ways of the Rhine and

its placid flowing,--placid even in flood, as compared with the

howling ocean, all madness and movement and terror. Twice during that

turbulent day Karl had asked his master whether the tower “shook.”

“Of course!” answered Dr. Kremlin with a smile in his mild eyes--“Of

course it shakes,--it can hardly do otherwise in such a gale. Even a

cottage shakes in a fierce wind.”

“Oh yes, a cottage shakes,” said Karl meditatively--“but then if a

cottage blows away altogether it doesn’t so much matter. Cottages are

frequently blown away in America, so they say, with all the family

sitting inside. That’s not a bad way of travelling. But when a tower

flies through the air it seldom carries the family with it except in

bits.”

Kremlin laughed, but did not pursue the conversation, and Karl went

about his duties in a gloomy humour, not common to his cheerful

temperament. He really had enough to put him out, all things

considered. Soot fell down the kitchen chimney--a huge brick also

landed itself with a crash in the fender,--there were crevices in the

doors and windows through which the wind played wailing sounds like a

“coronach” on the bagpipes;--and then, when he went out into the

courtyard to empty the pail of soot he had taken from the grate, he

came suddenly face to face with an ugly bird, whose repulsive aspect

quite transfixed him for the moment and held him motionless, staring

at it. It was a cormorant, and it stood huddled on the pavement,

blinking its disagreeable eyes at Karl,--its floppy wings were

drenched with the rain, and all over the yard was the wet trail of its

feathers and feet.

“Shoo!” cried Karl, waving his arms and the pail of soot all

together--“Shoo! Beast!”

But the cormorant appeared not to mind--it merely set about preening

its dirty wing.

Karl grew savage, and, running back to the kitchen, brought shovel,

tongs and a broom, all of which implements he flung in turn at the

horrid-looking creature, which, finally startled, rose in air uttering

dismal cries as it circled higher and higher, the while Karl watched

its flight,--higher and higher it soared, till at last he ran out of

the courtyard to see where it went. Round and round the house it flew,

seeming to be literally tossed to and fro by the wind, its unpleasant

shriek still echoing distinctly above the deep boom of the sea, till

suddenly it made a short sweep downwards, and sat on the top of the

tower like a squat black phantom of the storm.

“Nasty brute!” said Karl, shaking his clenched fist at it--“If the

Herr Doctor were like any other man, which he is not, he would have a

gun in the house, and I’d shoot that vile screamer. Now it will sit

cackling and yelling there all day and all night perhaps. Pleasant,

certainly!”

And he went indoors, grumbling more than ever. Everything seemed to go

wrong that day,--the fire wouldn’t burn,--the kettle wouldn’t

boil,--and he felt inwardly vexed that his master was not as morose

and irritable as himself. But, as it happened, Dr. Kremlin was in a

singularly sweet and placid frame of mind,--the noise of the gale

seemed to soothe rather than agitate his nerves. For one thing, he was

much better in health, and looked years younger than when El-Râmi

visited him, bringing the golden flask whose contents were guaranteed

to give him a new lease of life. So far indeed the elixir had done its

work,--and to all appearances he might have been a well-preserved man

of about fifty, rather than what he actually was, close upon his

seventy-fourth year. As he could take no particularly interesting or

useful observations from his Disc during the progress of the tempest,

he amused himself with the task of perfecting one or two of his

“Light-Maps” as he called them, and he kept at this work with the

greatest assiduity and devotion all the morning. These maps were

wonderfully interesting, if only for the extreme beauty, intricacy and

regularity of the patterns,--one set of “vibrations” as copied from

the reflections on the Disc formed the exact shape of a branch of

coral,--another gave the delicate outline of a frond of fern. All the

lines ran in waves,--none of them were straight. Most of them were in

small ripples,--others were larger--some again curved broadly, and

turned round in a double twist, forming the figure 8 at long intervals

of distance, but all resolved themselves into a definite pattern of

some sort.

“Pictures in the sky!” he mused, as he patiently measured and

re-touched the lines. “And all different!--not two of them alike! What

do they all mean?--for they must mean something. Nothing--not the

lowest atom that exists is without a meaning and a purpose. Shall I

ever discover the solution to the Light-mystery, or is it so much

God’s secret that it will never become Man’s?”

So he wondered, puzzling himself, with a good deal of pleasure in the

puzzle. He was happy in his work, despite its strange and difficult

character,--El-Râmi’s elixir had so calmed and equalised his physical

temperament that he was no longer conscious of worry or perplexity.

Satisfied that he had years of life before him in which to work, he

was content to let things take their course, and he laboured on in the

spirit that all labour claims, “without haste, without rest.” Feverish

hurry in work,--eagerness to get the rewards of it before

conscientiously deserving them,--this disposition is a curse of the

age we live in and the ruin of true art,--and it was this delirium of

haste that had seized Kremlin when he had summoned El-Râmi to his

aid. Now, haste seemed unnecessary;--there was plenty of time,

and--possessed of the slight clue to the “Third Ray,”--plenty of hope

as well, or so he thought.

In the afternoon the gale gradually abated, and sank to a curiously

sudden dead calm. The sea still lifted toppling foam-crowned peaks to

the sky, and still uttered shattering roars of indignation,--but there

was a break in the clouds and a pale suggestion of sunshine. As the

evening closed in, the strange dull quietness of the air

deepened,--the black mists on the horizon flashed into stormy red for

an instant when the sun set,--and then darkened again into an ominous

greenish-gray. Karl, who was busy cooking his master’s dinner, stopped

stirring some sauce he was making, to listen, as it were, to the

silence,--the only sound to be heard was the long roll and swish of

the sea on the beach,--and even the scream of the gulls was stilled.

Spoon in hand he went out in the yard to observe the weather; all

movement in the heavens seemed to have been suddenly checked, and

masses of black cloud rested where they were, apparently motionless.

And while he looked up at the sky he could hardly avoid taking the top

of the tower also into his view;--there, to his intense disgust, still

sate his enemy of the morning, the cormorant. Something that was not

quite choice in the way of language escaped his lips as he saw the

hateful thing;--its presence was detestable to him and filled his mind

with morbid imaginations which no amount of reasoning could chase

away.

“And yet what is it but a bird!” he argued with himself angrily, as he

went indoors and resumed his cooking operations--“A bird of prey, fond

of carrion--nothing more. Why should I bother myself about it? If I

told the Herr Doctor that it was there, squatting at ease on his

tower, he would very likely open the window, invite the brute in, and

offer it food and shelter for the night. For he is one of those

kind-hearted people who think that all the animal creation are worthy

of consideration and tenderness. Well,--it may be very good and broad

philosophy,--all the same, if I caught a rat sitting in my bed, I

shouldn’t like it,--nor would I care to share my meals with a lively

party of cockroaches. There are limits to Christian feelings. And, as

for that beast of a bird outside, why, it’s better outside than in, so

I’ll say nothing about it.”

And he devoted himself more intently than ever to the preparation of

the dinner,--for his master had now an excellent appetite, and ate

good things with appreciation and relish, a circumstance which greatly

consoled Karl for many other drawbacks in the service he had

undertaken. For he was a perfect cook, and proud of his art, and that

night he was particularly conscious of the excellence of the little

tasty dishes he had, to use an art-term, “created,” and he watched his

master enjoy their flavour, with a proud, keen sense of his own

consummate skill.

“When a man relishes his food it is all right with him,” he

thought.--“Starving for the sake of science may be all very well, but

if it kills the scientist what becomes of the science?”

And he grew quite cheerful in the contemplation of the “Herr Doctor’s”

improved appetite, and by degrees almost forgot the uncanny bird that

was still sitting on the topmost ledge of the tower.

Among other studious habits engendered by long solitude into which

Kremlin had fallen, was the somewhat unhygienic one of reading at

meals. Most frequently it was a volume of poems with which he beguiled

the loneliness of his dinner, for he was one of those rare few who

accept and believe in what may be called the “Prophecies” of Poesy.

These are in very truth often miraculous, and it can be safely

asserted that if the writers of the Bible had not been poets they

would never have been prophets. A poet,--if he indeed _be_ a poet, and

not a mere manufacturer of elegant verse,--always raves--raves madly,

blindly, incoherently of things he does not really understand.

Moreover, it is not himself that raves--but a Something within

him,--some demoniac or angelic spirit that clamours its wants in wild

music, which by throbbing measure and degree resolves itself, after

some throes of pain on the poet’s part, into a peculiar and

occasionally vague language. The poet, as man, is no more than man;

but that palpitating voice in his mind gives him no rest, tears his

thoughts piecemeal, rends his soul, and consumes him with feverish

trouble and anxiety not his own, till he has given it some sort of

speech, however mystic and strange. If it resolves itself into a

statement which appals or amazes, he, the poet, cannot help it; if it

enunciates a prophecy he is equally incapable of altering or refuting

it. When Shakespeare wrote the three words, “Sermons in stones,” he

had no idea that he was briefly expounding with perfect completeness

the then to him unknown science of geology. The poet is not born of

flesh alone, but of spirit--a spirit which dominates him whether he

will or no, from the very first hour in which his childish eyes look

inquiringly on leaves and flowers and stars--a spirit which catches

him by the hands, kisses him on the lips, whispers mad nothings in his

startled ears, flies restlessly round and about him, brushing his

every sense with downy, warm, hurrying wings,--snatches him up

altogether at times and bids him sing, write, cry out strange oracles,

weep forth wild lamentations, and all this without ever condescending

to explain to him the reason why. It is left to the world to discover

this “Why,” and the discovery is often not made till ages after the

poet’s mortal dust has been transformed to flowers in the grass which

little children gather and wear unknowingly. The poet whose collected

utterances Dr. Kremlin was now reading, as he sipped the one glass of

light burgundy which concluded his meal, was Byron; the fiery singer

whose exquisite music is pooh-poohed by the insipid critics of the

immediate day, who, jealous of his easily-won and world-wide fame,

grudge him the laurel, even though it spring from the grave of a hero

as well as bard. The book was open at “Manfred,” and the lines on

which old Kremlin’s eyes rested were these:

“How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!

But we who name ourselves its sovereigns, we

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make

A conflict of its elements, and breathe

The breath of degradation and of pride,

Contending with low wants and lofty will.

Till our mortality predominates,

And men are,--what they name not to themselves,

And trust not to each other.”

“Now that passage is every whit as fine as anything in Shakespeare,”

thought Kremlin--“and the whole secret of human trouble is in it;--it

is not the world that is wrong, but we--we ‘who make a conflict of its

elements.’ The question is, if we are really ‘unfit to sink or soar’

is it our fault?--and may we not ask without irreverence why we were

made so incomplete? Ah, my clever friend El-Râmi Zarânos has set

himself a superhuman task on the subject of this ‘Why,’ and I fancy I

shall find out the riddle of Mars, and many another planet besides,

before he ‘proves,’ as he is trying to do, the conscious and

individual existence of the soul.”

He turned over the pages of “Manfred” thoughtfully, and then stopped,

his gaze riveted on the splendid lines in which the unhappy hero of

the tragedy flings his last defiance to the accusing demons--

“The mind which is immortal makes itself

Requital for its good or evil thoughts--

Is its own origin of ill and end--

And its own place and time--its innate sense,

When stripped of this mortality, derives

No colour from the fleeting things without,

But is absorbed in sufferance or in joy,

Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt;

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey--

But was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter.--Back, ye baffled fiends!

The hand of death is on me,--but not yours!”

“And yet people will say that Byron was an immoral writer!” murmured

Kremlin--“In spite of the tremendous lesson conveyed in those lines!

There is something positively terrifying in that expression--

‘But was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter.’

What a black vista of possibilities----”

Here he broke off, suddenly startled by a snaky blue glare that

flashed into the room like the swift sweep of a sword-blade. Springing

up from the table he rubbed his dazzled eyes.

“Why--what was that?” he exclaimed.

“Lightning!” replied Karl, just entering at the moment--“and a very

nasty specimen of it. ... I’d better put all the knives and steel

things by.”

And he proceeded to do this, while Kremlin still stood in the centre

of the room, his sight yet a little confused by the rapidity and

brilliancy of that unexpected storm-flash. A long low ominous

muttering of thunder, beginning far off and rolling up nearer and

nearer till it boomed like a volley of cannon in unison with the roar

of the sea, followed,--then came silence. No rain fell, and the wind

only blew moderately enough to sway the shrubs in front of the house

lightly to and fro.

“It will be a stormy night,” said Dr. Kremlin then, recovering himself

and taking up his Byron--“I am sorry for the sailors! You had better

see well to all the fastenings of the doors and windows.”

“Trust me!” replied Karl sententiously--“You shall not be carried out

to sea against your will if I can help it--nor have I any desire to

make such a voyage myself. I hope, Herr Doctor”--he added with a touch

of anxiety--“you are not going to spend this evening in the tower?”

“I certainly am!” answered Kremlin, smiling--“I have work up there,

and I cannot afford to be idle on account of a thunderstorm. Why do

you look so scared? There is no danger.”

“I didn’t say there was”--and Karl fidgeted uneasily--“but--though

I’ve never been inside it, I should think the tower was lonesome, and

I should fancy there might be too close a view of the lightning to be

quite pleasant.”

Kremlin looked amused, and, walking to the window, pushed back one of

the curtains.

“I believe it was a false alarm,” he said, gazing at the sea--“That

flash and thunder-peal were the parting notes of a storm that has

taken place somewhere else. See!--the clouds are clearing.”

So in truth they were; the evening, though very dark, seemed to give

promise of a calm. One or two stars twinkled faintly in a

blackish-blue breadth of sky, and, perceiving these shining monitors

and problems of his life’s labour, Kremlin wasted no more time in

words, but abruptly left the room and ascended to his solitary studio.

Karl, listening, heard the closing of the heavy door aloft and the

grating of the key as it turned in the lock,--and he also heard that

strange perpetual whirring noise above, which, though he had in a

manner grown accustomed to it, always remained for him a perplexing

mystery. Shaking his head dolefully, and with a somewhat troubled

countenance, he cleared the dining-table, set the room in order, went

down to his kitchen, cleaned, rubbed, and polished everything till his

surroundings were as bright as it was possible for them to be, and

then, pleasantly fatigued, sat down to indite a letter to his mother

in the most elaborate German phraseology he could devise. He was

rather proud of his “learning,” and he knew his letters home were read

by nearly all the people in his native village as well as by his

maternal parent, so that he was particularly careful in his efforts to

impress everybody by the exceeding choiceness of his epistolary

“style.” Absorbed in his task, he at first scarcely noticed the

gradual rising of the wind, which, having rested for a few hours, now

seemed to have awakened in redoubled strength and fury. Whistling

under the kitchen door it came, with a cold and creepy chill,--it

shook the windows angrily, and then, finding the door of the outside

pantry open, shut it to with a tremendous bang, like an irate person

worsted in an argument. Karl paused, pen in hand; and, as he did so, a

dismal cry echoed round the house, the sound seeming to fall from a

height and then sweep over the earth with the wind, towards the sea.

“It’s that brute of a bird!” said Karl half aloud--“Nice cheerful

voice he has, to be sure!”

At that moment the kitchen was illuminated from end to end by a wide

blue glare of lightning, followed, after a heavy pause, by a short

loud clap of thunder. The hovering storm had at last gathered together

its scattered forces, and, concentrating itself blackly above the

clamorous sea, now broke forth in deadly earnest.

XXX.

Kremlin meanwhile had reached his tower in time to secure a glimpse

of the clearer portion of the sky before it clouded over again.

Opening the great window, he leaned out and anxiously surveyed the

heavens. There was a little glitter of star-groups above his head, and

immediately opposite an almost stirless heavy fleece of blackness,

which he knew by its position hid from his sight the planet Mars, the

brilliant world he now sought to make the chief centre of his

observations. He saw that heavy clouds were slowly rolling up from the

south, and he was quite prepared for a fresh outbreak of storm and

rain, but he was determined to take advantage, if possible, of even a

few moments of temporary calm. And with this intention he fixed his

gaze watchfully on the woolly-looking dark mass of vapour that

concealed the desired star from his view, having first carefully

covered the steadily revolving Disc with its thick sable curtain.

Never surely was there a more weird and solemn-looking place than the

tower-room as it now appeared; no light in it at all save a fitful

side-gleam from the whirling edge of the Disc,--all darkness and

monotonous deep sound, with that patient solitary figure leaning at

the sill of the wide-open window, gazing far upward at the pallid

gleam of those few distant stars that truly did no more than make

“darkness visible.” The aged scientist’s heart beat quickly; the

weight of long years of labour and anxiety seemed to be lifted from

his spirit, and it was with almost all the ardour of his young student

days that he noted the gradual slow untwisting and dividing of those

threads of storm-mist, that like a dark web, woven by the Fates,

veiled the “red planet” whose flashing signal might prove to be the

key to a thousand hitherto unexplored mysteries. It was strange that

just at this particular moment of vague suspense his thoughts should

go wandering in a desultory wilful fashion back to his past,--and that

the history of his bygone life seemed to arrange itself, as it were,

in a pattern as definite as the wavy lines on his “Light-Maps” and

with just as _in_definite a meaning. He, who had lived that life, was

as perplexed concerning its ultimate intention as he was concerning

the ultimate meanings conveyed by the light-vibrations through air. He

tried to keep his ideas centred on the scientific puzzle he was

attempting to unravel,--he strove to think of every small fact that

bore more or less on that one central object,--he repeated to himself

the A B C of his art, concerning the vibrations of light on that first

natural reflector, the human eye,--how, in receiving the impression of

the colour red, for instance, the nerves of the eye are set quivering

_four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times_; or, of

the colour violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of

times _per second_. How could he hope to catch the rapid flash of the

“Third Ray” under these tremendous conditions? Would it not vanish

from the very face of the Disc before he had time to track its

circuit? But, though he strove to busy his brain with conjectures and

calculations, he was forced, in spite of himself, to go on groping

into the Past; that wonderful Past when he had been really

young--young with a youth not born of El-Râmi’s secret

concoctions,--but youth as it is received fresh and perfect from the

hand of Divinity--the talisman which makes all the world an Eden of

roses without thorns. He saw himself as he used to be, a slim student,

fair-haired and blue-eyed, absorbed in science, trying strange

experiments, testing new chemical combinations, ferreting out the

curious mysteries of atmospheric phenomena, and then being gradually

led to consider the vast amount of _apparently unnecessary_ Light _per

second_, that pours upon us from every radiating object in the

firmament, bearing in mind the fact that our Earth itself radiates

through Space, even though its glimmer be no more than that of a spark

amid many huge fires. He remembered how he had pored over the strange

but incontestable fact that two rays of light starting from the same

point and travelling in the same direction frequently combine to

produce darkness, by that principle which is known in the science of

optics as the _interference_ of the rays of light,--and how, in the

midst of all this, his work had been suddenly interrupted and put a

stop to by a power the stars in their courses cannot gainsay--Love.

Yes--he had loved and been beloved,--this poor, gentle, dreamy

man;--one winter in Russia--one winter when the snows lay deep on the

wild steppes and the wolves were howling for hunger in the gloom of

the forests,--he had dreamed his dream, and wakened from

it--broken-hearted. She whom he loved, a beautiful girl connected with

the Russian nobility, was associated, though he knew it not, with a

secret society of Nihilists, and was all at once arrested with several

others and accused of being party to a plot for the assassination of

the Tsar. Found guilty, she was sentenced to exile in Siberia, but

before the mandate could be carried out she died by her own hand,

poisoned in her prison cell. Kremlin, though not “suspect,” went

almost mad with grief, and fled from Russia never to set his foot on

its accursëd soil again. People said that the excess of his sorrow,

rage and despair had affected his brain, which was possible, as his

manner and mode of living, and the peculiar grooves of study into

which he fell, were undoubtedly strange and eccentric--and

yet--tenderness for his dead love, self-murdered in her youth and

beauty, kept him sensitively alive to human needs and human

suffering,--there was no scorn or bitterness in his nature, and his

faith in the unseen God was as great as El-Râmi’s doubt. But, left as

he was all alone in the world, he plunged into the obscure depths of

science with greater zest than ever, striving to forget the dire agony

of that brief love-drama, the fatal end of which had nearly closed his

own career in madness and death. And so the years drifted on and on in

work that every day grew more abstruse and perplexing, till he had

suddenly, as it were, found himself old,--too old, as he told himself

with nervous trembling, ever to complete what he had begun. Then he

had sent for El-Râmi; El-Râmi whom he had met and wondered at,

during his travels in the East years ago ... and El-Râmi, at his

desire, by strange yet potent skill, had actually turned back time in

its too rapid flight--and a new lease of life was vouchsafed to

him;--he had leisure,--long, peaceful leisure in which to carry out

his problems to perfection, if to carry them out were at all possible.

For had not El-Râmi said--“You cannot die, except by violence”?

And thus, like the “star-patterns,” all the fragments of his personal

history came into his mind to-night as he waited at his tower-window,

watching the black pavilion under which the world of Mars swung round

in its fiery orbit.

“Why do I think of all these bygone things just now?” he asked himself

wonderingly--“I who so seldom waste my time in looking back, my work

being all for the Future?”

As he murmured the words half aloud, a rift showed itself in the cloud

he was observing,--a rift which widened gradually and broke up the

dark mass by swift and ever swifter degrees. Fold after fold of mist

dissolved and dispersed itself along the sky, swept by the wings of

the newly-arisen wind, and Mars, angrily crimson and stormily

brilliant, flashed forth a lurid fire ... In less time than

imagination can depict, Kremlin had noiselessly flung the black

curtain back from his disc, ... and with his eyes riveted upon its

gleaming pearly surface he waited ... scarcely breathing, ... every

nerve in his body seeming to contract and grow rigid with expectation

and something like dread. A pale light glistened on the huge disc ...

it was gone! ... another flash, ... and this remained trembling in

wavy lines and small revolving specks--now ... now ... the Third!--and

Kremlin craned his head forward eagerly ... it came!--like a drop of

human blood it fell, and raced more rapidly than quicksilver round and

round the polished surface of the disc, paling in tint among the other

innumerable silvery lines ... flashed again redly ... and ...

disappeared! A cry of irrepressible disappointment broke from

Kremlin’s lips.

“Impossible! ... my God! ... impossible!”

Ay!--impossible surely to track such velocity of motion--impossible to

fix the spot where first its dazzling blood-like hue fell, and where

it at last vanished. And yet Kremlin waited on in feverish

expectancy,--his lips apart, his breath coming and going in quick

uneasy gasps, his straining eyes fixed on that terrible, inscrutable

creation of his own skill, that fearful Mirror of the heavens which

reflected so much and betrayed so little! ... Heedless of the

muttering roar of the wind which now suddenly assailed the tower, he

stood, fascinated by the dazzling play of light that illumined the

disc more brilliantly than usual. A dismal scream,--the cry of the

cormorant perched on the roof above him, echoed faintly in his ears,

but he scarcely heard it, so absorbed was he in his monstrous Enigma;

till--all at once, a blue shaft of lightning glared in at the window,

its brief reflection transforming the disc for a second to an almost

overwhelming splendour of glittering colour. The strong blaze dazzled

Kremlin’s eyes,--and as the answering thunder rattled through the sky

he reluctantly moved from his position and went towards the window to

shut it against the threatening storm. But when he reached it he saw

that the planet Mars was yet distinctly visible; the lightning and

thunder came from that huge bank of clouds in the south he had before

noticed,--clouds which were flying rapidly up, but had not yet

entirely obscured the heavens. In eager and trembling haste he hurried

back to the disc,--it seemed alive with light, and glistened from

point to point like a huge jewel as it whirled and hummed its strange

monotonous music,--and, shading his eyes, he remained close beside it,

determined to watch it still, hoping against hope that another red

flash like the one he had lately seen might crimson the quivering mass

of silvery intersecting lines which he knew were not so much the

light-vibrations of stars now as reflexes of the electricity pent up

in the tempestuous atmosphere.

“Patience ... patience!” he murmured aloud--“A moment more, and

perhaps I shall see, ... I shall know ... I shall find what I have

sought. ...”

The last words were yet trembling on his lips when a fearful forkëd

tongue of red flame leaped from the clouds, descending obliquely like

a colossal sword, ... it smote the tower, splitting its arched roof

and rending its walls asunder,--and with the frightful boom and bellow

of thunder that followed, echoing over land and sea for miles and

miles there came another sound, ... a clanging jangle of chains and

wires and ponderous metals, ... the mighty mass of the glittering

Star-Dial swirled round unsteadily once ... twice ... quivered ...

stopped ... and then ... slipping from its wondrous pendulum, hurled

itself forward like a monster shield and fell! ... fell with an

appalling crash and thud, bringing the roof down upon itself in a

blinding shower of stones and dust and mortar. ... And then ... why,

then nothing! Nothing but dense blackness, muttering thunder, and the

roaring of the wind.

Outside, frantic with fear, Karl shook and battered at the

firmly-locked and bolted door of the tower. When that forked flash of

lightning had struck the house, it had stretched him senseless in his

kitchen,--he had, however, recovered after a few minutes’

unconsciousness, dazed and stunned, but otherwise unhurt, and,

becoming gradually alive to the immediate dangers of the situation, he

had, notwithstanding the fury of the gale and the deafening peals of

thunder, rushed out of doors instinctively to look at the tower. One

glance showed him what had happened,--it was split asunder, and showed

dimly against the stormy night like a yawning ruin round which in time

the ivy might twist and cling. Breathless and mad with terror, he had

rushed back to the house and up the stairs, and now stood impatiently

clamouring outside the impenetrable portal whose firm interior

fastenings resisted all his efforts. He called, he knocked, he

kicked,--and then, exhausted with the vain attempt, stopped to listen.

... Nothing! ... not a sound! He made a hollow of his hands and put

his mouth to the keyhole.

“Herr Doctor! ... Herr Doctor!”

No answer,--except the stormy whistle of the blast.

“No help for it!” he thought desperately, tears of excitement and

alarm gathering in his eyes--“I must call for assistance,--rouse the

neighbours and break open the door by force.”

He ran downstairs and out of the house bareheaded, to be met by a

sudden sweep of rain which fell in a straight unpremeditated way from

the clouds in stinging torrents. Heedless of wind and wet he sped

along, making direct for some fishermen’s cottages whose inhabitants

he knew and whom in a manner he was friendly with, and, having roused

them up by shouts and cries, explained to them as briefly as possible

what had happened. As soon as they understood the situation four stout

fellows got ready to accompany him, and taking pickaxes, crowbars,

boathooks, and any other such implements as were handy, they ran

almost as quickly as Karl himself to the scene of the catastrophe.

Their excitement was to the full as great as his, till they reached

the top of the staircase and stood outside the mysterious door--there

they hung back a moment hesitatingly.

“Call him again”--one whispered to Karl. “Mebbe he’s in there safe and

sound and did not hear ye at fust.”

To satisfy the man’s scruples Karl obeyed, and called and called, and

knocked and knocked again and yet again,--with the same result,--no

answer, save the derisive yell of the gale.

“He be dead an’ gone for sure”--said a second man, with a slight

pallor coming over his sea-tanned face--“Well ... well! ... if so be

as we _must_ break down th’ door----”

“Here, give me one of those things”--cried Karl impatiently, and

snatching a crowbar he began dealing heavy blows at the massive

nail-studded oaken barrier. Seeing him so much in earnest, his

companions lost the touch of superstitious dread that had made them

hesitate, and also set themselves to work with a will, and in a few

minutes--minutes which to the anxious Karl seemed ages,--the door was

battered in, ... and they all rushed forward, ... but the fierce wind,

tearing wildly around them, caught the flame of the lamp they carried

and extinguished it, so that they were left in total darkness. But

over their heads the split roof yawned, showing the black sky, and

about their feet was a mass of fallen stones and dust and

indistinguishable ruin. As quickly as possible they re-lit the lamp

and, holding it aloft, looked tremblingly, and without speaking a

word, at the havoc and confusion around them. At first little could be

seen but heaped-up stones and bricks and mortar, but Karl’s quick eyes

roving eagerly about caught sight suddenly of something black under a

heap of débris,--and quickly bending down over it he began with his

hands to clear away the rubbish,--the other men, seeing what he was

trying to do, aided him in his task, and in about twenty minutes’ time

they succeeded in uncovering a black mass, huge and inanimate.

“What is it?” whispered one of the men--“It’s ... it’s not him?”

Karl said nothing--he felt himself turning sick with dread, ... he

touched that doubtful blackness--it was a thick cloth like a great

pall--it concealed ... what? Recklessly he pulled and tugged at it,

getting his hands lacerated by a tangled mesh of wires and

metals,--till, yielding at last to a strong jerk, it came away in

weighty clinging folds, disclosing what to him seemed an enormous

round stone, which, as the lamp-light flashed upon it, glistened

mysteriously with a thousand curious hues. Karl grasped its edge in an

effort to lift it--his fingers came in contact with something moist

and warm, and, snatching them away in a sort of vague horror, he saw

that they were stained with blood.

“Oh my God! my God!” he cried--“He is down there,--underneath this

thing! ... help me to lift it, men!--lift it for Heaven’s sake!--lift

it, quick--quick!”

But, though they all dragged at it with a will, the work was not so

easy--the great Disc had fallen flat, and lay solemnly inert--and that

oozing blood,--the blood of the too daring student of the stars who

had designed its mystic proportions,--trickled from under it with

sickening rapidity. At last, breathless and weary, they were about to

give up the task in despair, when Karl snatched from out the ruins the

iron needle or pendulum on which the Disc had originally swung, and,

all unknowing what it was, thrust it cautiously under the body of the

great stone to aid in getting a firmer hold of it, ... to his

amazement and terror the huge round mass caught and clung to it, like

warm sealing-wax to a piece of paper, and in an instant seemed to have

magically dispensed with all its weight, for as, with his unassisted

strength, he lifted the pendulum, the Disc lifted itself lightly and

easily with it! A cry of fear and wonder broke from all the men,--Karl

himself trembled in every limb, and big drops of cold sweat broke out

on his forehead at what he deemed the devilish horror of this miracle.

But as he, with no more difficulty than he would have experienced in

heaving up a moderate-sized log of wood, raised the Disc and flung it

back and away from him shudderingly, pendulum and all, his eyes fell

on _what_ had lain beneath it, ... a crushed pulp of human flesh and

streaming blood--and reverend silver hairs ... and with a groan that

seemed to rend his very heart Karl gave one upward sick stare at the

reeling sky, and fainted, ... as unconscious for the time being as

that indistinguishable mangled mass of perished mortality that once

had been his master.

Gently and with compassionate kindness, the rough fishers who stood by

lifted him up and bore him out of the tower and down the stairs,--and,

after a whispered consultation, carried him away from the house

altogether to one of their own cottages, where they put him under the

care of one of their own women. None of them could sleep any more that

night; they stood in a group close by their humble habitations,

watching the progress of the storm, and ever and anon casting

awe-stricken glances at the shattered tower.

“The devil was in it”--said one of the men at last, as he lit his pipe

and endeavoured to soothe his nerves by several puffs at that smoky

consoler--“or else how would it rise up like that as light as a

feather at the touch of an iron pole?”

“It must ’a weighed twenty stun at least”--murmured another man

meditatively.

“What _was_ it?” demanded a third--“I should ’a took it for a big

grindstone if it hadn’t sparkled up so when the light fell on it.”

“Well, it may stay where it is for all I care,” said the first

speaker--“I wouldn’t touch it again for a hundred pound!”

“Nor I.” “Nor I.”

They were all agreed on that point.

“Wotever he were a-doin’ on,”--said the fourth man gravely--“whether

it were God’s work or the devil’s, it’s all over now. He’s done for,

poor old chap! It’s an awful end--God rest his soul!”

The others lifted their caps and murmured “Amen” with simple

reverence. Then they looked out at the dark wallowing trough of the

sea.

“How the wind roars!” said the last speaker.

“Ay, it do roar,” replied the man who was his mate in the boat when

they went fishing; “and did ye hear a cormorant scream a while ago?”

“Ay, ay! I heard it!” They were silent then, and turned in, after

making inquiries concerning Karl at the cottage where they had left

him. He was still unconscious.

XXXI.

A couple of days later, El-Râmi was engaged in what was not a very

favourite occupation with him,--he was reading the morning’s

newspaper. He glanced over the cut-and-dry chronicle of “Storms and

Floods”--he noted that a great deal of damage had been wrought by the

gale at Ilfracombe and other places along the Devonshire coast,--but

there was nothing of any specially dreadful import to attract his

attention, and nothing either in politics or science of any pressing

or vital interest. There were two or three reviews of books, one of

these being pressed into a corner next to the advertisement of a

patent pill; there were announcements of the movements of certain

human units favoured with a little extra money and position than

ordinary, as being “in” or “out” of town, and there was a

loftily-patronising paragraph on the “Theosophical Movement,” or, as

it is more frequently termed, the “Theosophical Boom.” From this,

El-Râmi learned that a gentleman connected with the Press, who wrote

excessively commonplace verse, and thereby had got himself and his

name (through the aforesaid press connection) fairly well known, had

been good enough to enunciate the following amazing platitude:--“That,

as a great portion of the globe is composed of elements which cannot

be seen, and as the study of the invisible may be deemed as legitimate

as the study of the visible, he” (the press-connected versifier) “is

inclined to admit that there are great possibilities on the lines of

that study.”

“Inclined to admit it, is he!” and El-Râmi threw aside the paper and

broke into a laugh of the sincerest enjoyment, “Heavens! what fools

there are in this world, who call themselves wise men! This little

poetaster, full of the conceit common to his imitative craft, is

‘inclined to admit’ that there are great possibilities in the study of

the invisible! Excellent condescension! How the methods of life have

turned topsy-turvy since the ancient days! Then the study of the

Invisible was the first key to the study of the Visible,--the things

which are seen being considered only as the reflexes of the things

which are unseen--the Unseen being accepted as Cause, the Seen as

Effect. Now we all drift the other way,--taking the Visible as

Fact,--the Invisible as Fancy!”

Féraz, who was writing at a side-table, looked up at him.

“Surely you are inconsistent?” he said--“You yourself believe in

nothing unless it is _proved_.”

“But then, my dear fellow, I _can_ prove the Invisible and follow the

grades of it, and the modes by which it makes itself the Visible,--to

a certain extent--but only to a certain extent. Beyond the provable

limit I do not go. You, on the contrary, aided by the wings of

imagination, outsoar that limit, and profess to find angels,

star-kingdoms, and God Himself. I cannot go so far as this. But,

unlike our blown-out frog of a versifier here, who would fain persuade

mankind he is a bull, I am not only ‘inclined’ to admit--I _do_ admit

that there are ‘great possibilities’--only I must test them all before

I can accept them as facts made clear to my comprehension.”

“Still, you believe in the Invisible?”

“Naturally. I believe in the millions of suns in the Milky Way, though

they can scarcely be called ‘visible.’ I should be a fool if I did not

believe in the Invisible, under the present conditions of the

Universe. But I cannot be tricked by ‘shams’ of the Invisible. The

Theosophical business is a piece of vulgar imposture, in which the

professors themselves are willing to delude their own imaginations, as

well as the imaginations of others--they are the most wretched

imitators that ever were of the old Eastern sorcerers,--the fellows

who taught Moses and Aaron how to frighten their ignorant cattle-like

herds of followers. None of the modern ‘mediums,’ as they are called,

have the skill over atmospheric phenomena, metals, and light-reflexes

that Apollonius of Tyana had, or Alexander the Paphlagonian. Both

these scientific sorcerers were born about the same time as Christ,

and Apollonius, like Christ, raised a maiden from the dead. Miracles

were the fashion in that period of time,--and, according to the

monotonous manner in which history repeats itself, they are coming

into favour again in this century. All that we know now has been

already known. The ancient Greeks had their ‘penny-in-the-slot’

machine for the purpose of scattering perfume on their clothes as they

passed along the streets--they had their ‘syphon’ bottles and vases as

we have, and they had their automatically opening and closing doors.

Compare the miserable ‘spiritualistic phenomena’ of the Theosophists

with the marvels wrought by Hakem, known as Mokanna! Mokanna could

cause an orb like the moon to rise from a well at a certain hour and

illumine the country for miles and miles around. How did he do it? By

a knowledge of electric force applied to air and water. The ‘bogies’

of a modern _séance_ who talk bad grammar and pinch people’s toes and

fingers are very coarse examples of necromancy, compared with the

scientific skill of Mokanna and others of this tribe. However,

superstition is the same in all ages, and there will always be fools

ready to believe in ‘Mahatmas’ or anything else,--and the old

‘incantation of the Mantra’ will, if well done, influence the minds of

the dupes of the nineteenth century quite as effectively as it did

those of the bygone ages before Christ.”

“What is the incantation of the Mantra?” asked Féraz.

“A ridiculous trick”--replied El-Râmi--“known to every Eastern

conjurer and old woman who professes to see the future. You take your

dupe, and fling a little water over him, fixing upon him your eyes and

all the force of your will,--then, you take a certain mixture of

chemical substances and perfumes, and set them on fire--the flames and

fumes produce a dazzling and drowsy effect on the senses of your

‘subject,’ who will see whatever you choose him to see, and hear

whatever you intend him to hear. But Will is the chief ingredient of

the spell,--and if I, for example, choose to influence any one, I can

dispense with both water and fire--I can do it alone and without any

show of preparation.”

“I know you can!” said Féraz meaningly, with a slight smile, and then

was silent.

“I wonder what the art of criticism is coming to nowadays!” exclaimed

El-Râmi presently, taking up the paper again--“Here is a remark

worthy of Dogberry’s profundity--‘_This is a book that must be read to

be understood._’[3] Why, naturally! Who can understand a book without

reading it?”

Féraz laughed--then his eyes darkened.

“I saw an infamous so-called critique of one of Madame Vassilius’s

books the other day”--he said--“I should like to have thrashed the man

who wrote it. It was not criticism at all--it was a mere piece of

scurrilous vulgarity.”

“Ah, but that sort of thing pays!” retorted El-Râmi satirically. “The

modern journalist attains his extremest height of brilliancy when he

throws the refuse of his inkpot at the name and fame of a woman more

gifted than himself. It’s nineteenth-century chivalry you know,--above

all ... it’s manly!”

Féraz shrugged his shoulders with a faint gesture of contempt.

“Then--if there is any truth in old chronicles--men are not what they

were;”--he said.

“No--they are not what they were, my dear boy--because all things have

changed. Women were once the real slaves and drudges of men,--now,

they are very nearly their equals, or can be so if they choose. And

men have to get accustomed to this--at present they are in the

transition state and don’t like it. Besides, there will always be male

tyrants and female drudges as long as the world lasts. Men are not

what they were,--and, certes, they are not what they might be.”

“They might be gods;”--said Féraz--“but I suppose they prefer to be

devils.”

“Precisely!” agreed El-Râmi--“it is easier, and more amusing.”

Féraz resumed his writing in silence. He was thinking of Irene

Vassilius, whom he admired;--and also of that wondrous Sleeping Beauty

enshrined upstairs whose loveliness he did not dare to speak of. He

had latterly noticed a great change in his brother,--an indefinable

softness seemed to have imperceptibly toned down the habitual cynicism

of his speech and manner,--his very expression of countenance was more

gracious and benign,--he looked handsomer,--his black eyes shot forth

a less fierce fire,--and yet, with all his gentleness and entire lack

of impatience, he was absorbed from morning to night in such close and

secret study as made Féraz sometimes fear for its ultimate result on

his health.

“Do you really believe in prayer, Féraz?” was the very unexpected

question he now asked, with sudden and startling abruptness; “I mean,

do you think any one in the invisible realms _hears_ us when we pray?”

Féraz laid down his pen, and gazed at his brother for a moment

without answering. Then he said slowly--

“Well, according to your own theories the air is a vast

phonograph,--so it follows naturally that everything is _heard_ and

_kept_. But as to prayer, that depends, I think, altogether on how you

pray. I do not believe in it at all times. And I’m afraid my ideas on

the subject are quite out of keeping with those generally

accepted----”

“Never mind--let me have them, whatever they are”--interrupted

El-Râmi with visible eagerness--“I want to know when and how you

pray?”

“Well, the fact is I very seldom pray”--returned Féraz--“I offer up

the best praise I can in mortal language devise, both night and

morning--but I never _ask_ for anything. It would seem so vile to ask

for more, having already so much. And I am sure God knows best--in

which case I have nothing to ask, except one thing.”

“And that is----?” queried his brother.

“Punishment!” replied Féraz emphatically; “I pray for that--I crave

for that--I implore that I may be punished at once when I have done

wrong, that I may immediately recognise my error. I would rather be

punished here, than hereafter.”

El-Râmi paled a little, and his lips trembled.

“Strange boy!” he murmured--“All the churches are praying God to take

away the punishments incurred for sin,--you, on the contrary, ask for

it as if it were a blessing.”

“So it is a blessing”--declared Féraz--“It must be a blessing--and it

is absurd of the churches to pray against a Law. For it is a Law.

Nature punishes us, when we physically rebel against the rules of

health, by physical suffering and discomfort,--God punishes us in our

mental rebellions by mental wretchedness. This is as it should be. I

believe we get everything in this world that we deserve--no more and

no less.”

“And do you never pray”--continued El-Râmi slowly, “for the

accomplished perfection of some cherished aim,--the winning of some

special joy----”

“Not I”--said Féraz--“because I know that if it be good for me I

shall have it,--if bad, it will be withheld; all my prayers could not

alter the matter.”

El-Râmi sat silent for a few minutes,--then, rising, he took two or

three turns up and down the room, and gradually a smile, half

scornful, half sweet, illumined his dark features.

“Then, O young and serene philosopher, I will not pray!” he said, his

eyes flashing a lustrous defiance--“I have a special aim in view--I

mean to grasp a joy!--and whether it be good or bad for me, I will

attempt it unassisted.”

“If it be good you will succeed;”--said Féraz with a glance

expressive of some fear as well as wonderment. “If it be bad, you will

not. God arranges these things for us.”

“God--God--always God!” cried El-Râmi with some impatience--“No God

shall interfere with me!” At that moment there came a hesitating knock

at the street door. Féraz went to open it, and admitted a pale

grief-stricken man whose eyes were red and heavy with tears and whose

voice utterly failed him to reply when El-Râmi exclaimed in

astonishment:

“Karl! ... Karl! You here? Why, what has happened?”

Poor Karl made a heroic struggle to speak,--but his emotion was too

strong for him--he remained silent, and two great drops rolled down

his cheeks in spite of all his efforts to restrain them.

“You are ill;”--said Féraz kindly, pushing him by gentle force into a

chair and fetching him a glass of wine--“Here, drink this--it will

restore you.”

Karl put the glass aside tremblingly, and tried to smile his

gratitude,--and presently gaining a little control over himself he

turned his piteous glances towards El-Râmi whose fine features had

become suddenly grave and fixed in thought.

“You ... you ... have not heard, sir----” he stammered.

El-Râmi raised his hand gently, with a solemn and compassionate

gesture.

“Peace, my good fellow!--no, I have not heard,--but I can

guess;--Kremlin, ... your master ... is dead.”

And he was silent for many minutes. Fresh tears trickled from Karl’s

eyes, and he made a pretence of tasting the wine that Féraz pressed

upon him--Féraz, who looked as statuesque and serene as a young

Apollo.

“You must console yourself;”--he said cheerfully to Karl, “Poor Dr.

Kremlin had many troubles and few joys--now he has gone where he has

no trouble and all joy.”

“Ah!” sighed Karl dolefully--“I wish I could believe that, sir,--I

wish I could believe it! But it was the judgment of God upon him--it

was indeed!--that is what my poor mother would say,--the judgment of

God!”

El-Râmi moved from his meditative attitude with a faint sense of

irritation. The words he had so lately uttered--“No God shall

interfere with me”--re-echoed in his mind. And now here was this

man,--this servant, weeping and trembling and talking of the “judgment

of God” as if it were really something divinely directed and

inexorable.

“What do you mean?” he asked, endeavouring to suppress the impatience

in his voice--“Of course, I know he must have had some violent end, or

else he could not”--and he repeated the words impressively--“could not

have died,--but was there anything more than usually strange in the

manner of his death?”

Karl threw up his hands.

“More than usually strange! Ach, Gott!” and, with many interpolations

of despair and expressions of horror, he related in broken accents the

whole of the appalling circumstances attending his master’s end. In

spite of himself a faint shudder ran through El-Râmi’s warm blood as

he heard--he could almost see before him the horrible spectacle of the

old man’s mangled form lying crushed under the ponderous Disc his

daring skill had designed; and under his breath he murmured, “Oh

Lilith, oh my too happy Lilith! and yet you tell me there is no

death!” Féraz, however, the young and sensitive Féraz, listened to

the sad recital with quiet interest, unhorrified, apparently

unmoved,--his eyes were bright, his expression placid.

“He could not have suffered;”--he observed at last, when Karl had

finished speaking--“The flash of lightning must have severed body and

spirit instantly and without pain. I think it was a good end.”

Karl looked at the beautiful smiling youth in vague horror. What!--to

be flattened out like a board beneath a ponderous weight of fallen

stone--to be so disfigured as to be unrecognisable--to be only a

mangled mass of flesh difficult of decent burial,--and call that “a

good end”! Karl shuddered and groaned;--he was not versed in the

strange philosophies of young Féraz--_he_ had never been out of his

body on an ethereal journey to the star-kingdoms.

“It was the judgment of God,”--he repeated dully--“Neither more nor

less. My poor master studied too hard, and tried to find out too much,

and I think he made God angry----”

“My good fellow,” interrupted El-Râmi rather irritably--“do not talk

of what you do not understand. You have been faithful, hard-working

and all the rest of it,--but as for your master trying to find out too

much, or God getting angry with him, that is all nonsense. We were

placed on this earth to find out as much as we can, about it and about

ourselves, and do the best that is possible with our learning,--and

the bare idea of a great God condescending to be ‘angry’ with one out

of millions upon millions of units is absurd----”

“But even if an unit rebels against the Law the Law crushes

him”--interrupted Féraz softly--“A gnat flies into flame--the flame

consumes it--the Law is fulfilled,--and the Law is God’s Will.”

El-Râmi bit his lip vexedly.

“Well, be that as it may, one must needs find out what the Law _is_

first, before it can either be accepted or opposed,” he said.

Féraz made no answer. He was thinking of the simplicity of certain

Laws of Spirit and Matter which were accepted and agreed to by the

community of men of whom the monk from Cyprus was the chief master.

Karl meanwhile stared bewilderedly from Féraz to El-Râmi and from

El-Râmi back to Féraz again. Their remarks were totally beyond his

comprehension; he never could understand, and never wanted to

understand, these subtle philosophies.

“I came to ask you, sir”--he said after a pause--“whether you would

not, now you know all, manage to take away that devilish thing that

killed my master? I’m afraid to touch it myself, and no one else

will--and there it lies up in the ruined tower shining away like a big

lamp, and sticking like a burr to the iron rod I lifted it with, If

it’s any good to you, I’m sure you’d better have it--and by the bye, I

found this, sir, in my master’s room addressed to you.”

He held out a sealed envelope, which El-Râmi opened. It contained a

folded paper, on which were scratched these lines--

“To El-Râmi Zarânos.

“Good friend, in the event of my death, I beg you to accept all my

possessions such as they are, and do me the one favour I ask, which is

this--Destroy the Disc, and let my problem die with me.”

This paper, duly signed, bore the date of two years previously.

El-Râmi read it, and handed it to Karl, who read it also. They were

silent for a few minutes; then El-Râmi crossed the room, and,

unlocking a small cupboard in the wall, took out a sealed flask full

of what looked like red wine.

“See here, Karl”--he said;--“There is no devil in the great stone you

are so afraid of. It is as perishable as anything else in this best of

all possible worlds. It is nothing but a peculiar and rare growth of

crystal, which, though found in the lowest depths of the earth, has

the quality of absorbing light and emitting it. It clings to the iron

rod in the way you speak of because it is a magnet,--and iron not only

attracts but fastens it. It is impossible for me just now to go to

Ilfracombe--besides there is really no necessity for my presence

there. I can fully trust you to bring me the papers and few

possessions of my poor old friend,--and for the rest, you can destroy

the stone yourself--the Disc, as your master called it. All you have

to do is simply to pour this liquid on it,--it will pulverise--that

is, it will crumble into dust while you watch it, and in ten minutes

will be indistinguishable from the fallen mortar of the shattered

tower. Do you understand?”

Karl’s mouth opened a little in wonderment, and he nodded feebly,--he

found it quite easy and natural to be afraid of the flask containing a

mixture of such potent quality, and he took it from El-Râmi’s hand

very gingerly and reluctantly. A slight smile crossed El-Râmi’s

features as he said--

“No, Karl! there is no danger--no fear of pulverisation for _you_. You

can put the phial safely in your pocket,--and though its contents

would pulverise a mountain if used in sufficient quantities,--the

liquid has no effect on flesh and blood.”

“Pulverise a mountain!” repeated Karl nervously--“Do you mean that it

could turn a mountain into a dust-heap?”

“Or a city--or a fortress--or a rock-bound coast--or anything in the

shape of stone that you please”--replied El-Râmi carelessly--“but it

will not harm human beings.”

“Will it not explode, sir?” and Karl still looked at the flask in

doubt.

“Oh no--it will do its work with extraordinary silence and no less

extraordinary rapidity. Do not be afraid!”

Slowly and with evident uneasiness Karl put the terrifying composition

into his pocket, deeply impressed by the idea that he had about him

stuff, which, if used in sufficient quantity, could “pulverise a

mountain.” It was awful! worse than dynamite, he considered, his

thoughts flying off wantonly to the woes of Irishmen and Russians.

El-Râmi seemed not to notice his embarrassment and went on talking

quietly, asking various questions concerning Kremlin’s funeral, and

giving advice as to the final arrangements which were necessary, till

presently he inquired of Karl what he proposed doing with himself in

the future.

“Oh I shall look out for another situation,”--he said--“I shall not go

back to Germany. I like to think of the ‘Fatherland,’ and I can sing

the ‘Wacht am Rhein’ with as much lung as anybody, but I wouldn’t care

to live there. I think I shall try for a place where there’s a lady to

serve; you know, sir, gentlemen’s ways are apt to be monotonous.

Whether they are clever or foolish they always stick to it, whatever

it is. A gentleman that races is always racing, and always talking and

thinking about racing,--a gentleman that drinks is always on the

drink,--a gentleman that coaches is always coaching, and so on; now a

lady _does_ vary! One day she’s all for flowers, another for pictures,

another for china,--sometimes she’s mad about music, sometimes about

dresses,--or else she takes a fit for study, and gets heaps of books

from the libraries. Now for a man-servant all that is very agreeable

and lively.”

Féraz laughed at this novel view of domestic service, and Karl,

growing a little more cheerful, went on with his explanation--

“You see, supposing I get into a lady’s service, I shall have so much

more to distract me. One afternoon I shall be waiting outside a

picture-gallery with her shawls and wraps; another day I shall be

running backwards and forwards to a library,--and then there’s always

the pleasure of never quite knowing what she will do next. And it’s

excitement I want just now--it really is!”

The corners of his good-humoured mouth drooped again despondently, and

his thoughts reverted with unpleasant suddenness to the “pulverising”

liquid in his pocket. What a terrible thing it was to get acquainted

with scientists!

El-Râmi listened to his observations patiently.

“Well, Karl,” he said at last--“I think I can promise you a situation

such as you would like. There is a very famous and lovely lady in

London, known to the reading-world as Irene Vassilius--she writes

original books; is sweetly capricious, yet nobly kind-hearted. I will

write to her about you, and I have no doubt she will give you a

trial.”

Karl brightened up immensely at this prospect.

“Thank you, sir!” he said fervently--“You’ve no idea what a deal of

good it will do me to take in the tea to a sweet-looking lady--a

properly-served tea, you know, all silver and good china. It will be a

sort of tonic to me,--it will indeed, after that terrible place at

Ilfracombe. You can tell her I’m a very handy man,--I can do almost

anything, from cooking a chop, up to stretching my legs all day in a

porter’s chair in the hall and reading the latest ‘special.’ Anything

she wishes, whether for show or economy, she couldn’t have a better

hand at it than me;--will you tell her so, sir?”

“Certainly!” replied El-Râmi with a smile. “I’ll tell her you are a

domestic Von Moltke, and that under your management her household will

be as well ordered as the German army under the great Field-Marshal.”

After a little more desultory conversation, Karl took his departure,

and returned by the afternoon train to Ilfracombe. He was living with

one of his fisher-friends, and as it was late when he arrived he made

no attempt to go to the deserted house of his deceased master that

night. But early the next morning he hurried there before breakfast,

and ascended to the shattered tower,--that awful scene of desolation

from whence poor Kremlin’s mangled remains had been taken, and where

only a dark stain of blood on the floor silently testified of the

horror that had there been enacted. The Disc, lying prone, glittered

as he approached it, with, as he thought, a fiendish and supernatural

light--the early sunlight fell upon its surface, and a thousand

prismatic tints and sparkles dazzled his eyes as he drew near and

gazed dubiously at it where it still clung to the iron pendulum. What

could his master have used such a strange object for?--what did it

mean? And that solemn humming noise which he had used to hear when the

nights were still,--had that glistening thing been the cause?--had it

any sound? ... Struck by this idea, and filled with a sudden courage,

he seized a piece of thick wire, part of the many tangled coils that

lay among the ruins of roof and wall, and with it gave the Disc a

smart blow on its edge ... hush! ... hush! ... The wire dropped from

his hand, and he stood, almost paralysed with fear. A deep, solemn,

booming sound, like a great cathedral bell, rang through the

air,--grand, and pure and musical, and ... unearthly!--as might be the

clarion stroke of a clock beating out, not the short pulsations of

Time, but the vast throbs of Eternity. Round and round, in eddying

echoes swept that sweet, sonorous note,--till--growing gradually

fainter and fainter, it died entirely away from human hearing, and

seemed to pass out and upwards into the gathering sun-rays that poured

brightly from the east, there to take its place, perchance, in that

immense diapason of vibrating tone-music that fills the star-strewn

space for ever and ever. It was the last sound struck from the great

Star-Dial:--for Karl, terrified at the solemn din, wasted no more time

in speculative hesitation, but, taking the flask El-Râmi had given

him, he opened it tremblingly and poured all its contents on the

surface of the crystal. The red liquid ran over the stone like blood,

crumbling it as it ran and extinguishing its brilliancy,--eating its

substance away as rapidly as vitriol eats away the human

skin,--blistering it and withering it visibly before Karl’s astonished

eyes,--till, as El-Râmi had said, it was hardly distinguishable from

the dust and mortar around it. One piece lasted just a little longer

than the rest--it curled and writhed like a living thing under the

absolutely noiseless and terribly destructive influence of that

blood-like liquid that seemed to sink into it as water sinks into a

sponge,--Karl watched it, fascinated--till all at once it broke into a

sparkle like flame, gleamed, smouldered, leaped high ...

and--disappeared. The wondrous Dial, with its “perpetual motion” and

its measured rhythm, was as if it had never been,--it had vanished as

utterly as a destroyed Planet,--and the mighty Problem reflected on

its surface remained ... and will most likely still remain ... a

mystery unsolved.

XXXII.

For two or three weeks after he had received the news of Kremlin’s

death, El-Râmi’s mind was somewhat troubled and uneasy. He continued

his abstruse studies ardently, yet with less interest than usual,--and

he spent hour after hour in Lilith’s room, sitting beside the couch on

which she reposed, saying nothing, but simply watching her, himself

absorbed in thought. Days went by and he never roused her,--never

asked her to reply to any question concerning the deep things of time

and of eternity with which her aërial spirit seemed conversant. He

was more impressed by the suddenness and terror of Kremlin’s end than

he cared to admit to himself,--and the “Light-Maps” and other papers

belonging to his deceased old friend, all of which had now come into

his possession, were concise enough in many marvellous particulars to

have the effect of leading him almost imperceptibly to believe that

after all there was a God,--an actual Being whose magnificent

attributes baffled the highest efforts of the imagination, and who

indeed, as the Bible grandly hath it--“holds the Universe in the

hollow of His hand.” And he began to go back to the Bible for

information;--for he, like most students versed in Eastern

philosophies, knew that all that was ever said or will be said on the

mysteries of life and death is to be found in that Book, which, though

full of much matter that does not pertain to its actual teaching,

remains the one chief epitome of all the wisdom of the world. When it

is once remembered that the Deity of Moses and Aaron was their own

invented hobgoblin, used for the purpose of terrifying and keeping the

Jews in order, much becomes clear that is otherwise impossible to

accept or comprehend. Historians, priests, lawgivers, prophets and

poets have all contributed to the Bible,--and when we detach class

from class and put each in its proper place, without confounding them

all together in an inextricable jumble as “Divine inspiration,” we

obtain a better view of the final intention of the whole. El-Râmi

considered Moses and Aaron in the light of particularly clever Eastern

conjurers,--and not only conjurers, but tacticians and diplomatists,

who had just the qualities necessary to rule a barbarous, ignorant,

and rebellious people. The thunders of Mount Sinai, the graving of the

commandments on tablets of stone,--the serpent in the wilderness,--the

bringing of water out of a rock,--the parting of the sea to let an

army march through; he, El-Râmi, knew how all these things were done,

and was perfectly cognisant of the means and appliances used to

compass all these seemingly miraculous events.

“What a career I could make if I chose!” he thought--“What wealth I

could amass,--what position! I who know how to quell the wildest waves

of the sea,--I who, by means of a few drops of liquid, can corrode a

name or a device so deeply on stone that centuries shall not efface

it--I who can do so many things that would astonish the vulgar and

make them my slaves,--why am I content to live as I do, when I could

be greater than a crowned king? Why, because I scorn to trick the

ignorant by scientific skill which I have neither the time nor the

patience to explain to them--and again--because I want to fathom the

Impossible;--I want to prove if indeed there is any Impossible. What

_can_ be done and proved, when once it _is_ done and proved, I regard

as nothing,--and because I know how to smooth the sea, call down the

rain, and evoke phantoms out of the atmosphere, I think such

manifestations of power trifling and inadequate. These things are all

_provable_; and the performance of them is attained through a familiar

knowledge of our own earth elements and atmosphere, but to find out

the subtle Something that is not of earth, and has not yet been made

provable,--that is the aim of my ambition. The Soul! What is it? Of

what ethereal composition? of what likeness? of what feeling? of what

capacity? This, and this alone, is the Supreme Mystery,--when once we

understand it, we shall understand God. The preachers waste their time

in urging men and women to save their souls, so long as we remain in

total ignorance as to what the Soul is. We cannot be expected to

take any trouble to “save” or even regard anything so vague and

dubious as the Soul under its present conditions. What is visible and

provable to our eyes is that our friends die, and, to all intents and

purposes, disappear. We never know them as they were any more, ...

and, ... what is still more horrible to think of, but is nevertheless

true,--our natural tendency is to forget them,--indeed, after three or

four years, perhaps less, we should find it difficult, without the aid

of a photograph or painted picture, to recall their faces to our

memories. And it is curious to think of it, but we really remember

their ways, their conversation, and their notions of life better than

their actual physiognomies. All this is very strange and very

perplexing too,--and it is difficult to imagine the reason for such

perpetual tearing down of affections, and such bitter loss and

harassment, unless there is some great Intention behind it all,--an

Intention of which it is arranged we shall be made duly cognisant. If

we are _not_ to be made cognisant,--if we are _not_ to have a full and

perfect Explanation,--then the very fact of Life being lived at all is

a mere cruelty,--a senseless jest which lacks all point,--and the very

grandeur and immensity of the Universe becomes nothing but the meanest

display of gigantic Force remorselessly put forth to overwhelm

creatures who have no power to offer resistance to its huge tyranny.

If I could but fathom that ultimate purpose of things!--if I could but

seize the subtle clue--for I believe it is something very slight and

delicate which by its very fineness we have missed,--something which

has to do with the Eternal Infinitesimal--that marvellous power which

creates animated and regularly organised beings, many thousands of

whose bodies laid together would not extend _one inch_. It is not to

the Infinitely Great one must look for the secret of creation, but to

the Infinitely Little.”

So he mused, as he sat by the couch of Lilith and watched her sleeping

that enchanted sleep of death-in-life. Old Zaroba, though now

perfectly passive and obedient, and fulfilling all his commands with

scrupulous exactitude, was not without her own ideas and hopes as she

went about her various duties connected with the care of the beautiful

tranced girl. She seldom spoke to Féraz now except on ordinary

household matters, and he understood and silently respected her

reserve. She would sit in her accustomed corner of Lilith’s regal

apartment, weaving her thread-work mechanically, but ever and anon

lifting her burning eyes to look at El-Râmi’s absorbed face and note

the varied expressions she saw, or fancied she saw there.

“The feverish trouble has begun”--she muttered to herself on one

occasion, as she heard her master sigh deeply--“The stir in the

blood,--the restlessness--the wonder--the desire. And out of heart’s

pain comes heart’s peace;--and out of desire, accomplishment; and

shall not the old gods of the world rejoice to see love born again of

flames and tears and bitter-sweet as in the ancient days? For there is

no love now such as there used to be--the pale Christ has killed

it,--and the red rose aglow with colour and scent is now but a dull

weed on a tame shore, washed by the salt sea, but never warmed by the

sun. In the days of old, in the nights when Ashtaroth was queen of the

silver hours, the youths and maidens knew what it was to love in the

very breath of Love!--and the magic of all Nature, the music of the

woods and waters, the fire of the stars, the odours of the

flowers--all these were in the dance and beat of the young blood, and

in the touch of the soft red lips as they met and clung together in

kisses sweeter than honey in wine. But now--now the world has grown

old and cold, and dreary and joyless,--it is winter among men and the

summer is past.”

So she would murmur to herself in her wild half-poetical jargon of

language--her voice never rising above an inarticulate whisper.

El-Râmi never heard her or seemed to regard her--he had no eyes

except for the drowsing Lilith.

If he had been asked, at this particular time, why he went to that

room day after day, to stare silently at his beautiful “subject” and

ponder on everything connected with her, he could not have answered

the question. He did not himself know why. Something there was in him,

as in every portion of created matter, which remained

inexplicable,--something of his own nature which he neither understood

nor cared to analyse. He who sought to fathom the last depth of

research concerning God and the things divine would have been

compelled to own, had he been cross-examined on the matter, that he

found it impossible to fathom himself. The clue to his own Ego was as

desperately hard to seize, as curiously subtle and elusive, as the

clue to the riddle of Creation. He was wont to pride himself on his

consistency--yet in his heart of hearts he knew that in many things he

was inconsistent,--he justly triumphed in his herculean

Will-force,--yet now he was obliged to admit to himself that there was

something in the silent placid aspect of Lilith as she lay before him,

subservient to his command, that quite unnerved him and scattered his

thoughts. It had not used to be so--but now,--it _was_ so. And he

dated the change, whether rightly or wrongly, from the day on which

the monk from Cyprus had visited him, and this thought made him

restless and irritable, and full of unjust and unreasonable

suspicions. For had not the “Master,” as he was known in the community

to which he belonged, said that he had _seen_ the Soul of Lilith,

while he, El-Râmi, had never attained to so beatific an altitude of

vision? Then was it not possible that, notwithstanding his rectitude

and steadfastness of purpose, the “Master,” great and Christ-like in

self-denial though he was, might influence Lilith in some unforeseen

way? Then there was Féraz--Féraz, whose supplications and

protestations had won a smile from the tranced girl, and who therefore

must assuredly have roused in her some faint pleasure and interest.

Such thoughts as these rankled in his mind and gave him no peace--for

they conveyed to him the unpleasing idea that Lilith was not all his

own as he desired her to be,--others had a share in her thoughts.

Could he have nothing entirely to himself? he would demand angrily of

his own inner consciousness--not even this life which he had, as it

were, robbed from death? And an idea, which had at first been the

merest dim suggestion, now deepened into a passionate resolve--he

would _make_ her his own so thoroughly and indissolubly that neither

gods nor devils should snatch her from him.

“Her life is mine!” he said--“And she shall live as long as I please.

Her body shall sleep, ... if I still choose, ... or ... it shall

_wake_. But whether awake, or sleeping in the flesh, her spirit shall

obey me always--like the satellite of a planet, that disembodied Soul

shall be mine for ever!”

When he spoke thus to himself, he was sitting in his usual

contemplative attitude by the couch where Lilith lay;--he rose up

suddenly and paced the room, drawing back the velvet portière and

setting open the door of the ante-chamber as though he craved for

fresh air. Music sounded through the house, ... it was Féraz singing.

His full pure tenor voice came floating up, bearing with it the words

he sang:

“And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee!

“For the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,--

And the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee--

And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her tomb by the sounding sea!”

With a shaking hand El-Râmi shut the door more swiftly than he had

opened it, and dragged the heavy portière across it to deaden the

sound of that song!--to keep it out from his ears ... from his heart,

... to stop its passionate vibration from throbbing along his nerves

like creeping fire. ...

“And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.” ...

“God!--my God!” he muttered incoherently--“What ails me? ... Am I

going mad that I should dream thus?”

He gazed round the room wildly, his hand still clutching the velvet

portière,--and met the keenly watchful glance of Zaroba. Her hands

were mechanically busy with her thread-work,--but her eyes, black,

piercing and brilliant, were fixed on him steadfastly. Something in

her look compelled his attention,--something in his compelled hers.

They stared across the room at each other, as though a Thought had

sprung between them like an armed soldier with drawn sword, demanding

from each the pass-word to a mystery. In and out, across and across

went the filmy glistening threads in Zaroba’s wrinkled hands, but her

eyes never moved from El-Râmi’s face, and she looked like some weird

sorceress weaving a web of destiny.

“For you were the days of Ashtaroth!” she said in a low, monotonous,

yet curiously thrilling tone--“You are born too late, El-Râmi,--the

youth of the world has departed and the summer seasons of the heart

are known on earth no more. You are born too late--too late!--the

Christ claims all,--the body, the blood, the nerve and the

spirit,--every muscle of His white limbs on the cross must be atoned

for by the dire penance and torture of centuries of men. So that now

even love is a thorn in the flesh and its prick must be paid with a

price,--these are the hours of woe preceding the end. The blood that

runs in your veins, El-Râmi, has sprung from kings and strong rulers

of men,--and the pale faint spirits of this dull day have naught to do

with its colour and glow. And it rebels, O El-Râmi!--as God liveth,

it rebels!--it burns in your heart--the proud, strong heart,--like

ruddy wine in a ruby cup; it rebels, El-Râmi!--it rises to passion as

rise the waves of the sea to the moon, by a force and an impulse in

Nature stronger than yours! Ay, ay!--for you were the days of

Ashtaroth”--and her voice sank into a wailing murmur--“but

now--now--the Christ claims all.”

He heard her as one may hear incoherencies in a nightmare

vision;--only a few weeks ago he would have been angry with her for

what he would then have termed her foolish jargon,--but he was not

angry now. Why should he be angry? he wondered dully--had he time to

even think of anger while thus unnerved by that keen tremor that

quivered through his frame--a tremor he strove in vain to calm? His

hand fell from the curtain,--the sweet distracting song of Poe’s

“Annabel Lee” had ceased,--and he advanced into the room again, his

heart beating painfully still, his head a little drooped as though

with a sense of conscious shame. He moved slowly to where the roses in

the Venetian vase exhaled their odours on the air, and breaking one

off its branch toyed with it aimlessly, letting its pale pink leaves

flutter down one by one on the violet carpet at his feet. Suddenly, as

though he had resolved a doubt and made up his mind to something, he

turned towards Zaroba, who watched him fixedly,--and with a mute

signal bade her leave the apartment. She rose instantly, and crossing

her hands upon her breast made her customary obeisance and

waited,--for he looked at her with a meditative expression which

implied that he had not yet completed his instructions. Presently, and

with some hesitation, he made her another sign--a sign which had the

effect of awakening a blaze of astonishment in her dark sunken eyes.

“No more to-night!” she repeated aloud--“It is your will that I return

here no more to-night?”

He gave a slow but decided gesture of assent,--there was no mistaking

it.

Zaroba paused an instant, and then with a swift noiseless step went to

the couch of Lilith and bent yearningly above that exquisite sleeping

form.

“Star of my heart!” she muttered--“Child whose outward fairness I have

ever loved, unheedful of the soul within,--may there still be strength

enough left in the old gods to bid thee wake!”

El-Râmi caught her words, and a faint smile, proud yet bitter, curved

his delicate lips.

“The old gods or the new--does it matter which?” he mused

vaguely.--“And what is their strength compared with the Will of Man by

which the very elements are conquered and made the slaves of his

service? ‘My Will is God’s Will’ should be every strong man’s motto.

But I--am I strong--or the weakest of the weak? ... and ... shall the

Christ claim all?”

The soft fall of the velvet portière startled him as it dropped

behind the retreating figure of Zaroba--she had left the room, and he

was alone,--alone with Lilith.

XXXIII.

He remained quite still, standing near the tall vase that held the

clustered roses,--in his hand he grasped unconsciously the stalk of

the one he had pulled to pieces. He was aware of his own strange

passiveness,--it was a sort of inexplicable inertia which like

temporary paralysis seemed to incapacitate him from any action. It

would have appeared well and natural to him that he should stay there

so, dreamily, with the scented rose-stalk in his hand, for any length

of time. A noise in the outer street roused him a little,--the

whistling, hooting, and laughing of drunken men reeling

homewards,--and, lifting his eyes from their studious observation of

the floor, he sighed deeply.

“That is the way the great majority of men amuse themselves,”--he

mused. “Drink, stupidity, brutality, sensuality--all blatant proofs of

miserable unresisted weakness,--can it be possible that God can care

for such? Could even the pity of Christ pardon such wilful workers of

their own ruin? The pity of Christ, said I?--nay, at times even He was

pitiless. Did He not curse a fig-tree because it was barren?--though

truly we are not told the cause of its barrenness. Of course the

lesson is that Life--the fig-tree--has no right to be barren of

results,--but why curse it, if it is? What is the use of a curse at

any time? And what, may equally be asked, is the use of a blessing?

Neither are heard; the curse is seldom, if ever, wreaked,--and the

blessing, so the sorrowful say, is never granted.”

The noise and the laughter outside died away,--and a deep silence

ensued. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, and noted his own

reflective attitude,--his brooding visage; and studied himself

critically as he would have studied a picture.

“You are no Antinous, my friend”--he said aloud, addressing his own

reflection with some bitterness--“A mere suntanned Oriental with a

pair of eyes in which the light is more of hell than heaven. What

should you do with yourself, frowning at Fate? You are a superb

egoist,--no more.”

As he spoke, the roses in the vase beside him swayed lightly to and

fro, as though a faint wind had fanned them, and their perfume stole

upon the air like the delicate breath of summer wafted from some

distant garden.