There was no window open--and El-Râmi had not stirred, so that no

movement on his part could have shaken the vase,--and yet the roses

quivered on their stalks as if brushed by a bird’s wing. He watched

them with a faint sense of curiosity--but with no desire to discover

why they thus nodded their fair heads to an apparently causeless

vibration. He was struggling with an emotion that threatened to

overwhelm him,--he knew that he was not master of himself,--and

instinctively he kept his face turned away from the tranced Lilith.

“I must not look upon her--I dare not;” he whispered to the

silence--“Not yet--not yet.”

There was a low chair close by, and he dropped into it wearily,

covering his eyes with one hand. He tried to control his thoughts--but

they were rebellious, and ran riot in spite of him. The words of

Zaroba rang in his ears--“For you were the days of Ashtaroth.” The

days of Ashtaroth!--for what had they been renowned? For Jove and the

feasts of love,--for mirth and song and dance--for crowns of flowers,

for shouting of choruses and tinkling of cymbals, for exquisite luxury

and voluptuous pleasures,--for men and women who were not ashamed of

love and took delight in loving;--were there not better, warmer ways

of life in those old times than now--now when cautious and timid souls

make schemes for marriage as they scheme for wealth,--when they

snigger at “love” as though it were some ludicrous defect in mortal

composition, and when real passion of any kind is deemed downright

improper, and not to be spoken of before cold and punctilious society?

“Ay, but the passion is there all the same;”--thought El-Râmi--“Under

the ice burns the fire,--all the fiercer and the more dangerous for

its repression.”

And he still kept his hand over his eyes, thinking.

“The Christ claims all”--had said Zaroba. Nay, what has Christ done

that He should claim all? “He died for us!” cry the preachers.

Well,--others can die also. “He was Divine!” proclaim the churches. We

are all Divine, if we will but let the Divinity in us have way. And

moved by these ideas, El-Râmi rose up and crossed to a niche in the

purple-pavilioned walls of the room, before which hung a loose breadth

of velvet fringed with gold,--this he drew aside, and disclosed a

picture very finely painted, of Christ standing near the sea,

surrounded by His disciples--underneath it were inscribed the

words--“Whom say ye that I am?”

The dignity and beauty of the face and figure were truly marvellous,

the expression of the eyes had something of pride as well as

sweetness, and El-Râmi confronted it as he had confronted it many

times before, with a restless inquisitiveness.

“Whom say ye that I am?”

The painted Christ seemed to audibly ask the question.

“O noble Mystery of a Man, I cannot tell!” exclaimed El-Râmi suddenly

and aloud--“I cannot say who you are, or who you were. A riddle for

all the world to wonder at,--a white Sphinx with a smile

inscrutable,--all the secrets of Egypt are as nothing to your secret,

O simple, pure-souled Nazarene! You, born in miserable plight in

miserable Bethlehem, changed the aspect of the world, altered and

purified the modes of civilisation, and thrilled all life with higher

motives for work than it had ever been dowered with before. All this

in three years’ work, ending in a criminal’s death! Truly, if there

was not something Divine in you, then God Himself is an error!”

The grand face seemed to smile upon him with a deep and solemn pity,

and “Whom say ye that I am?” sounded in his ears as though it were

spoken by some one in the room.

“I must be getting nervous;”--he muttered, drawing the curtain softly

over the picture again, and looking uneasily round about him, “I think

I cannot be much more than the weakest of men,--after all.”

A faint tremor seized him as he turned slowly but resolutely round

towards the couch of Lilith, and let his eyes rest on her enchanting

loveliness. Step by step he drew nearer and nearer till he bent

closely over her, but he did not call her by name. A loose mass of her

hair lay close to his arm,--with an impetuous suddenness he gathered

it in his hands and kissed it.

“A sheaf of sunbeams!”--he whispered, his lips burning as they

caressed the shining wealth of silken curls--“A golden web in which

kisses might be caught and killed! Ah Heaven, have pity on me!” and he

sank by the couch, stifling his words beneath his breath--“If I love

this girl--if all this mad tumult in my soul is Love--let her never

know it, O merciful Fates!--or she is lost, and so am I. Let me be

bound,--let her be free,--let me fight down my weakness, but let her

never know that I am weak, or I shall lose her long obedience. No, no!

I will not summon her to me now--it is best she should be

absent,--this body of hers, this fair fine casket of her spirit is but

a dead thing when that spirit is elsewhere. She cannot hear me,--she

does not see me--no, not even when I lay this hand--this ‘shadow of a

hand,’ as she once called it, here, to quell my foolish murmurings.”

And, lifting Lilith’s hand as he spoke, he pressed its roseate palm

against his lips,--then on his forehead. A strange sense of relief and

peace came upon him with the touch of those delicate fingers--it was

as though a cool wind blew, bringing freshness from some quiet

mountain lake or river. Silently he knelt,--and presently, somewhat

calmed, lifted his eyes again to look at Lilith,--she smiled in her

deep trance--she was the very picture of some happy angel sleeping.

His arm sank in the soft satin coverlet as he laid back the little

hand he held upon her breast,--and with eager scrutiny he noted every

tint and every line in her exquisite face;--the lovely long lashes

that swept the blush-rose of her cheeks,--the rounded chin, dimpled in

its curve,--the full white throat, the perfect outline of the whole

fair figure as it rested like a branched lily in a bed of snow,--and,

as he looked, he realised that all this beauty was his--his, if he

chose to take Love and let Wisdom go. If he chose to resign the chance

of increasing his knowledge of the supernatural,--if he were content

to accept earth for what it is, and heaven for what it may be, Lilith,

the bodily incarnation of loveliness, purity and perfect womanhood,

was his--his only. He grew dizzy at the thought,--then by an effort

conquered the longing of his heart. He remembered what he had sworn to

do,--to discover the one great secret before he seized the joy that

tempted him,--to prove the actual, individual, conscious existence of

the Being that is said to occupy a temporary habitation in flesh. He

knew and he saw the body of Lilith,--he must know, and he must _see_

her Soul. And while he leaned above her couch, entranced, a sudden

strain of music echoed through the stillness,--music solemn and sweet,

that stirred the air into rhythmic vibrations as of slow and sacred

psalmody. He listened, perplexed but not afraid,--he was not afraid of

anything in earth or heaven save--himself. He knew that man has his

worst enemy in his own Ego,--beyond that, there is very little in life

that need give cause for alarm. He had, till now, been able to

practise the stoical philosophy of an Epictetus while engaged in

researches that would have puzzled the brain of a Plato,--but his

philosophy was just now at fault and his self-possession gone to the

four winds of heaven--and why? He knew not--but he was certain the

fault lay in himself, and not in others. Of an arrogant temper and a

self-reliant haughty disposition he had none of that low cowardice

which people are guilty of, who, finding themselves in a dilemma, cast

the blame at once on others, or on “circumstances” which, after all,

were most probably of their own creating. And the strange music that

ebbed and flowed in sonorous pulsations through the air around him

troubled him not at all,--he attributed it at once to something or

other that was out of order in his own mental perceptions. He knew

how, in certain conditions of the brain, some infinitesimal trifle

gone wrong in the aural nerves will persuade one that trumpets are

blowing, violins playing, birds singing or bells ringing in the

distance,--just as a little disorder of the visual organs will help to

convince one of apparitions. He knew how to cast a “glamour” better

than any so-called “theosophist” in full practice of his

trickery,--and, being thus perfectly aware how the human sense can be

deceived, listened to the harmonious sounds he heard with speculative

interest, wondering how long this “fancy” of his would last. Much more

startled was he when amid the rising and falling of the mysterious

melody he heard the voice of Lilith saying softly in her usual

manner--

“I am here!”

His heart beat rapidly, and he rose slowly from his kneeling position

by her side. “I did not call you, Lilith!” he said tremblingly.

“No!” and her sweet lips smiled--“you did not call, ... I came!”

“Why did you come?” he asked, still faintly.

“For my own joy and yours!” she answered in thrilling tones--“Sweeter

than all the heavens is Love, and Love is here!”

An icy cold crept through him as he heard the rapture in her

accents,--such rapture!--like that of a lark singing in the sunlight

on a fresh morning of May. And like the dim sound of a funeral bell

came the words of the monk, tolling solemnly across his memory, in

spite of his efforts to forget them, “With Lilith’s love comes

Lilith’s freedom.”

“No, no!” he muttered within himself--“It cannot be,--it shall not

be!--she is mine, mine only. Her fate is in my hands; if there be

justice in Heaven, who else has so much right to her body or her soul

as I?”

And he stood, gazing irresolutely at the girl, who stirred restlessly

and flung her white arms upward on her pillows, while the music he had

heard suddenly ceased. He dared not speak,--he was afraid to express

any desire or impose any command upon this “fine sprite” which had for

six years obeyed him, but which might now, for all he could tell, be

fluttering vagrantly on the glittering confines of realms far beyond

his ken.

Her lips moved,--and presently she spoke again.

“Wonderful are the ways of Divine Law!” she murmured softly--“and

infinite are the changes it works among its creatures! An old man,

despised and poor, by friends rejected, perplexed in mind, but pure in

soul; such Was the Spirit that now Is. Passing me flame-like on its

swift way heavenward,--saved and uplifted, not by Wisdom, but by

Love.”

El-Râmi listened, awed and puzzled. Her words surely seemed to bear

some reference to Kremlin?

“Of the knowledge of the stars and the measuring of light there is

more than enough in the Universe;”--went on Lilith dreamily--“but of

faithful love, such as keeps an Angel for ever by one’s side, there is

little; therefore the Angels on earth are few.”

He could no longer restrain his curiosity.

“Do you speak of one who is dead, Lilith?” he asked--“One whom I

knew----”

“I speak of one who is living,”--she replied--“and one whom you

_know_. For none are dead; and Knowledge has no Past, but is all

Present.”

Her voice sank into silence. El-Râmi bent above her, studying her

countenance earnestly--her lashes trembled as though the eyelids were

about to open,--but the tremor passed and they remained shut. How

lovely she looked!--how more than lovely!

“Lilith!” he whispered, suddenly oblivious of all his former

forebodings, and unconscious of the eager passion vibrating in his

tone--“Sweet Lilith!”

She turned slightly towards him, and, lifting her arms from their

indolently graceful position on the pillows, she clasped her hands

high above her head in apparent supplication.

“Love me!” she cried, with such a thrill in her accent that it rang

through the room like a note of music--“Oh my Belovëd, love me!”

El-Râmi grew faint and dizzy,--his thoughts were all in a whirl, ...

was he made of marble or ice that he should not respond? Scarcely

aware of what he did, he took her clasped hands in his own.

“And do I not, Lilith?” he murmured, half anguished, half

entranced--“Do I not love you?”

“No, no!” said Lilith with passionate emphasis--“Not me,--not me,

Myself! Oh my Belovëd! love Me, not my Shadow!”

He loosened her hands, and recoiled, awed and perplexed. Her appeal

struck at the core of all his doubts,--and for one moment he was

disposed to believe in the actual truth of the Immortal Soul without

those “proofs” for which he constantly searched,--the next he rallied

himself on his folly and weakness. He dared not trust himself to

answer her, so he was silent,--but she soon spoke again with such

convincing earnestness of tone that almost ... almost he believed--but

not quite.

“To love the Seeming and not the Real,”--she said--“is the curse of

all sad Humanity. It is the glamour of the air,--the barrier between

Earth and Heaven. The Body is the Shadow--the Soul is the Substance.

The Reflection I cast on Earth’s surface for a little space is but a

Reflection only,--it is not Me:--I am beyond it!”

For a moment El-Râmi stood irresolute,--then gathering up his

scattered thoughts, he began to try and resolve them into order and

connection. Surely the time was ripe for his great Experiment?--and,

as he considered this, his nerves grew more steady,--his self-reliance

returned--all his devotion to scientific research pressed back its

claim upon his mind,--if he were to fail now, he thought, after all

his patience and study,--fail to obtain any true insight into the

spiritual side of humanity, would he not be ashamed, ay, and degraded

in his own eyes? He resolved to end all his torture of pain and doubt

and disquietude,--and, sitting on the edge of Lilith’s couch, he drew

her delicate hands down from their uplifted position, and laid them

one above the other cross-wise on his own breast.

“Then you must teach me, Lilith”--he said softly and with tender

persuasiveness--“you must teach me to know you. If I see but your

Reflection here,--let me behold your Reality. Let me love you as you

are, if now I only love you as you seem. Show yourself to me in all

your spiritual loveliness, Lilith!--it may be I shall die of the

glory,--or--if there is no death as you say,--I shall not die, but

simply pass away into the light which gives you life. Lift the veil

that is between us, Lilith, and let me see you face to face. If this

that _seems_ you”--and he pressed the little hands he held--“is

naught, let me realise the nothingness of so much beauty beside the

greater beauty that engenders it. Come to me as you _are_,

Lilith!--come!”

As he spoke, his heart beat fast with a nervous thrill of expectancy;

what would she answer? ... what would she do? He could not take his

eyes from her face--he half fancied he should see some change there;

for the moment he even thought it possible that she might transform

herself into some surpassing Being, which, like the gods of the Greek

mythology, should consume by its flame-like splendour whatever of

mortality dared to look upon it. But she remained unaltered, and

sculpturally calm,--only her breathing seemed a little quicker, and

the hands that he held trembled against his breast.

Her next words, however, startled him--

“I will come!” she said, and a faint sigh escaped her lips--“Be ready

for me. Pray!--pray for the blessing of Christ,--for, if Christ be

with us, all is well.”

At this, his brow clouded,--his eyes drooped gloomily.

“Christ!” he muttered more to himself than to her--“What is He to me?

Who is He that He should be with us?”

“This world’s rescue and all worlds’ glory!”

The answer rang out like a silver clarion, with something full and

triumphant in the sound, as though not only Lilith’s voice had uttered

it, but other voices had joined in a chorus. At the same moment, her

hands moved, as if in an effort to escape from his hold. But he held

them closely in a jealous and masterful grasp.

“When will you come to me, Lilith?” he demanded in low but eager

accents--“When shall I see you and know you as Lilith? ... _my_

Lilith, my own for ever?”

“God’s Lilith--God’s own for ever!” murmured Lilith dreamily, and then

was silent.

An angry sense of rebellion began to burn in El-Râmi’s mind.

Summoning up all the force of his iron will, he unclasped her hands

and laid them back on each side of her, and placed his own hand on her

breast, just where the ruby talisman shone and glowed.

“Answer me, Lilith!” he said, with something of the old sternness

which he had used to employ with her on former occasions--“When will

you come to me?”

Her limbs trembled violently as though some inward cold convulsed her,

and her answer came slowly, though clearly--

“When you are ready.”

“I am ready now!” he cried recklessly.

“No--no!” she murmured, her voice growing fainter and fainter--“Not

yet ... not yet! Love is not strong enough, high enough, pure enough.

Wait, watch and pray. When the hour has come, a sign will be

given--but O my Belovëd, if you would know me, love Me--love Me! not

my Shadow!”

A pale hue fell on her face, robbing it of its delicate

tint,--El-Râmi knew what that pallor indicated.

“Lilith! Lilith!” he exclaimed, “why leave me thus if you love me?

Stay with me yet a little!”

But Lilith--or rather the strange Spirit that made the body of Lilith

speak,--was gone. And all that night not another sound, either of

music or speech, stirred the silence of the room. Dawn came, misty and

gray, and found the proud El-Râmi kneeling before the unveiled

picture of the Christ,--not praying, for he could not bring himself

down to the necessary humiliation for prayer,--but simply wondering

vaguely as to what _could_ be and what _might_ be the one positive

reply to that question propounded of old--

“Whom Say Ye That I Am?”

XXXIV.

Of what avail is it to propound questions that no one can answer? Of

what use is it to attempt to solve the mystery of life which must for

ever remain mysterious? Thus may the intelligent critic ask, and, in

asking, may declare that the experiments, researches, and anxieties of

El-Râmi, together with El-Râmi himself, are mistaken conceptions all

round. But it is necessary to remind the intelligent critic that the

eager desire of El-Râmi to prove what appears unprovable is by no

means an uncommon phase of human nature,--it is in fact the very

key-note and pulse of the present time. Every living creature who is

not too stunned by misery for thought craves to know positively

whether the Soul,--the Immortal, Individual Ego, be Fable or Fact.

Never more than in this, our own period, did people search with such

unabated feverish yearning into the things that seem

supernatural;--never were there bitterer pangs of recoil and

disappointment when trickery and imposture are found to have even

temporarily passed for truth. If the deepest feeling in every human

heart to-day were suddenly given voice, the shout “Excelsior!” would

rend the air in mighty chorus. For we know all the old earth

stories;--of love, of war, of adventure, of wealth, we know pretty

well the beginning and the end,--we read in our histories of nations

that were, but now are not, and we feel that we shall in due time go

the same way with them,--that the wheel of Destiny spins on in the

same round always, and that nothing--nothing can alter its relentless

and monotonous course. We tread in the dust and among the fallen

columns of great cities and we vaguely wonder if the spirits of the

men that built them are indeed no more,--we gaze on the glorious pile

of the Duomo at Milan and think of the brain that first devised and

planned its majestic proportions, and ask ourselves--Is it possible

that this, the creation, should be Here, and its creator Nowhere?

Would such an arrangement be reasonable or just? And so it happens

that when the wielders of the pen essay to tell us of wars, of

shipwrecks, of hair-breadth escapes from danger, of love and politics

and society, we read their pages with merely transitory pleasure and

frequent indifference, but when they touch upon subjects beyond

earthly experience,--when they attempt, however feebly, to lift our

inspirations to the possibilities of the Unseen, then we give them our

eager attention and almost passionate interest. Critics look upon this

tendency as morbid, unwholesome and pernicious; but nevertheless the

tendency is there,--the demand for “Light! more light!” is in the very

blood and brain of the people. It would seem as though this world has

grown too narrow for the aspirations of its inhabitants;--and some of

us instinctively feel that we are on the brink of strange discoveries

respecting the powers unearthly, whether for good or evil we dare not

presume to guess. The nonsensical tenets of “Theosophy” would not gain

ground with a single individual man or woman were not this feeling

very strong among many,--the tricky “mediums” and “spiritualists”

would not have a chance of earning a subsistence out of the

gullibility of their dupes, and the preachers of new creeds and new

forms would obtain no vestige of attention if it were not for the fact

that there is a very general impression all over the world that the

time is ripe for a clearer revelation of God and the things of God

than we have ever had before. “Give us something that will endure!” is

the exclamation of weary humanity--“The things we have, pass; and, by

reason of their ephemeral nature, are worthless. Give us what we can

keep and call our own for ever!” This is why we try and test all

things that _appear_ to give proof of the super-sensual element in

man,--and when we find ourselves deceived by impostors and conjurers

our disgust and disappointment are too bitter to ever find vent in

words. The happiest are those who, in the shifting up and down of

faiths and formulas, ever cling steadfastly to the one pure example of

embodied Divinity in Manhood as seen in Christ. When we reject Christ,

we reject the Gospel of Love and Universal Brotherhood, without which

the ultimate perfection and progress of the world must ever remain

impossible.

A few random thoughts such as these occurred to El-Râmi now and then

as he lived his life from day to day in perpetual expectation of the

“sign” promised by Lilith, which as yet was not forthcoming. He

believed she would keep her word, and that the “sign” whatever it was

would be unmistakable; and,--as before stated--this was the nearest

approach to actual faith he had ever known. His was a nature which was

originally disposed to faith, but which had persistently fought with

its own inclination till that inclination had been conquered. He had

been able to prove as purely natural much that had _seemed_

supernatural, and he now viewed everything from two

points--Possibility and Impossibility. His various confusions and

perplexities, however, generally arose from the frequent discovery he

made that what he had once thought the Impossible suddenly became,

through some small chance clue, the Possible. So many times had this

occurred that he often caught himself wondering whether anything in

very truth could be strictly declared as “impossible.” And yet, ...

with the body of Lilith under his observation for six years, and an

absolute ignorance as to _how_ her intelligence had developed, or

_where_ she obtained the power to discourse with him as she did, he

always had the lurking dread that her utterances might be the result

of _his own brain unconsciously working upon hers_, and that there was

no “soul” or “spirit” in the matter. This, too, in spite of the fact

that she had actually given him a concise description of certain

planets, their laws, their government, and their inhabitants,

concerning which _he_ could know nothing,--and that she spoke with a

sure conviction of the existence of a personal God, an idea that was

entirely unacceptable to _his_ nature. He was at a loss to explain her

“separated consciousness” in any scientific way, and, afraid of

himself lest he should believe too easily, he encouraged the presence

of every doubt in his mind, rather than give entrance to more than the

palest glimmer of faith.

And so time went on, and May passed into June, and June deepened into

its meridian glow of bloom and sunlight, and he remained shut up

within the four walls of his house, seeing no one, and displaying a

total indifference to the fact that the “season” with all its bitter

froth and frivolity was seething on in London in its usual monotonous

manner. Unlike pretenders to “spiritualistic” powers, he had no

inclination for the society of the rich and great,--“titled” people

had no attraction for him save in so far as they were cultured, witty,

or amiable,--“position” in the world was a very miserable trifle in

his opinion, and, though many a gorgeous flunkied carriage at this

time found its way into the unfashionable square where he had his

domicile, no visitors were admitted to see him,--and “too busy to

receive any one” was the formula with which young Féraz dismissed any

would-be intruder. Yet Féraz himself wondered all the while how it

was that, as a matter of fact, El-Râmi seemed to be just now less

absorbed in actual study than he had ever been in his whole life. He

read no books save the old Arabic vellum-bound volume which held the

explanatory key to so many curious phenomena palmed off as “spiritual

miracles” by the theosophists, and he wrote a good deal,--but he

answered no letters, accepted no invitations, manifested no wish to

leave the house even for an hour’s stroll, and seemed mentally

engrossed by some great secret subject of meditation. He was uniformly

kind to Féraz, exacting no duties from him save those prompted by

interest and affection,--he was marvellously gentle too with Zaroba,

who, agitated, restless and perplexed as to his ultimate intentions

with respect to the beautiful Lilith, was vaguely uneasy and

melancholy, though she deemed it wisest to perform all his commands

with exactitude, and, for the present, to hold her peace. She had

expected something--though she knew not what--from his last interview

with her beautiful charge--but all was unchanged,--Lilith slept on,

and the cherished wish of Zaroba’s heart, that she should wake, seemed

as far off realisation as ever. Day after day passed, and El-Râmi

lived like a hermit amidst the roar and traffic of mighty

London,--watching Lilith for long and anxious hours, but never

venturing to call her down to him from wherever she might

be,--waiting, waiting for _her_ summons, and content for once to sink

himself in the thought of _her_ identity. All his ambitions were now

centred on the one great object, ... to see the Soul, _as_ it is, _if_

it is indeed existent, conscious and individual. For, as he argued,

what is the use of a “Soul” whose capacities we are not permitted to

understand?--and if it be no more to us than the intelligent faculty

of brain? The chief proof of a possible something behind Man’s inner

consciousness was, he considered, the quality of Discontent, and,

primarily, because Discontent is so universal. No one is contented in

all the world from end to end. From the powerful Emperor on his throne

to the whining beggar in the street, all chafe under the goading prick

of the great Necessity,--a something better,--a something lasting. Why

should this resonant key-note of Discontent be perpetually resounding

through space, if this life is all? No amount of philosophy or

argument can argue away Discontent--it is a god-like disquietude ever

fermenting changes among us, ever propounding new suggestions for

happiness, ever restless, never satisfied. And El-Râmi would ask

himself--Is Discontent the voice of the Soul?--not only the Universal

Soul of things, but the Soul of each individual? Then, if individual,

why should not the individual be made manifest, if manifestation be

possible? And if not possible, why should we be called upon to believe

in what cannot be manifested?

Thus he argued, not altogether unwisely; he had studied profoundly all

the divers conflicting theories of religion, and would at one time

have become an obstinately confirmed Positivist, had it not been for

the fact that the further his researches led him the more he became

aware that there was nothing positive,--that is to say, nothing so

apparently fixed and unalterable that it might not, under different

conditions, prove capable of change. Perhaps there is no better test

example of this truth than the ordinary substance known as iron. We

use in common parlance unthinkingly the phrase “as hard as

iron”--while to the smith and engineer, who mould and twist it in

every form, it proves itself soft and malleable as wax. Again, to the

surface observer, it might and does seem an incombustible metal,--the

chemist knows it will burn with the utmost fury. How then form a

_universal_ decision as to its various capabilities when it has so

many variations of use all in such contrary directions? The same

example, modified or enlarged, will be found to apply to all things,

wherefore the word “Positivism” seems out of place in merely mortal

language. God may be “positive,” but we and our surroundings have no

such absolute quality.

During this period of El-Râmi’s self-elected seclusion and meditation

his young brother Féraz was very happy. He was in the midst of

writing a poem which he fondly fancied might perhaps--only

perhaps--find a publisher to take it and launch it on its own

merits,--it is the privilege of youth to be over-sanguine. Then, too,

his brain was filled with new musical ideas,--and many an evening’s

hour he beguiled away by delicious improvisations on the piano, or

exquisite songs to the mandoline. El-Râmi, when he was not upstairs

keeping anxious vigil by the tranced Lilith’s side, would sit in his

chair, leaning back with half-closed eyes, listening to the entrancing

melodies like another Saul to a new David, soothed by the sweetness of

the sounds he heard, yet conscious that he took too deep and ardent a

pleasure in hearing, when the songs Féraz chose were of love. One

night Féraz elected to sing the wild and beautiful “Canticle of Love”

written by the late Lord Lytton, when as “Owen Meredith” he promised

to be one of the greatest poets of our century, and who would have

fulfilled more than that promise if diplomacy had not claimed his

brilliant intellectual gifts for the service of his country,--a

country which yet deplores his untimely loss. But no fatality had as

yet threatened that gallant and noble life in the days when Féraz

smote the chords of his mandoline and sang:

“I once heard an angel by night in the sky

Singing softly a song to a deep golden lute;

The pole-star, the seven little planets and I

To the song that he sang listened mute,

For the song that he sang was so strange and so sweet,

And so tender the tones of his lute’s golden strings,

That the seraphs of heaven sat hush’d at his feet

And folded their heads in their wings.

And the song that he sang to the seraphs up there

Is called ‘Love’! But the words ... I had heard them elsewhere.

“For when I was last in the nethermost Hell,

On a rock ’mid the sulphurous surges I heard

A pale spirit sing to a wild hollow shell;

And his song was the same, every word,

And so sad was his singing, all Hell to the sound

Moaned, and wailing, complained like a monster in pain

While the fiends hovered near o’er the dismal profound

With their black wings weighed down by the strain;

And the song that was sung to the Lost Ones down there

Is called ‘Love’! But the spirit that sang was Despair!”

The strings of the mandoline quivered mournfully in tune with the

passionate beauty of the verse, and from El-Râmi’s lips there came

involuntarily a deep and bitter sigh.

Féraz ceased playing and looked at him.

“What is it?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing!” replied his brother in a tranquil voice--“What should there

be? Only the poem is very beautiful, and out of the common,--though,

to me, terribly suggestive of--a mistake somewhere in creation. Love

to the Saved--Love to the Lost!--naturally it would have different

aspects,--but it is an anomaly--Love, to be true to its name, should

have no ‘lost’ ones in its chronicle.”

Féraz was silent.

“Do you believe”--continued El-Râmi--“that there is a ‘nethermost

Hell’?--a place or a state of mind resembling that ‘rock ’mid the

sulphurous surges’?”

“I should imagine,” replied Féraz with some diffidence, “that there

must be a condition in which we are bound to look back and see where

we were wrong,--a condition, too, in which we have time to be

sorry----”

“Unfair and unreasonable!” exclaimed his brother hotly. “For, suppose

we did not _know_ we were wrong? We are left absolutely without

guidance in this world to do as we like.”

“I do not think you can quite say that”--remonstrated Féraz

gently--“We _do_ know when we are wrong--generally; some instinct

tells us so--and, while we have the book of Nature, we are not left

without guidance. As for looking back and seeing our former mistakes,

I think that is unquestionable,--for as I grow older I begin to see

where I failed in my former life, and how I deserved to lose my

star-kingdom.”

El-Râmi looked impatient.

“You are a dreamer”--he said decisively--“and your star-kingdom is a

dream also. You cannot tell me truthfully that you remember anything

of a former existence?”

“I am beginning to remember,” said Féraz steadily.

“My dear boy, anybody but myself hearing you would say you were

mad--hopelessly mad!”

“They would be at perfect liberty to say so”--and Féraz smiled a

little--“Every one is free to have his own opinion--I have mine. My

star exists; and I once existed in it--so did you.”

“Well, I know nothing about it then,” declared El-Râmi--“I have

forgotten it utterly.”

“Oh no! You think you have forgotten”--said Féraz mildly--“But the

truth is, your very knowledge of science and other things is

only--_memory_.”

El-Râmi moved in his chair impatiently.

“Let us not argue;”--he said--“We shall never agree. Sing to me

again!”

Féraz thought a moment, and then laid aside his mandoline and went to

the piano, where he played a rushing rapid accompaniment like the

sound of the wind among trees, and sang the following:

“Winds of the mountain, mingle with my crying,

Clouds of the tempest, flee as I am flying,

Gods of the cloudland, Christus and Apollo,

Follow, O follow!

“Through the dark valleys, up the misty mountains,

Over the black wastes, past the gleaming fountains,

Praying not, hoping not, resting nor abiding,

Lo, I am riding!

“Clangour and anger of elements are round me,

Torture has clasped me, cruelty has crown’d me,

Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her,

Fast speed I thither.

* * * * * *

“Gods of the storm-cloud, drifting darkly yonder,

Point fiery hands and mock me as I wander;

Gods of the forest glimmer out upon me,

Shrink back and shun me.

“Gods, let them follow!--gods, for I defy them!

They call me, mock me, but I gallop by them;

If they would find me, touch me, whisper to me,

Let them pursue me!”

He was interrupted in the song by a smothered cry from El-Râmi, and

looking round, startled, he saw his brother standing up and staring at

him with something of mingled fear and horror. He came to an abrupt

stop, his hands resting on the piano-keys.

“Go on, go on!” cried El-Râmi irritably. “What wild chant of the gods

and men have you there? Is it your own?”

“Mine!” echoed Féraz--“No indeed! Why? Do you not like it?”

“Of course, of course I like it;”--said El-Râmi, sitting down again,

angry with himself for his own emotion--“Is there more of it?”

“Yes, but I need not finish it,”--and Féraz made as though he would

rise from the piano.

El-Râmi suddenly began to laugh.

“Go on, I tell you, Féraz”--he said carelessly--“There is a tempest

of agitation in the words and in your music that leaves one hurried

and breathless, but the sensation is not unpleasant,--especially when

one is prepared, ... go on!--I want to hear the end of this ...

this--defiance.”

Féraz looked at him to see if he were in earnest, and, perceiving he

had settled down to give his whole attention to the rest of the

ballad, he resumed his playing, and again the rush of the music filled

the room.

“Faster, O faster! Darker and more dreary

Groweth the pathway, yet I am not weary--

Gods, I defy them! gods, I can unmake them,

Bruise them and break them!

“White steed of wonder with thy feet of thunder,

Find out their temples, tread their high-priests under--

Leave them behind thee--if their gods speed after,

Mock them with laughter.

* * * * * *

“Shall a god grieve me? shall a phantom win me?

Nay!--by the wild wind around and o’er and in me--

Be his name Vishnu, Christus or Apollo--

Let the god follow!

“Clangour and anger of elements are round me,

Torture has clasped me, cruelty has crown’d me,

Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her,

Fast speed I thither!”

The music ceased abruptly with a quick clash as of jangling

bells,--and Féraz rose from the piano.

El-Râmi was sitting quite still.

“A mad outburst!” he remarked presently, seeing that his young brother

waited for him to speak--“_Do you believe it?_”

“Believe what?” asked Féraz, a little surprised.

“This----” and El-Râmi quoted slowly--

“‘Shall a god grieve me? shall a phantom win me?

Nay!--by the wild wind around and o’er and in me--

Be his name Vishnu, Christus or Apollo--

Let the god follow!’

“Do you think”--he continued, “that in the matter of life’s leadership

the ‘god’ should follow, or we the god?”

Féraz lifted his delicately-marked eyebrows in amazement.

“What an odd question!” he said--“The song is _only_ a song,--part of

a long epic poem. And we do not receive a mere poem as a gospel. And,

if you speak of life’s leadership, it is devoutly to be hoped that God

not only leads but rules us all.”

“Why should you hope it?” asked El-Râmi gloomily--“Myself, I fear

it!”

Féraz came to his side and rested one hand affectionately on his arm.

“You are worried and out of sorts, my brother,”--he said gently--“Why

do you not seek some change from so much indoor life? You do not even

get the advantages I have of going to and fro on the household

business. I breathe the fresh air every day,--surely it is necessary

for you also?”

“My dear boy, I am perfectly well”--and El-Râmi regarded him

steadily--“Why should you doubt it? I am only--a little tired. Poor

human nature cannot always escape fatigue.”

Féraz said no more,--but there was a certain strangeness in his

brother’s manner that filled him with an indefinable uneasiness. In

his own quiet fashion he strove to distract El-Râmi’s mind from the

persistent fixity of whatever unknown purpose seemed to so

mysteriously engross him,--and whenever they were together at meals or

at other hours of the day he talked in as light and desultory a way as

possible on all sorts of different topics in the hope of awakening his

brother’s interest more keenly in external affairs. He read much and

thought more, and was a really brilliant conversationalist when he

chose, in spite of his dreamy fancies--but he was obliged to admit to

himself that his affectionate endeavours met with very slight success.

True, El-Râmi _appeared_ to give his attention to all that was said,

but it was only an appearance,--and Féraz saw plainly enough that he

was not really moved to any sort of feeling respecting the ways and

doings of the outer world. And when, one morning, Féraz read aloud

the account of the marriage of Sir Frederick Vaughan, Bart., with

Idina, only daughter of Jabez Chester of New York, he only smiled

indifferently and said nothing.

“We were invited to that wedding;”--commented Féraz.

“Were we?” El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders and seemed totally

oblivious of the fact.

“Why of course we were”--went on Féraz cheerfully--“And at your

bidding I opened and read the letter Sir Frederick wrote you, which

said that as you had prophesied the marriage he would take it very

kindly if you would attend in person the formal fulfilment of your

prophecy. And all you did in reply was to send a curt refusal on plea

of other engagements. Do you think that was quite amiable on your

part?”

“Fortunately for me I am not called upon to be amiable;”--said

El-Râmi, beginning to pace slowly up and down the room--“I want no

favours from society, so I need not smile to order. That is one of the

chief privileges of complete independence. Fancy having to grin and

lie and skulk and propitiate people all one’s days!--I could not

endure it,--but most men can--and do!”

“Besides”--he added after a pause--“I cannot look on with patience at

the marriage of fools. Vaughan is a fool, and his baronetage will

scarcely pass for wisdom,--the little Chester girl is also a

fool,--and I can see exactly what they will become in the course of a

few years.”

“Describe them, _in futuro_!” laughed Féraz.

“Well--the man will be ‘turfy’; the woman, a blind slave to her

dressmaker. That is all. There can be nothing more. They will never do

any good or any harm--they are simply--nonentities. These are the sort

of folk that make me doubt the immortal soul,--for Vaughan is less

‘spiritual’ than a well-bred dog, and little Chester less mentally

gifted than a well-instructed mouse.”

“Severe!”--commented Féraz, smiling--“But, man or woman,--mouse or

dog, I suppose they are quite happy just now?”

“Happy?” echoed El-Râmi satirically--“Well--I dare say they

are,--with the only sort of happiness their intelligences can grasp.

She is happy because she is now ‘my lady’ and because she was able to

wear a wedding-gown of marvellous make and cost, to trail and rustle

and sweep after her little person up to God’s altar with, as though

she sought to astonish the Almighty, before whom she took her vows,

with the exuberance of her millinery. He is happy because his debts

are paid out of old Jabez Chester’s millions. There the ‘happiness’

ends. A couple of months is sufficient to rub the bloom off such

wedlock.”

“And you really prophesied the marriage?” queried Féraz.

“It was easy enough”--replied his brother carelessly--“Given two

uninstructed, unthinking bipeds of opposite sexes--the male with

debts, the female with dollars, and an urbanely obstinate schemer to

pull them together like Lord Melthorpe, and the thing is done. Half

the marriages in London are made up like that,--and of the after-lives

of those so wedded, ‘there needs no ghost from the grave’ to tell

us,--the divorce courts give every information.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Féraz quickly--“That reminds me,--do you know I saw

something in the evening paper last night that might have interested

you?”

“Really! You surprise me!” and El-Râmi laughed--“That is strange

indeed, for papers of all sorts, whether morning or evening, are to me

the dullest and worst-written literature in the world.”

“Oh, for literature one does not go to them”--answered Féraz. “But

this was a paragraph about a man who came here not very long ago to

see you--a clergyman. He is up as a co-respondent in some very

scandalous divorce case. I did not read it all--I only saw that his

Bishop had caused him to be ‘unfrocked,’ whatever that means--I

suppose he is expelled from the ministry?”

“Yes. ‘Unfrocked’ means literally a stripping-off of clerical

dignity,” said El-Râmi. “But, if it is the man who came here, he was

always naked in that respect. Francis Anstruther was his name?”

“Exactly--that is the man. He is disgraced for life, and seems to be

one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever lived. He has deserted

his wife and eight children...”

“Spare me and yourself the details!” and El-Râmi gave an expressively

contemptuous gesture--“I know all about him and told him what I knew

when he came here. But he’ll do very well yet--he’ll get on capitally

in spite of his disgrace.”

“How is that possible?” exclaimed Féraz.

“Easily! He can ‘boom’ himself as a new ‘General’ Booth, or he can

become a ‘Colonel’ under Booth’s orders--as long as people support

Booth with money. Or he can go to America or Australia and start a new

creed--he’s sure to fall on his feet and make his fortune--pious

hypocrites always do. One would almost fancy there must be a special

Deity to protect the professors of Humbug. It is only the sincerely

honest folk who get wronged in this admirably-ordered world!”

He spoke with bitterness; and Féraz glanced at him anxiously.

“I do not quite agree with you”--he said; “Surely honest folk always

have their reward?--though perhaps superficial observers may not be

able to perceive where it comes in. I believe in ‘walking uprightly’

as the Bible says--it seems to me easier to keep along a straight open

road than to take dark by-ways and dubious short cuts.”

“What do you mean by your straight open road?” demanded El-Râmi,

looking at him.

“Nature,”--replied Féraz promptly--“Nature leads us up to God.”

El-Râmi broke into a harsh laugh.

“O credulous beautiful lad!” he exclaimed; “You know not what you say!

Nature! Consider her methods of work--her dark and cunning and cruel

methods! Every living thing preys on some other living

things;--creatures wonderful, innocent, simple or complex, live

apparently but to devour and be devoured;--every inch of ground we

step upon is the dust of something dead. In the horrible depths of the

earth, Nature,--this generous kindly Nature!--hides her dread volcanic

fires,--her streams of lava, her boiling founts of sulphur and molten

lead, which at any unexpected moment may destroy whole continents

crowded with unsuspecting humanity. This is NATURE,--nothing but

Nature! She hides her treasures of gold, of silver, of diamonds and

rubies, in the deepest and most dangerous recesses, where human beings

are lost in toiling for them,--buried in darkness and slain by

thousands in the difficult search;--diving for pearls, the unwary

explorer is met by the remorseless monsters of the deep,--in fact, in

all his efforts towards discovery and progress, Man, the most

naturally defenceless creature upon earth, is met by death or blank

discouragement. Suppose he were to trust to Nature alone, what would

Nature do for him? He is sent into the world naked and helpless;--and

all the resources of his body and brain have to be educated and

brought into active requisition to enable him to live at all,--lions’

whelps, bears’ cubs have a better ‘natural’ chance than he;--and then,

when he has learned how to make the best of his surroundings, he is

turned out of the world again, naked and helpless as he came in, with

all his knowledge of no more use to him than if he had never attained

it. This is NATURE, if Nature be thus reckless and unreasonable as the

‘reflex of God’--how reckless and unreasonable must be God Himself!”

The beautiful stag-like eyes of Féraz darkened slowly, and his slim

hand involuntarily clenched.

“Ay, if God were so,” he said--“the veriest pigmy among men might

boast of nobler qualities than He! But God is not so, El-Râmi! Of

course you can argue any and every way, and I cannot confute your

reasoning. Because you reason with the merely mortal intelligence; to

answer you rightly I should have to reply as a Spirit,--I should need

to be out of the body before I could tell you where you are wrong.”

“Well!” said his brother curiously--“Then why do you not do so? Why do

you not come to me out of the body, and enlighten me as to what you

know?”

Féraz looked troubled.

“I cannot!” he said sadly--“When I go--away yonder--I seem to have so

little remembrance of earthly things--I am separated from the world by

thousands of air-spaces. I am always conscious that you exist on

earth,--but it is always as of some one who will join _me_

presently--not of one whom _I_ am compelled to join. There is the

strangeness of it. That is why I have very little belief in the notion

of ghosts and spirits appearing to men--because I know positively that

no detached soul willingly returns to or remains on earth. There is

always the upward yearning. If it returns, it does so simply because

it is, for some reason, _commanded_, not because of its own desire.”

“And who do you suppose commands it?” asked El-Râmi.

“The Highest of all Powers,”--replied Féraz reverently--“whom we all,

whether spirit or mortal, obey.”

“I do not obey,”--said El-Râmi composedly--“I enforce obedience.”

“From whom?” cried Féraz with agitation--“O my brother, from whom?

From mortals perhaps--yes,--so long as it is permitted to you--but

from Heaven--no! No, not from Heaven can you win obedience. For God’s

sake do not boast of _such_ power!”

He spoke passionately, and in anxious earnest.

El-Râmi smiled.

“My good fellow, why excite yourself? I do not ‘boast’--I am

simply--strong! If I am immortal, God Himself cannot slay me,--if I am

mortal only, I can but die. I am indifferent either way. Only I will

not shrink before an imaginary Divine terror till I prove what right

it has to my submission. Enough!--we have talked too much on this

subject, and I have work to do.”

He turned to his writing-table as he spoke and was soon busy there.

Féraz took up a book and tried to read, but his heart beat quickly,

and he was overwhelmed by a deep sense of fear. The daring of his

brother’s words smote him with a chill horror,--from time immemorial,

had not the forces divine punished pride as the deadliest of sins? His

thoughts travelled over the great plain of History, on which so many

spectres of dead nations stand in our sight as pale warnings of our

own possible fate, and remembered how surely it came to pass that when

men became too proud and defiant and absolute,--rejecting God and

serving themselves only, then they were swept away into desolation and

oblivion. As with nations, so with individuals--the Law of

Compensation is just, and as evenly balanced as the symmetrical motion

of the Universe. And the words, “Except ye become as little children

ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” rang through his ears, as

he sat heavily silent, and wondering, wondering _where_ the researches

of his brother would end, and _how_?

El-Râmi himself meanwhile was scanning the last pages of his dead

friend Kremlin’s private journal. This was a strange book,--kept with

exceeding care, and written in the form of letters which were all

addressed “To the Beloved Maroussia in Heaven”--and amply proved that,

in spite of the separated seclusion and eccentricity of his life,

Kremlin had not only been faithful to the love of his early days, the

girl who had died self-slain in her Russian prison,--but he had been

firm in his acceptance of and belief in the immortality of the soul

and the reunion of parted spirits. His last “letter” ran thus--it was

unfinished and had been written the night before the fatal storm which

had made an end of his life and learning together,--

“I seem to be now on the verge of the discovery for which I have

yearned. Thou knowest, O heart of my heart, how I dream that these

brilliant and ceaseless vibrations of light may perchance carry to the

world some message which it were well and wise we should know. Oh, if

this ‘Light,’ which is my problem and mystery, could but transmit to

my earthly vision one flashing gleam of thy presence, my beloved

child! But thou wilt guide me, so that I presume not too far;--I feel

thou art near me, and that thou wilt not fail me at the last. If in

the space of an earthly ten minutes this marvellous ‘Light’ can travel

111,600,000 miles, thou as a ‘spirit of light’ canst not be very far

away. Only till my work for poor humanity is done, do I choose to be

parted from thee--be the time long or short--we shall meet. ...”

Here the journal ended.

“And have they met?” thought El-Râmi, as closing the book he locked

it away in his desk--“And do they remember they were ever mortal? And

_what_ are they--and _where_ are they?”

XXXV.

In the midst of the strange “summer” weather which frequently falls

to the lot of England,--weather alternating between hot and cold, wet

and dry, sun and cloud with the most distracting rapidity and

irregularity,--there came at last one perfect night towards the end of

June,--a night which could have met with no rival even in the sunniest

climes of the sunniest south. A soft tranquillity hovered dove-like in

the air,--a sense of perfect peace seemed to permeate all visible and

created things. The sky was densely blue and thickly strewn with

stars, though these glimmered but faintly, their light being put to

shame by the splendid brilliancy of the full moon which swam aloft

airily like a great golden bubble. El-Râmi’s windows were all set

open; a big bunch of heliotrope adorned the table, and the subtle

fragrance of it stole out delicately to mingle with the

faintly-stirring evening breeze. Féraz was sitting alone,--his

brother had just left the room,--and he was indulging himself in the

_dolce far niente_ as only the Southern or Eastern temperament can do.

His hands were clasped lightly behind his head, and his eyes were

fixed on the shabby little trees in the square which had done their

best to look green among the whirling smuts of the metropolis and had

failed ignominiously in the attempt, but which now, in the ethereal

light of the moon, presented a soft outline of gray and silver like

olive-boughs seen in the distance. He was thinking, with a certain

serious satisfaction, of an odd circumstance that had occurred to

himself that day. It had happened in this wise: Since the time Zaroba

had taken him to look upon the beautiful creature who was the

“subject” of his brother’s experiments, he had always kept the memory

of her in his mind without speaking of her, save that whenever he said

a prayer or offered up a thanksgiving he had invariably used the

phrase--“God defend her!” He could only explain “Her” to himself by

the simple pronoun, because, as El-Râmi had willed, he had utterly

and hopelessly forgotten her name. But now, strange to say, he

remembered it!--it had flashed across his mind like a beam of light or

a heaven-sent signal,--he was at work, writing at his poem, when some

sudden inexplicable instinct had prompted him to lift his eyes and

murmur devoutly--“God defend Lilith!” Lilith!--how soft the sound of

it!--how infinitely bewitching! After having lost it for so long, it

had come back to him in a moment--how or why, he could not imagine. He

could only account for it in one way--namely, that El-Râmi’s

will-forces were so concentrated on some particularly absorbing object

that his daily influence on his brother’s young life was thereby

materially lessened. And Féraz was by no means sorry that this should

be so.

“Why should it matter that I remember her name?” he mused--“I shall

never speak of her--for I have sworn I will not. But I can think of

her to my heart’s content,--the beautiful Lilith!”

Then he fell to considering the old legend of that Lilith who it is

said was Adam’s first wife,--and he smiled as he thought what a name

of evil omen it was to the Jews, who had charms and talismans

wherewith to exorcise the supposed evil influence connected with

it,--while to him, Féraz, it was a name sweeter than honey-sweet

singing. Then there came to his mind stray snatches of

poesy,--delicate rhymes from the rich and varied stores of one of his

favourite poets, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,--rhymes that sounded in his

ears just now like the strophes of a sibylline chant or spell:

“It was Lilith the wife of Adam:

(_Sing Eden Bower!_)

Not a drop of her blood was human,

But she was made like a soft sweet woman.”

“And that is surely true!” said Féraz to himself, a little

startled,--“For--if she is _dead_, as El-Râmi asserts, and her

seeming life is but the result of his art, then indeed in the case of

this Lilith ‘not a drop of her blood is human.’”

And the poem ran on in his mind--

“Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden:

(_Alas, the hour!_)

She was the first that thence was driven:

With her was hell, and with Eve was heaven.”

“Nay, I should transpose that,”--murmured the young man drowsily,

staring out on the moonlit street--“I should say, ‘With Eve was hell,

and with Lilith heaven.’ How strange it is I should never have thought

of this poem before!--and I have often turned over the pages of

Rossetti’s book,--since--since I saw her;--I must have actually seen

the name of Lilith printed there, and yet it never suggested itself to

me as being familiar or offering any sort of clue.”

He sighed perplexedly,--the heliotrope odours floated around him, and

the gleam of the lamp in the room seemed to pale in the wide splendour

of the moon-rays pouring through the window,--and still the delicate

sprite of Poesy continued to remind him of familiar lines and verses

he loved, though all the while he thought of Lilith, and kept on

wondering vaguely and vainly what would be, what could be, the end of

his brother’s experiment (whatever that was, for he, Féraz, did not

know) on the lovely, apparently living girl who yet was dead. It was

very strange--and surely, it was also very terrible!

“The day is dark and the night

To him that would search their heart;

No lips of cloud that will part,

Nor morning song in the light:

Only, gazing alone

To him wild shadows are shown,

Deep under deep unknown

And height above unknown height.

Still we say as we go,--

‘Strange to think by the way,

Whatever there is to know,

That shall we know one day.’”

This passage of rhyme sang itself out with a monotonous musical

gentleness in his brain,--he closed his eyes restfully,--and

then--lying back thus in his chair by the open window, with the

moonlight casting a wide halo round him and giving a pale spiritual

beauty to his delicate classic features,--he passed away out of his

body, as _he_ would have said, and was no more on earth; or rather, as

_we_ should say, he fell asleep and dreamed. And the “dream” or the

“experience” was this:--

He found himself walking leisurely upon the slopes of a majestic

mountain, which seemed not so much mountain as garden, for all the

winding paths leading to its summit were fringed with flowers. He

heard the silvery plashing of brooks and fountains, and the rustling

of thickly-foliaged trees,--he knew the place well, and realised that

he was in his “star” again,--the mystic Sphere he called his “home.”

But he was evidently an exile or an alien in it,--he had grown to

realise this fact and was sorry it should be so, yet his sorrow was

mingled with hope, for he felt it would not always be so. He wandered

along aimlessly and alone, full of a curiously vague happiness and

regret, and as he walked he was passed by crowds of beautiful youths

and maidens, who were all pressing forward eagerly as to some high

festival or great assembly. They sang blithe songs,--they scattered

flowers,--they talked with each other in happy-toned voices,--and he

stood aside gazing at them wistfully while they went on rejoicing.

“O land where life never grows old and where love is eternal!” he

mused--“Why am I exiled from thy glory? Why have I lost thy joy?”

He sighed;--he longed to know what had brought together so bright a

multitude of these lovely and joyous beings,--his own “dear people” as

he felt they were; and yet--yet he hesitated to ask one of them the

least question, feeling himself unworthy. At last he saw a girl

approaching,--she was singing to herself and tying flowers in a

garland as she came,--her loose golden hair streamed behind her, every

glistening tress seeming to flash light as she moved. As she drew near

him she glanced at him kindly and paused as though waiting to be

addressed,--seeing this, he mustered up his courage and spoke.

“Whither are you all going?” he asked, with a sad gentleness--“I may

not follow you, I know,--but will you tell me why, in this kingdom of

joy, so much fresh joy seems added?”

She pointed upwards, and as his eyes obeyed her gesture he saw, in the

opal-coloured sky that bent above them, a dazzling blaze of gold and

crimson glory towards the south.

“An Angel passes!” she replied--“Below that line of light the Earth

swings round in its little orbit, and from the Earth She comes! We go

to watch her flight heavenward, and win the benediction that her

passing presence gives. For look you!--all that splendour in the sky

is not light, but wings!”

“Wings!” echoed Féraz dreamily, yet nothing doubting what she said.

“Wings or rays of glory,--which you will”--said the maiden, turning

her own beautiful eyes towards the flashing brilliancy; “They are

waiting there,--those who come from the farthest Divine world,--they

are the friends of Lilith.”

She bent her head serenely, and passed onward and upward, and Féraz

stood still, his gaze fixed in the direction of that southern light

which he now perceived was never still, but quivered as with a million

shafts of vari-coloured fire.

“The friends of Lilith!” he repeated to himself--“Angels then,--for

she is an Angel.”

Angels!--angels waiting for Lilith in the glory of the South! How

long--how long would they wait?--when would Lilith herself

appear?--and would the very heavens open to receive her, soaring

upward? He trembled,--he tried to realise the unimaginable scene,--and

then, ... then he seemed to be seized and hurried away somewhere

against his will ... and all that was light grew dark. He shuddered as

with icy cold, and felt that earth again encompassed him,--and

presently he woke--to find his brother looking at him.

“Why in the world do you go to sleep with the window wide open?” asked

El-Râmi--“Here I find you, literally bathed in the moonlight--and

moonlight drives men mad, they say,--so fast too in the land of Nod

that I could hardly waken you. Shut the window, my dear boy, if you

_must_ sleep.”

Féraz sprang up quickly,--his eyes felt dazzled still with the

remembrance of that “glory of the angels in the South.”

“I was not asleep,”--he said--“But certainly I was not here.”

“Ah!--In your Star again of course!” murmured El-Râmi with the

faintest trace of mockery in his tone. But Féraz took no offence--his

one anxiety was to prevent the name of “Lilith” springing to his lips

in spite of himself.

“Yes--I was there”--he answered slowly. “And do you know all the

people in the land are gathering together by thousands to see an Angel

pass heavenward? And there is a glory of her sister-angels, away in

the Southern horizon like the splendid circle described by Dante in

his _Paradiso_. Thus--

“‘There is a light in heaven whose goodly shine

Makes the Creator visible to all

Created, that in seeing Him alone

Have peace. And in a circle spreads so far

That the circumference were too loose a zone

To girdle in the sun!’”

He quoted the lines with strange eagerness and fervour,--and El-Râmi

looked at him curiously.

“What odd dreams you have!” he said, not unkindly--“Always fantastic

and impossible, but beautiful in their way. You should set them down

in black and white, and see how earth’s critics will bespatter your

heaven with the ink of their office pens! Poor boy!--how limply you

would fall from ‘Paradise’!--with what damp dejected wings!”

Féraz smiled.

“I do not agree with you”--he said--“If you speak of

imagination,--only in this case I am not imagining,--no one can shut

out that Paradise from me at any time--neither pope nor king, nor

critic. Thought is free, thank God!”

“Yes--perhaps it is the only thing we have to be really thankful

for,”--returned El-Râmi--“Well--I will leave you to resume your

‘dreams’--only don’t sleep with the windows open. Summer evenings are

treacherous,--I should advise you to get to bed.”

“And you?” asked Féraz, moved by a sudden anxiety which he could not

explain.

“I shall not sleep to-night,”--said his brother moodily--“Something

has occurred to me--a suggestion--an idea which I am impatient to work

out without loss of time. And, Féraz,--if I succeed in it--you shall

know the result to-morrow.”

This promise, which implied such a new departure from El-Râmi’s

customary reticence concerning his work, really alarmed Féraz more

than gratified him.

“For Heaven’s sake be careful!” he exclaimed--“You attempt so

much,--you want so much,--perhaps more than can in law and justice be

given. El-Râmi, my brother, leave something to God--you cannot, you

dare not take all!”

“My dear visionary,” replied El-Râmi gently--“You alarm yourself

needlessly, I assure you. I do not want to take anything except what

is my own,--and, as for leaving something to God, why, He is welcome

to what He makes of me in the end--a pinch of dust!”

“There is more than dust in your composition--” cried Féraz

impetuously--“There is divinity! And the divinity belongs to God, and

to God you must render it up, pure and perfect. He claims it from you,

and you are bound to give it.”

A tremor passed through El-Râmi’s frame, and he grew paler.

“If that be true, Féraz,” he said slowly and with emphasis--“if it

indeed be true that there _is_ divinity in me,--which I doubt!--why,

then let God claim and take his own particle of fire when He will, and

as He will! Good-night!”

Féraz caught his hands and pressed them tenderly in his own.

“Good-night!” he murmured--“God does all things well, and to His care

I commend you, my dearest brother.”

And as El-Râmi turned away and left the room he gazed after him with

a chill sense of fear and desolation,--almost as if he were doomed

never to see him again. He could not reason his alarm away, and yet he

knew not why he should feel any alarm,--but, truth to tell, his

interior sense of vision seemed still to smart and ache with the

radiance of the light he had seen in his “star” and that roseate

sunset-flush of “glory in the south” created by the clustering angels

who were “the friends of Lilith.” Why were they there?--what did they

wait for?--how should Lilith know them or have any intention of

joining them, when she was here,--here on the earth, as he, Féraz,

knew,--here under the supreme dominance of his own brother? He dared

not speculate too far; and, trying to dismiss all thought from his

mind, he was proceeding towards his own room, there to retire for the

night, when he met Zaroba coming down the stairs. Her dark withered

face had a serene and almost happy expression upon it,--she smiled as

she saw him.

“It is a night for dreams,--” she said, sinking her harsh voice to a

soft almost musical cadence--“And as the multitude of the stars in

heaven, so are the countless heart-throbs that pulsate in the world at

this hour to the silver sway of the moon. All over the world!--all

over the world!--” and she swung her arms to and fro with a slow

rhythmical movement, so that the silver bangles on them clashed softly

like the subdued tinkling of bells;--then, fixing her black eyes upon

Féraz with a mournful yet kindly gaze she added--“Not for you--not

for you, gentlest of dreamers! not for you! It is destined that you

should dream,--and, for you, dreaming is best,--but for _me_--I would

rather _live_ one hour than dream for a century!”

Her words were vague and wild as usual,--yet somehow Féraz chafed

under the hidden sense of them, and he gave a slight petulant gesture

of irritation. Zaroba, seeing it, broke into a low laugh.

“As God liveth,--” she muttered--“The poor lad fights bravely! He

hates the world without ever having known it,--and recoils from love

without ever having tasted it! He chooses a thought, a rhyme, a song,

an art, rather than a passion! Poor lad--poor lad! Dream on,

child!--but pray that you may never wake. For to dream of love may be

sweet, but to wake without it is bitter.”

Like a gliding wraith she passed him and disappeared. Féraz had a

mind to follow her down stairs to the basement where she had the sort

of rough sleeping accommodation her half-savage nature preferred,

whenever she slept at all out of Lilith’s room, which was but

seldom,--yet on second thoughts he decided he would let her alone.

“She only worries me--” he said to himself half vexedly as he went to

his own little apartment--“It was she who first disobeyed El-Râmi,

and made me disobey him also, and though she did take me to see the

wonderful Lilith, what was the use of it? Her matchless beauty

compelled my adoration, my enthusiasm, my reverence, almost my

love--but who could dare to love such a removed angelic creature? Not

even El-Râmi himself,--for he must know, even as I feel, that she is

beyond all love, save the Love Divine.”

He cast off his loose Eastern dress, and prepared to lie down, when he

was startled by a faint far sound of singing. He listened

attentively;--it seemed to come from outside, and he quickly flung

open his window, which only opened upon a little narrow backyard such

as is common to London houses. But the moonlight transfigured its

ugliness, making it look like a square white court set in walls of

silver. The soft rays fell caressingly too on the bare bronze-tinted

shoulders of Féraz, as half undressed, he leaned out, his eyes

upturned to the halcyon heavens. Surely, surely there was singing

somewhere,--why, he could distinguish words amid the sounds!

Away, away!

Where the glittering planets whirl and swim

And the glory of the sun grows dim

Away, away!

To the regions of light and fire and air

Where the spirits of life are everywhere

Come, oh come away!

Trembling in every limb, Féraz caught the song distinctly, and held

his breath in fear and wonder.

Away, away!

Come, oh come! we have waited long

And we sing thee now a summoning song

Away, away!

Thou art freed from the world of the dreaming dead,

And the splendours of Heaven are round thee spread--

Come away!--away!

The chorus grew fainter and fainter--yet still sounded like a distant

musical hum on the air.

“It is my fancy”--murmured Féraz at last, as he drew in his head and

noiselessly shut the window--“It is the work of my own imagination, or

what is perhaps more probable, the work of El-Râmi’s will. I have

heard such music before,--at his bidding--no, not _such_ music, but

something very like it.”

He waited a few minutes, then quietly knelt down to pray,--but no

words suggested themselves, save the phrase that once before had risen

to his lips that day,--“God defend Lilith!”

He uttered it aloud,--then sprang up confused and half afraid, for the

name had rung out so clearly that it seemed like a call or a command.

“Well!” he said, trying to steady his nerves--“What if I did say it?

There is no harm in the words ‘God defend her.’ If she is dead, as

El-Râmi says, she needs no defence, for her soul belongs to God

already.”

He paused again,--the silence everywhere was now absolutely unbroken

and intense, and repelling the vague presentiments that threatened to

oppress his mind, he threw himself on his bed and was soon sound

asleep.

XXXVI.

And what of the “sign” promised by Lilith? Had it been given?

No,--but El-Râmi’s impatience would brook no longer delay, and he had

determined to put an end to his perplexities by violent means if

necessary, and take the risk of whatever consequences might ensue. He

had been passing through the strangest phases of thought and

self-analysis during these latter weeks,--trying, reluctantly enough,

to bend his haughty spirit down to an attitude of humility and

patience which ill suited him. He was essentially masculine in his

complete belief in himself,--and more than all things he resented any

interference with his projects, whether such interference were human

or Divine. When therefore the tranced Lilith had bidden him “wait,

watch and pray,” she had laid upon him the very injunctions he found

most difficult to follow. He could wait and watch if he were certain

of results,--but where there was the slightest glimmer of

_un_certainty, he grew very soon tired of both waiting and watching.

As for “praying”--he told himself arrogantly that to ask for what he

could surely obtain by the exerted strength of his own will was not

only superfluous, but implied great weakness of character. It was

then, in the full-armed spirit of pride and assertive dominance that

he went up that night to Lilith’s chamber, and dismissing Zaroba with

more than usual gentleness of demeanour towards her, sat down beside

the couch on which his lovely and mysterious “subject” lay, to all

appearances inanimate save for her quiet breathing. His eyes were

sombre, yet glittered with a somewhat dangerous lustre under their

drooping lids;--he was to be duped no longer, he said to himself,--he

had kept faithful vigil night after night, hoping against hope,

believing against belief, and not the smallest movement or hint that

could be construed into the promised “sign” had been vouchsafed to

him. And all his old doubts returned to chafe and fret his

brain,--doubts as to whether he had not been deceiving himself all

this while in spite of his boasted scepticism,--and whether Lilith,

when she spoke, was not merely repeating like a mechanical automaton,

the stray thoughts of his own mind reflected upon hers? He had

“proved” the possibility of that kind of thing occurring between human

beings who were scarcely connected with each other even by a tie of

ordinary friendship--how much more likely then that it should happen

in such a case as that of Lilith,--Lilith who had been under the sole

dominance of his will for six years! Yet while he thus teased himself

with misgivings, he knew it was impossible to account for the mystic

tendency of her language, or the strange and super-sensual character

of the information she gave or feigned to give. It was not from

himself or his own information that he had obtained a description of

the landscapes in Mars,--its wondrous red fields,--its rosy foliage

and flowers,--its great jagged rocks ablaze with amethystine

spar,--its huge conical shells, tall and light, that rose up like

fairy towers, fringed with flags and garlands of marine blossom, out

of oceans the colour of jasper and pearl. Certainly too, it was not

from the testimony of _his_ inner consciousness that he had evoked the

faith that seemed so natural to her; _her_ belief in a Divine

Personality, and _his_ utter rejection of any such idea, were two

things wider asunder than the poles, and had no possible sort of

connection. Nevertheless what he could not account for, wearied him

out and irritated him by its elusiveness and unprovable

character,--and finally, his long, frequent, and profitless

reflections on the matter had brought him this night up to a point of

determination which but a few months back would have seemed to him

impossible. _He had resolved to waken Lilith_. What sort of a being

she would seem when once awakened, he could not quite imagine. He knew

she had died in his arms as a child,--and that her seeming life now,

and her growth into the loveliness of womanhood was the result of

artificial means evolved from the wonders of chemistry,--but he

persuaded himself that though her existence was the work of science

and not nature, it was better than natural, and would last as long. He

determined he would break that mysterious trance of body in which the

departing Intelligence had been, by his skill, detained and held in

connection with its earthly habitation,--he would transform the

sleeping visionary into a living woman, for--he loved her. He could no

longer disguise from himself that her fair face with its heavenly

smile, framed in the golden hair that circled it like a halo, haunted

him in every minute of time,--he could not and would not deny that his

whole being ached to clasp with a lover’s embrace that exquisite

beauty which had so long been passively surrendered to his

experimentings,--and with the daring of a proud and unrestrained

nature, he frankly avowed his feeling to himself and made no pretence

of hiding it any longer. But it was a far deeper mystery than his

“search for the Soul of Lilith,” to find out when and how this passion

had first arisen in him. He could not analyse himself so thoroughly as

to discover its vague beginnings. Perhaps it was germinated by

Zaroba’s wild promptings,--perhaps by the fact that a certain

unreasonable jealousy had chafed his spirit when he knew that his

brother Féraz had won a smile of attention and response from the

tranced girl,--perhaps it was owing to the irritation he had felt at

the idea that his visitor, the monk from Cyprus, seemed to know more

of her than he himself did,--at any rate, whatever the cause, he who

had been sternly impassive once to the subtle attraction of Lilith’s

outward beauty, madly adored that outward beauty now. And as is usual

with very self-reliant and proud dispositions, he almost began to

glory in a sentiment which but a short time ago he would have repelled

and scorned. What was _for_ himself and _of_ himself was good in his

sight--_his_ knowledge, _his_ “proved” things, _his_ tested

discoveries, all these were excellent in his opinion, and the “Ego” of

his own ability was the pivot on which all his actions turned. He had

laid his plans carefully for the awakening of Lilith,--but in one

little trifle they had been put out by the absence from town of Madame

Irene Vassilius. She, of all women he had ever met, was the one he

would have trusted with his secret, because he knew that her life,

though lived in the world, was as stainless as though it were lived in

heaven. He had meant to place Lilith in her care,--in order that with

her fine perceptions, lofty ideals, and delicate sense of all things

beautiful and artistic, she might accustom the girl to look upon the

fairest and noblest side of life, so that she might not regret the

“visions”--yes, he would call them “visions”--she had lost. But Irene

was among the mountains of the Austrian Tyrol, enjoying a holiday in

the intimate society of the fairest Queen in the world, Margherita of

Italy, one of the few living Sovereigns who really strive to bestow on

intellectual worth its true appreciation and reward. And her house in

London was shut up, and under the sole charge of the happy Karl,

former servant to Dr. Kremlin, who had now found with the fair and

famous authoress a situation that suited him exactly. “Wild horses

would not tear him from his lady’s service” he was wont to say, and he

guarded her household interests jealously, and said “Not at home” to

undesired visitors like Roy Ainsworth for example, with a gruffness

that would have done credit to a Russian bear. To Irene Vassilius,

therefore, El-Râmi could not turn for the help he had meant to ask,

and he was sorry and disappointed, for he had particularly wished to

remove his “sleeper awakened” out of the companionship of both Zaroba

and Féraz,--and there was no other woman like Irene,--at once so pure

and proud, so brilliantly gifted, and so far removed from the touch

and taint of modern social vulgarity. However, her aid was now

unattainable, and he had to make up his mind to do without it. And so

he resolutely put away the thought of the after-results of Lilith’s

awakening,--he, who was generally so careful to calculate

consequences, instinctively avoided the consideration of them in the

present instance.

The little silver timepiece ticked with an aggressive loudness as he

sat now at his usual post, his black eyes fixed half tenderly, half

fiercely on Lilith’s white beauty,--beauty which was, as he told

himself, all his own. Her arms were folded across her breast,--her

features were pallid as marble, and her breathing was very light and

low. The golden lamp burned dimly as it swung from the

purple-pavilioned ceiling--the scent of the roses that were always set

fresh in their vase every day, filled the room, and though the windows

were closed against the night, a dainty moonbeam strayed in through a

chink where the draperies were not quite drawn, and mingled its

emerald glitter with the yellow lustre shed by the lamp on the

darkly-carpeted floor.

“I will risk it,”--said El-Râmi in a whisper,--a whisper that sounded

loud in the deep stillness--“I will risk it--why not? I have proved

myself capable of arresting life, or the soul--for life _is_ the

soul--in its flight from hence into the Nowhere,--I must needs also

have the power to keep it indefinitely here for myself in whatever

form I please. These are the rewards of science,--rewards which I am

free to claim,--and what I have done, that I have a right to do again.

Now let me ask myself the question plainly;--Do I believe in the

supernatural?”

He paused, thinking earnestly,--his eyes still fixed on Lilith.

“No, I do not,”--he answered himself at last--“Frankly and honestly, I

do not. I have no proofs. I am, it is true, puzzled by Lilith’s

language,--but when I know her as she is, a woman, sentient and

conscious of my presence, I may find out the seeming mystery. The

dreams of Féraz are only dreams,--the vision I saw on that one

occasion”--and a faint tremor came over him as he remembered the sweet

yet solemn look of the shining One he had seen standing between him

and his visitor the monk--“the vision was of course _his_ work--the

work of that mystic master of a no less mystic brotherhood. No--I have

no proofs of the supernatural, and I must not deceive myself. Even the

promise of Lilith fails. Poor child!--she sleeps like the daughter of

Jairus, but when I, in my turn, pronounce the words ‘Maiden, I say

unto thee, arise’--she will obey;--she will awake and live indeed.”

“She will awake and live indeed!”

The words were repeated after him distinctly--but by whom? He started

up,--looked round--there was no one in the room,--and Lilith was

immovable as the dead. He began to find something chill and sad in the

intense silence that followed,--everything about him was a harmony of

glowing light and purple colour,--yet all seemed suddenly very dull

and dim and cold. He shivered where he stood, and pressed his hands to

his eyes,--his temples throbbed and ached, and he felt curiously

bewildered. Presently, looking round the room again, he saw that the

picture of “Christ and His Disciples” was unveiled;--he had not

noticed the circumstance before. Had Zaroba inadvertently drawn aside

the curtain which ordinarily hid it from view? Slowly his eyes

travelled to it and dwelt upon it--slowly they followed the letters of

the inscription beneath:

“WHOM SAY YE THAT I AM?”

The question seemed to him for the moment all-paramount, he could not

shake off the sense of pertinacious demand with which it impressed

him.

“A good Man,”--he said aloud, staring fixedly at the divine Face and

Figure, with its eloquent expression of exalted patience, grandeur and

sweetness. “A good Man, misled by noble enthusiasm and unselfish

desire to benefit the poor. A man with a wise knowledge of human

magnetism and the methods of healing in which it can be employed,--a

man, too, somewhat skilled in the art of optical illusion. Yet when

all is said and done, a _good_ Man--too good and wise and pure for the

peace of the rulers of the world,--too honest and clear-sighted to

deserve any other reward but death. Divine?--No!--save in so far as in

our highest moments we are all divine. Existing now?--a Prince of

Heaven, a Pleader against Punishment? Nay, nay!--no more existing than

the Soul of Lilith,--that soul for which I search, but which I feel I

shall never find!”

And he drew nearer to the ivory-satin couch on which lay the lovely

sleeping wonder and puzzle of his ambitious dreams. Leaning towards

her he touched her hands,--they were cold, but as he laid his own upon

them they grew warm and trembled. Closer still he leaned, his eyes

drinking in every detail of her beauty with eager, proud and masterful

eyes.

“Lilith!--_my_ Lilith!” he murmured--“After all, why should we put off

happiness for the sake of everlastingness, when happiness can be had,

at any rate for a few years. One can but live and die and there an

end. And Love comes but once, ... Love!--how I have scoffed at it and

made a jest of it as if it were a plaything. And even now while my

whole heart craves for it, I question whether it is worth having! Poor

Lilith!--only a woman after all,--a woman whose beauty will soon

pass--whose days will soon be done,--only a woman--not an immortal

Soul,--there is, there can be, no such thing as an immortal Soul.”

Bending down over her, he resolutely unclasped the fair crossed arms,

and seized the delicate small hands in a close grip.

“Lilith! Lilith!” he called imperiously.

A long and heavy pause ensued,--then the girl’s limbs quivered

violently as though moved by a sudden convulsion, and her lips parted

in the utterance of the usual formula--

“I am here.”

“Here at last, but you have been absent long”--said El-Râmi with some

reproach, “Too long. And you have forgotten your promise.”

“Forgotten!” she echoed--“O doubting spirit! Do such as I am, ever

forget?”

Her thrilling accents awed him a little, but he pursued his own way

with her, undauntedly.

“Then why have you not fulfilled it?” he demanded--“The strongest

patience may tire. I have waited and watched, as you bade me--but

now--now I am weary of waiting.”

Oh, what a sigh broke from her lips!

“I am weary too”--she said--“The angels are weary. God is weary. All

Creation is weary--of Doubt.”

For a moment he was abashed,--but only for a moment; in himself he

considered Doubt to be the strongest part of his nature,--a positive

shield and buckler against possible error.

“You cannot wait,”--went on Lilith, speaking slowly and with evident

sadness--“Neither can we. We have hoped,--in vain! We have watched--in

vain! The strong man’s pride will not bend, nor the stubborn spirit

turn in prayer to its Creator. Therefore what is not bent must be

broken,--and what voluntarily refuses Light must accept Darkness. I am

bidden to come to you, my beloved,--to come to you as I am, and as I

ever shall be,--I will come--but how will you receive me?”

“With ecstasy, with love, with welcome beyond all words or thoughts!”

cried El-Râmi in passionate excitement. “O Lilith, Lilith! you who

read the stars, cannot you read my heart? Do you not see that I--I who

have recoiled from the very thought of loving,--I, who have striven to

make of myself a man of stone and iron rather than flesh and blood, am

conquered by your spells, victorious Lilith!--conquered in every fibre

of my being by some subtle witchcraft known to yourself alone. Am I

weak!--am I false to my own beliefs? I know not,--I am only conscious

of the sovereignty of beauty which has mastered many a stronger man

than I. What is the fiercest fire compared with this fever in my

veins? I worship you, Lilith! I love you!--more than the world, life,

time and hope of heaven, I love you!”

Flushed with eagerness and trembling with his own emotion, he rained

kisses on the hands he held, but Lilith strove to withdraw them from

his clasp. Pale as alabaster she lay as usual with fast-closed eyes,

and again a deep sigh heaved her breast.

“You love my Shadow,”--she said mournfully--“not Myself.”

But El-Râmi’s rapture was not to be chilled by these words. He

gathered up a glittering mass of the rich hair that lay scattered on

the pillow and pressed it to his lips.

“Oh Lilith mine, is this ‘Shadow’?” he asked--“All this gold in which

I net my heart like a willingly-caught bird, and make an end of my

boasted wisdom? Are these sweet lips, these fair features, this

exquisite body, all ‘shadow’? Then blessed must be the light that

casts so gracious a reflection! Judge me not harshly, my Sweet,--for

if indeed you are divine, and this beauty I behold is the mere reflex

of Divinity, let me see the divine form of you for once, and have a

guarantee for faith through love! If there is another and a fairer

Lilith than the one whom I now behold, deny me not the grace of so

marvellous a vision! I am ready!--I fear nothing--to-night I could

face God Himself undismayed!”

He paused abruptly--he knew not why. Something in the chill and solemn

look of Lilith’s face checked his speech.

“Lilith--Lilith!” he began again whisperingly--“Do I ask too much?

Surely not!--not if you love me! And you do love me--I feel, I know

you do!”

There was a long pause,--Lilith might have been made of marble for all

the movement she gave. Her breathing was so light as to be scarcely

perceptible, and when she answered him at last, her voice sounded

strangely faint and far-removed. “Yes, I love you”--she said--“I love

you as I have loved you for a thousand ages, and as you have never

loved me. To win your love has been _my_ task--to repel my love has

been _yours_.”

He listened, smitten by a vague sense of compunction and regret.

“But you have conquered, Lilith”--he answered--“yours is the victory.

And have I not surrendered, willingly, joyfully? O my beautiful

Dreamer, what would you have me do?”

“Pray!” said Lilith, with a sudden passionate thrill in her

voice--“Pray! Repent!”

El-Râmi drew himself backward from her couch, impatient and angered.

“Repent!” he cried aloud--“And why should I repent? What have I done

that calls for repentance? For what sin am I to blame? For doubting a

God who, deaf to centuries upon centuries of human prayer and worship,

will not declare Himself? and for striving to perceive Him through the

cruel darkness by which we are surrounded? What crime can be

discovered there? The world is most infinitely sad,--and life is most

infinitely dreary,--and may I not strive to comfort those amid the

struggle who fain would ‘prove’ and hold fast to the things beyond?

Nay!--let the heavens open and cast forth upon me their fiery

thunderbolts, I will _not_ repent! For, vast as my doubt is, so vast

would be my faith, if God would speak and say to His creatures but

once--‘Lo! I am here!’ Tortures of hell-pain would not terrify me, if

in the end His Being were made clearly manifest--a cross of endless

woe would I endure, to feel and see Him near me at the last, and more

than all, to make the world feel and see Him--to prove to wondering,

trembling, terror-stricken, famished, heart-broken human beings that

He exists,--that He is aware of their misery,--that He cares for them,

that it is all well for them,--that there _is_ Eternal Joy hiding

itself somewhere amid the great star-thickets of this monstrous

universe--that we are not desolate atoms whirled by a blind fierce

Force into life against our will, and out of it again without a shadow

of reason or a glimmer of hope. Repent for such thoughts as these? I

will not! Pray to a God of such inexorable silence? I will not! No,

Lilith--my Lilith whom I snatched from greedy death--even you may fail

me at the last,--you may break your promise,--the promise that I

should see with mortal eyes your own Immortal Self--who can blame you

for the promise of a dream, poor child! You may prove yourself nothing

but woman; woman, poor, frail, weak, helpless woman to be loved and

cherished and pitied and caressed in all the delicate limbs, and

kissed in all the dainty golden threads of hair, and then--then--to be

laid down like a broken flower in the tomb that has grudged me your

beauty all this while,--all this may be, Lilith, and yet I will not

pray to an unproved God, nor repent of an unproved sin!”

He uttered his words with extraordinary force and eloquence--one would

have thought he was addressing a multitude of hearers instead of that

one tranced girl, who, though beautiful as a sculptured saint on a

sarcophagus, appeared almost as inanimate, save for the slow parting

of her lips when she spoke.

“O superb Angel of the Kingdom!” she murmured--“It is no marvel that

you fell!”

He heard her, dimly perplexed; but strengthened in his own convictions

by what he had said, he was conscious of power,--power to defy, power

to endure, power to command. Such a sense of exhilaration and high

confidence had not possessed him for many a long day, and he was about

to speak again, when Lilith’s voice once more stole musically on the

silence.

“You would reproach God for the world’s misery. Your complaint is

unjust. There is a Law,--a Law for the earth as for all worlds; and

God cannot alter one iota of that Law without destroying Himself and

His Universe. Shall all Beauty, all Order, all Creation come to an end

because wilful Man is wilfully miserable? Your world trespasses

against the Law in almost everything it does--hence its suffering.

Other worlds accept the Law and fulfil it,--and with them, all is

well.”

“Who is to know this Law?” demanded El-Râmi impatiently. “And how can

the world trespass against what is not explained?”

“It is explained;”--said Lilith--“The explanation is in every soul’s

inmost consciousness. You all know the Law and feel it--but knowing,

you ignore it. Men were intended by Law--God’s Law--to live in

brotherhood; but your world is divided into nations all opposed to

each other,--the result is Evil. There is a Law of Health, which men

can scarcely be forced to follow--the majority disobey it; again, the

result is Evil. There is a Law of ‘Enough’--men grasp more than

enough, and leave their brother with less than enough,--the result is

Evil. There is a Law of Love--men make it a Law of Lust,--the result

is Evil. All sin, all pain, all misery, are results of the Law’s

transgression,--and God cannot alter the Law, He Himself being part of

it and its fulfilment.”

“And is Death also the Law?” asked El-Râmi--“Wise Lilith!--Death,

which concludes all things, both in Law and Order?”

“There is no death,” responded Lilith--“I have told you so. What you

call by that name is Life.”

“Prove it!” exclaimed El-Râmi excitedly, “Prove it, Lilith! Show me

Yourself! If there is another You than this beloved beauty of your

visible form, let me behold it, and then--then will I repent of

doubt,--then will I pray for pardon!”

“You will repent indeed,”--said Lilith sorrowfully--“And you will pray

as children pray when first they learn ‘Our Father.’ Yes, I will come

to you; watch for me, O my erring Belovëd!--watch!--for neither my

love nor my promise can fail. But O remember that you are not

ready--that your will, your passion, your love, forces me hither ere

the time,--that, if I come, it is but to depart again--for ever!”

“No, no!” cried El-Râmi desperately--“Not to depart, but to

remain!--to stay with me, my Lilith, my own--body and soul,--for

ever!”

The last words sounded like a defiance flung at some invisible

opponent. He stopped, trembling--for a sudden and mysterious wave of

sound filled the room, like a great wind among the trees, or the last

grand chord of an organ-symphony. A chill fear assailed him,--he kept

his eyes fixed on the beautiful form of Lilith with a strained

eagerness of attention that made his temples ache. She grew paler and

paler,--and yet, ... absorbed in his intent scrutiny he could not move

or speak. His tongue seemed tied to the roof of his mouth,--he felt as

though he could scarcely breathe. All life appeared to hang on one

supreme moment of time, which like a point of light wavered between

earth and heaven, mortality and infinity. He,--one poor atom in the

vast Universe,--stood, audaciously waiting for the declaration of

God’s chiefest Secret. Would it be revealed at last?--or still

withheld?

XXXVII.

All at once, while he thus closely watched her, Lilith, with a

violent effort, sat up stiffly erect and turned her head slowly

towards him. Her features were rigidly statuesque, and white as

snow,--the strange gaunt look of her face terrified him, but he could

not cry out or utter a word--he was stricken dumb by an excess of

fear. Only his black eyes blazed with an anguish of expectation,--and

the tension of his nerves seemed almost greater than he could endure.

“In the great Name of God and by the Passion of Christ,”--said Lilith

solemnly, in tones that sounded far-off and faint and hollow--“do not

look at this Shadow of Me! Turn, turn away from this dust of Earth

which belongs to the Earth alone,--and watch for the light of Heaven

which comes from Heaven alone! O my love, my belovëd!--if you are

wise, if you are brave, if you are strong, turn away from beholding

this Image of Me, which is not Myself,--and look for me where the

roses are--there will I stand and wait!”

As the last word left her lips she sank back on her pillows, inert,

and deathly pale; but El-Râmi, dazed and bewildered though he was,

retained sufficient consciousness to understand vaguely what she

meant,--he was not to look at her as she lay there,--he was to forget

that such a Lilith as he knew existed,--he was to look for another

Lilith there--“where the roses are.” Mechanically, and almost as if

some invisible power commanded and controlled his volition, he turned

sideways round from the couch, and fixed his gaze on the branching

flowers, which from the crystal vase that held them lifted their

pale-pink heads daintily aloft as though they took the lamp that swung

from the ceiling for some little new sun, specially invented for their

pleasure. Why,--there was nothing there ... “Nothing there!” he half

muttered with a beating heart, rubbing his eyes and staring hard

before him, ... nothing--nothing at all, but the roses themselves, and

... and ... yes!--a Light behind them!--a light that wavered round

them and began to stretch upward in wide circling rings!

El-Râmi gazed and gazed, ... saying over and over again to himself

that it was the reflection of the lamp, ... the glitter of that stray

moonbeam there, ... or something wrong with his own faculty of vision,

... and yet he gazed on, as though for the moment all his being were

made of eyes. The roses trembled and swayed to and fro delicately as

the strange Light widened and brightened behind their blossoming

clusters,--a light that seemed to palpitate with all the wondrous

living tints of the rising sun when it shoots forth its first golden

rays from the foaming green hollows of the sea. Upward, upward and

ever upward the deepening glory extended, till the lamp paled and grew

dimmer than the spark of a feeble match struck as a rival to a flash

of lightning,--and El-Râmi’s breath came and went in hard panting

gasps as he stood watching it in speechless immobility.

Suddenly, two broad shafts of rainbow luminance sprang, as it seemed,

from the ground, and blazed against the purple hangings of the room

with such a burning dazzle of prismatic colouring in every glittering

line that it was well-nigh impossible for human sight to bear it, and

yet El-Râmi would rather have been stricken stone-blind than move.

Had he been capable of thought, he might have remembered the beautiful

old Greek myths which so truthfully and frequently taught the lesson

that to look upon the purely divine meant death to the purely human;

but he could not think,--all his own mental faculties were for the

time rendered numb and useless. His eyes ached and smarted as though

red-hot needles were being plunged into them, but though he was

conscious of, he was indifferent to, the pain. His whole mind was

concentrated on watching the mysterious radiance of those wing-shaped

rays in the room,--and now ... now while he gazed, he began to

perceive an outline between the rays, ... a Shape, becoming every

second more and more distinct, as though some invisible heavenly

artist were drawing the semblance of Beauty in air with a pencil

dipped in morning-glory. ... O wonderful, ineffable Vision!--O

marvellous breaking-forth of the buds of life that are hid in the

quiet ether!--where, where in the vast wealth and reproduction of

deathless and delicate atoms, is the Beginning of things?--where the

End? ...

Presently appeared soft curves, and glimmers of vapoury white flushed

with rose, suggestive of fire seen through mountain-mist,--then came a

glittering flash of gold that went rippling and ever rippling

backward, like the flowing fall of lovely hair; and the dim Shape grew

still more clearly visible, seeming to gather substance and solidity

from the very light that encircled it. Had it any human likeness?

Yes;--yet the resemblance it bore to humanity was so far away, so

exalted and ideal, as to be no more like our material form than the

actual splendour of the sun is like its painted image. The stature and

majesty and brilliancy of it increased,--and now the unspeakable

loveliness of a Face too fair for any mortal fairness began to suggest

itself dimly; ... El-Râmi, growing faint and dizzy, thought he

distinguished white outstretched arms, and hands uplifted in an

ecstasy of prayer;--nay,--though he felt himself half swooning in the

struggle he made to overcome his awe and fear, he would have sworn

that two star-like eyes, full-orbed and splendid with a radiant blue

as of Heaven’s own forget-me-nots, were turned upon him with a

questioning appeal, a hope, a supplication, a love beyond all

eloquence! ... But his strength was rapidly failing him;--unsupported

by faith, his mere unassisted flesh and blood could endure no more of

this supernatural sight, and ... all suddenly, ... the tension of his

nerves gave way, and morbid terrors shook his frame. A blind frenzied

feeling that he was sinking,--sinking out of sight and sense into a

drear profound, possessed him, and, hardly knowing what he did, he

turned desperately to the couch where Lilith, the Lilith he knew best,

lay, and looking,----

“Ah God!” he cried, pierced to the heart by the bitterest anguish he

had ever known,--Lilith--_his_ Lilith was withering before his very

eyes! The exquisite Body he had watched and tended was shrunken and

yellow as a fading leaf,--the face, no longer beautiful, was gaunt and

pinched and skeleton-like--the lips were drawn in and blue,--and

strange convulsions shook the wrinkling and sunken breast!

In one mad moment he forgot everything,--forgot the imperishable Soul

for the perishing Body,--forgot his long studies and high

ambitions,--and could think of nothing, except that this human

creature he had saved from death seemed now to be passing into death’s

long-denied possession,--and throwing himself on the couch he clutched

at his fading treasure with the desperation of frenzy.

“Lilith!--Lilith!” he cried hoarsely, the extremity of his terror

choking his voice to a smothered wild moan--“Lilith! My love, my idol,

my spirit, my saint! Come back!--come back!”

And clasping her in his arms he covered with burning kisses the thin

peaked face--the shrinking flesh,--the tarnished lustre of the once

bright hair.

“Lilith! Lilith!” he wailed, dry-eyed and fevered with agony--“Lilith,

I love you! Has love no force to keep you? Lilith, love Lilith! You

shall not leave me,--you are mine--mine! I stole you from death--I

kept you from God!--from all the furies of heaven and earth!--you

_shall_ come back to me--I love you!”

And lo! ... as he spoke the body he held to his heart grew warm,--the

flesh filled up and regained its former softness and roundness--the

features took back their loveliness--the fading hair brightened to its

wonted rich tint and rippled upon the pillows in threads of gold--the

lips reddened,--the eyelids quivered, the little hands, trembling

gently like birds’ wings, nestled round his throat with a caress that

thrilled his whole being and calmed the tempest of his grief as

suddenly as when of old the Master walked upon the raging sea of

Galilee and said to it “Peace, be still!”

Yet this very calmness oppressed him heavily,--like a cold hand laid

on a fevered brow it chilled his blood even while it soothed his pain.

He was conscious of a sense of irreparable loss,--and moreover he felt

he had been a coward,--a coward physically and morally. For, instead

of confronting the Supernatural, or what seemed the Supernatural,

calmly, and with the inquisitorial research of a scientist, he had

allowed himself to be overcome by It, and had fled back to the

consideration of the merely human, with all the delirious speed of a

lover and fool. Nevertheless he had his Lilith--his own Lilith,--and,

holding her jealously to his heart, he presently turned his head

tremblingly and in doubt to where the roses nodded drowsily in their

crystal vase;--only the roses now were there! The marvellous Wingëd

Brightness had fled, and the place it had illumined seemed by contrast

very dark. The Soul,--the Immortal Self--had vanished;--the subtle

Being he had longed to see, and whose existence and capabilities he

had meant to “prove”; and he, who had consecrated his life and labour

to the attainment of this one object, had failed to grasp the full

solution of the mystery at the very moment when it might have been

his. By his own weakness he had lost the Soul,--by his own strength he

had gained the Body, or so he thought, and his mind was torn between

triumph and regret. He was not yet entirely conscious of what had

chanced to him--he could formulate no idea,--all he distinctly knew

was that he held Lilith, warm and living, in his arms, and that he

felt her light breath upon his cheek.

“Love is enough!” he murmured, kissing the hair that lay in golden

clusters against his breast--“Waken, my Lilith!--waken!--and in our

perfect joy we will defy all gods and angels!”

She stirred in his clasp,--he bent above her, eager, ardent,

expectant,--her long eyelashes trembled,--and then,--slowly, slowly,

like white leaves opening to the sun, the lids upcurled, disclosing

the glorious eyes beneath, eyes that had been closed to earthly things

for six long years,--deep, starry violet-blue eyes that shone with the

calm and holy lustre of unspeakable purity and peace,--eyes that in

their liquid softness held all the appeal, hope, supplication and

eloquent love, he had seen (or fancied he had seen) in the strange

eyes of the only half-visible Soul! The Soul indeed was looking

through its earthly windows for the last time, had he known it,--but

he did not know it. Raised to a giddy pinnacle of delight as suddenly

as he had been lately plunged into an abyss of grief and terror, he

gazed into those newly-opened wondrous worlds of mute expression with

all a lover’s pride, passion, tenderness and longing.

“Fear nothing, Lilith!” he said--“It is I! I whose voice you have

answered and obeyed,--I, your lover and lord! It is I who claim you,

my belovëd!--I who bid you waken from death to life!”

Oh, what a smile of dazzling rapture illumined her face!--it was as if

the sun in all his glory had suddenly broken out of a cloud to

brighten her beauty with his purest beams. Her childlike, innocent,

wondering eyes remained fixed upon El-Râmi,--lifting her white arms

languidly she closed them round about him with a gentle fervour that

seemed touched by compassion,--and he, thrilled to the quick by that

silent expression of tenderness, straightway ascended to a heaven of

blind, delirious ecstasy. He wanted no word from her ... what use of

words!--her silence was the perfect eloquence of love! All her beauty

was his own--his very own! ... he had willed it so,--and his will had

won its way,--the iron Will of a strong wise man without a God to help

him!--and all he feared was that he might die of his own excess of

triumph and joy! ... Hush! ... hush! ... Music again!--that same deep

sound as of the wind among trees, or the solemn organ-chord that

closes the song of departing choristers. It was strange,--very

strange!--but, though he heard, he scarcely heeded it; unearthly

terrors could not shake him now,--not now, while he held Lilith to his

heart, and devoured her loveliness with his eyes, curve by curve, line

by line, till with throbbing pulses, and every nerve tingling in his

body, he bent his face down to hers, and pressed upon her lips a long,

burning, passionate kiss! ...

But, even as he did so, she was wrenched fiercely out of his hold by a

sudden and awful convulsion,--her slight frame writhed and twisted

itself away from his clasp with a shuddering recoil of muscular

agony--once her little hands clutched the air, ... and then, ... then,

the brief struggle over, her arms dropped rigidly at her sides, and

her whole body swerved and fell backward heavily upon the pillows of

the couch, stark, pallid and pulseless! ... And he,--he, gazing upon

her thus with a vague and stupid stare, wondered dimly whether he were

mad or dreaming? ...

What ... what was this sudden ailment? ... this ... this strange

swoon? What bitter frost had stolen into _her_ veins? ... what

insatiable hell-fire was consuming _his_? Those eyes, ... those just

unclosed, innocent lovely eyes of Lilith, ... was it possible, could

it be true that all the light had gone out of them?--gone, utterly

gone? And what was that clammy film beginning to cover them over with

a glazing veil of blankness? ... God! ... God! ... he must be in a

wild nightmare, he thought! ... he should wake up presently and find

all this seeming disaster unreal,--the fantastic fear of a sick brain

... the “clangour and anger of elements” imaginative, not actual, ...

and here his reeling terror found voice in a hoarse, smothered cry--

“Lilith! ... Lilith! ...”

But stop, stop! ... was it Lilith indeed whom he thus called? ...

_That_? ... that gaunt, sunken, rigid form, growing swiftly hideous!

... yes--hideous, with those dull marks of blue discoloration coming

here and there on the no longer velvety fair skin!

“Lilith! ... Lilith!”

The name was lost and drowned in the wave of solemn music that rolled

and throbbed upon the air, and El-Râmi’s distorted mind, catching at

the dread suggestiveness of that unearthly harmony, accepted it as a

sort of invisible challenge.

“What, good Death! brother Death, are you there?” he muttered

fiercely, shaking his clenched fist at vacancy--“Are you here, and are

you everywhere? Nay, we have crossed swords before now in desperate

combat ... and I have won! ... and I will win again! Hands off, rival

Death! Lilith is mine!”

And, snatching from his breast a phial of the liquid with which he had

so long kept Lilith living in a trance, he swiftly injected it into

her veins, and forced some drops between her lips ... in vain ... in

vain! No breath came back to stir that silent breast--no sign whatever

of returning animation evinced itself, only ... at the expiration of

the few moments which generally sufficed the vital fluid for its

working, there chanced a strange and terrible thing. Wherever the

liquid had made its way, there the skin blistered, and the flesh

blackened, as though the whole body were being consumed by some fierce

inward fire; and El-Râmi, looking with strained wild eyes at this

destructive result of his effort to save, at last realised to the full

all the awfulness, all the dire agony of his fate! The Soul of Lilith

had departed for ever; ... even as the Cyprian monk had said, it had

outgrown its earthly tenement, ... its cord of communication with the

body had been mysteriously and finally severed,--and the Body itself

was crumbling into ashes before his very sight, helped into swifter

dissolution by the electric potency of his own vaunted “life-elixir”!

It was horrible ... horrible! ... was there _no_ remedy?

Staring himself almost blind with despair, he dashed the phial on the

ground, and stamped it under his heel in an excess of impotent fury,

... the veins in his forehead swelled with a fulness of aching blood

almost to bursting, ... he could do nothing, ... nothing! His science

was of no avail;--his Will,--his proud inflexible Will was “as a reed

shaken in the wind!” ... Ha! ... the old stock phrase! ... it had been

said before, in old times and in new, by canting creatures who

believed in Prayer. Prayer!--would it bring back beauty and vitality

to that blackening corpse before him? ... that disfigured, withering

clay he had once called Lilith! ... How ghastly It looked! ...

Shuddering violently he turned away,--turned,--to meet the grave sweet

eyes of the pictured Christ on the wall, ... to read again the words,

“Whom say ye that I am?” The letters danced before him in characters

of flame, ... there seemed a great noise everywhere as of clashing

steam-hammers and great church-bells,--the world was reeling round him

as giddily as a spun wheel.

“Robber of the Soul of Lilith!” he muttered between his set

teeth--“Whoever you be, whether God or Devil, I will find you out! I

will pursue you to the uttermost ends of vast infinitude! I will

contest her with you yet, for surely she is mine! What right have you,

O Force Unknown, to steal my love from me? Answer me! prove yourself

God, as I prove myself Man! Declare _something_, O mute Inflexible!

_Do_ something other than mechanically grind out a reasonless,

unexplained Life and Death for ever! O Lilith!--faithless Angel!--did

you not say that love was sweet?--and could not love keep you

here,--here, with me, your lover, Lilith?”

Involuntarily and with cowering reluctance, his eyes turned again

towards the couch,--but now--now ... the horror of that decaying

beauty, interiorly burning itself away to nothingness, was more than

he could bear ... a mortal sickness seized him,--and he flung up his

arms with a desperate gesture as though he sought to drag down some

covering wherewith to hide himself and his utter misery.

“Defeated, baffled, befooled!” he exclaimed frantically--“Conquered by

the Invisible and Invincible after all! Conquered! I! ... Who would

have thought it! Hear me, earth and heaven!--hear me, O rolling world

of human Wretchedness, hear me!--for I have proved a Truth! There is

a God!--a jealous God--jealous of the Soul of Lilith!--a God

tyrannical, absolute, and powerful--a God of infinite and inexorable

Justice. O God, I know you!--I own you--I meet you! I am part of you

as the worm is!--and you can change me, but you cannot destroy me! You

have done your worst,--you have fought against your own Essence in me,

till light has turned to darkness and love to bitterness;--you have

left me no help, no hope, no comfort; what more remains to do, O

terrible God of a million Universes! ... what more? Gone--gone is the

Soul of Lilith--but Where? Where in the vast Unknowable shall I find

my love again? ... Teach me _that_, O God! ... give me that one small

clue through the million million intricate webs of star-systems, and I

too will fall blindly down and adore an Imaginary Good in visible and

all-paramount Evil! ... I too will sacrifice reason, pride, wisdom and

power and become as a fool for Love’s sake! ... I too will grovel

before an unproved Symbol of Divinity as a savage grovels before his

stone fetish, ... I will be weak, not strong, I will babble prayers

with the children, ... only take me where Lilith is, ... bring me to

Lilith ... angel Lilith! ... love Lilith! ... my Lilith! ... ah God!

God! Have mercy ... mercy! ...”

His voice broke suddenly in a sharp jarring shriek of delirious

laughter,--blood sprang to his mouth,--and with a blind movement of

his arms, as of one in thick darkness seeking light, he fell heavily

face forward, insensible on the couch where the Body he had loved,

deprived of its Soul, lay crumbling swiftly away into hideous

disfigurement and ashes.

XXXVIII.

“_Awake, Féraz! To-day dreams end, and Life begins._”

The words sounded so distinctly in his ears that the half-roused

Féraz turned drowsily on his pillows and opened his eyes, fully

expecting to see the speaker of them in his room. But there was no

one. It was early morning,--the birds were twittering in the outer

yard, and bright sunshine poured through the window. He had had a long

and refreshing sleep,--and sitting up in his bed he stretched himself

with a sense of refreshment and comfort, the while he tried to think

what had so mysteriously and unpleasantly oppressed him with

forebodings on the previous night. By and by he remembered the singing

voices in the air and smiled.

“All my fancy of course!” he said lightly, springing up and beginning

to dash the fresh cold water of his morning bath over his polished

bronze-like skin, till all his nerves tingled with the pleasurable

sensation--“I am always hearing music of some sort or other. I believe

music is pent up in the air, and loosens itself at intervals like the

rain. Why not? There must be such a wealth of melody aloft,--all the

songs of all the birds,--all the whisperings of all the leaves;--all

the dash and rush of the rivers, waterfalls and oceans,--it is all in

the air, and I believe it falls in a shower sometimes and penetrates

the brains of musicians like Beethoven, Schumann and Wagner.”

Amused with his own fantastic imaginings he hummed a tune _sotto voce_

as he donned his easy and picturesque attire,--then he left his room

and went to his brother’s study to set it in order for the day, as was

his usual custom.