“_And the sun became as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as
blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a figtree
casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and
the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled away; and every
mountain and island were moved out of their places._”
Long ago, when first she had become an object of diabolic clemency,
Dolores had supposed that, come a day, she was to pay a price. When,
after all the public pomp and private pose of her regal rites, her
new lord escorted her into the throne-room---- Not until he stretched
his arm in prideful gesture toward the escutcheon over the dais----
Soul-sick, she realized then the sum and coinage of that price.
To her chamber through the late afternoon Adeline had brought reports
of His Highness’ proclamation of the royal alliance. Although he could
not quiet the unprecedented storm which had raged since high-noon and
his electricians had failed utterly to swing the imitation sun low
enough to send a single gleam through the clouds on this his wedding
day, preparations had been rushed. To the farthest reaches of the
kingdom great annunciators had blared through the shriek of winds the
bans. Not a rookie of the Hadean hordes, not a wench of the Wanton’s
Well, not the most venomous whisperer of the Cage of In-Laws but knew
that the Belial Bachelor was to change his state.
And the news was made gladsome by a decree for cessation of all
punishment. For that eve the thought of despair was taboo. The most
fearing of shades was to be allowed a breath of hope. Even in this
clemency, however, the Rule of Reversals would hold, according to the
noble maid, since at daybreak of the morrow all torments were to be
resumed in double force.
That Greater Gehenna should celebrate was not enough, however, to
satisfy His Majesty’s festive mood. Earth must join in the rejoicing
over his signal success in the most intricate of games, even though
the mortal participants might not be told the cause back of their
debauch. Through free distribution of Devil’s Dew, a negotiable,
bottled quintessence of his own most iniquitous spirits, which had
become a recent output of distilleries under his direct control, there
was to be started that night a series of riots destined to belt the
globe, a spree of all nations that must have mortified the ancient
Bacchanalians, did wireless reports penetrate to their section of the
Realm.
The ceremony had been brief and the guests few. Original Sin, looking
particularly hypocritical in his crackling high-church robes,
officiated. Although none there was to give away the spirit bride, the
lack was dismissed with the groom’s remark that, thanks to his inside
knowledge of how to force the affections female, she was her own free
gift.
Perhaps never in all marriages of convenience on Earth had sounded so
sacrilegious the transposed lines of the service.
Would Dolores take Satan to love, honor and obey, from everlasting to
everlasting, until he himself did them part?
She would.
And would Satan do his damnedest to love and cherish Dolores?
Hell helping him, he would.
Almost before her change of estate could be realized, she who had been
despised of men stood before the Lower World with a crown upon her head
and a scepter in her hand.
Her lord’s first marital word had been a complaint. Why hadn’t she worn
the glittering amethystine costume which he had ordered as her bridal
robe? Did she think herself still the shopgirl who had walked, once
upon a time, into Vincent Seff’s “slaughter of the innocents” that she
should come to her nuptials unadorned by any of the stage jewelry which
he had heaped upon her? Or had her late-learned humor dictated her
dress of virgin white?
She suspected indulgence, if not actual approval, behind his show of
displeasure. Himself he had arrayed faultlessly in cutaway effect. His
two departures from Earth’s accepted mode lay in a scarlet cravat and
his _boutonnière_. In lieu of the conventional orange-blossom bud, he
wore a tiny illuminated nectarine.
As to so many women-souls before her sacrificed upon the matrimonial
altar, the subsequent feast was to Dolores a tedious affair. Toasted
in varied high-volt mixtures, praised for her vices in the retroactive
terms of the damned, applauded uproariously for her inability to make
brazen reply as the arch-mistress of deceit, she had striven through
course after course to keep up appearances. What though in the illusion
of passion flowers that banked the board as a centerpiece she saw only
the reproach in the dark eyes of John Cabot? What though her only taste
from the adroit food-phantasies was the unsatisfying reminder that she
must not regret her deception--must not allow herself to long for him,
lest her thought-clutch deter him from the brave deeds that he must
do? What though the only spirituous effect of the wine she quaffed
was the realization that, with every half-hour now, the little party
saved by her surrender must be nearer that boundary over which not even
the Prince of the Power of the Air might recall them? With her black
demi-watt she sipped the conviction that, in the emergency, she had
done the best she could; with her electro-cordial frappé, the hope that
already John might understand--that all might yet be well.
Now, with her gaze up-hung on the royal coat-of-arms, that conviction
became as “sackcloth of hair” and the moon of her desire “as blood.”
The stars of her hope-heaven fell unto the Earth, “even as a figtree
casteth her untimely figs when shaken by a mighty wind.” All be well?
“As a scroll ... when rolled away” was that sanguine possibility. Out
of their places were moved her every mountain of resolve and island of
faith.
She had declared herself ready to pay. Above was writ the price.
From out the design, as of ebony and amethyst, still shone the giant’s
crown in bas-relief. The names of Japheth, Shem and Ham continued to
drip in ruby lights from the horns of their respective lines. The
caption beneath blazed brilliantly through its sardonyx-thin lettering.
Except for the omission of two words the text read as before, “SATAN
THE FIRST AND LAST” had been cut to “SATAN THE FIRST.”
That so bold an announcement could be made by elision! No longer did
Satan the First boast himself the Last. Through what roiled channels
did his reasoning run?
“But--but----” Words at last came of her consternation. “I thought
there could be no birth after the first death?”
He answered with guarded elation. “Someone you used to believe in
proved to you to-day that laws were made to be broken. Surely I am the
last whom that law of the first death could coerce--I who never have
died.”
“Nor were you born, Your Lowness. You say you had no mother. Never have
you been of the flesh, so how can you expect----”
“I am not to be classed with the flesh. I am a god,” he interrupted.
“Haven’t there been children of other gods? Why, even the Great-I-Am
had a morganatic son!”
Through a corridor of the palace he led her and into the private wing
of whose magnificence she often had heard. Upon a divan sheened over
as with an embroidered altar-cloth he placed her; with one elbow
crooked around the hump of her knee, lolled at her feet; with a new
possessorship stroked her bare ankles and, at times, her throat and
cheeks. The while, he descanted in detail upon what he now revealed as
his “experiment.”
Only since meeting her had he foreseen a day when he should find
irksome his seat on the throne, when affairs of state would bring him
greater _ennui_ than official sins _divertissement_. After The Day,
when he had been acknowledged over all and the Universe had been let
loose in an unending administration of outlawry, would not he, as well
as his aides, be entitled to some reward of vice? And why continue
in a career of perpetual exertion after his utmost had been done? As
though human nature could not be trusted to increase in evil of its own
impetus, once punitive bars were laid! Should not he be freed to tread
the path of dalliance--to realize some such gentle vices as he had seen
to satisfy the doughtiest devils of Earth?
Desire for an heir-apparent to his throne of late had grown in
him. Could she not imagine the outcome of his ambition--a youthful
demon born to dominance, bred to brutality, schooled to undreamt
possibilities of fiendishness? Strong as steel in mental culpability,
he should have the “chance” denied his self-made sire. Never should he
know, hence should not fear defeat. With a super-divine intolerance,
he would accept and hold his sovereignty. Although of the spirit, he
should inherit a talent for strong visibility, taking his form from
his father and from his mother a subtlety of appeal such as god nor
man yet had possessed. A beauty of countenance irresistible should be
his--features of marble pale as the ghosts of Dolores’ victims--lips
that quivered from the very delicacy of the lies they lied, eyes that
veiled in mists of mercy the utmost truculence.
Could she not see the child of his imagination? Let her open wide those
crime-dark eyes of hers; to-night let his moth-like fancies bask in
their purple flame.
When he, leaning against her, lifted himself to try his thought, the
bride-soul clutched her forehead and shuddered back among the pillows
as if to shield brain, as well as eyes. Yet even to her own ears her
protest sounded both sincere and false.
“You must be mad--_mad_--to dream of such a thing.”
Was not the inspiration of all dreams mere madness? he asked her. And
was not that love which he aspired to feel the first symptom of mental
derangement? As for love’s climax--as for passion----
Always had he envied mortal men their carnal appetites. There was
nothing to being the King of Evil if he couldn’t have all the vices.
For æons had he hankered to glut himself with food, and drink distorted
images into his mind. Now he hankered---- Oh, by no means to weaken
himself with this love over which she oh’d and ah’d! Really, though,
didn’t it seem too bad that he who had invented loveless lust and
incited it daily in a million earthlings, should enjoy it only
vicariously? Even before she had come to Shadow Land, he confessed, he
had felt the need of a second-worst emotion. That night of the tale of
her surrender to John Cabot he’d decided on its nature. To think of
the thousands of years he’d wasted! To have been the two ultimates,
archangel and arch-fiend, without having been intermediate man!
As the lasciviousness of his look intensified, Dolores realized in
herself a certain sympathy. Appalled by its drawing power, she reminded
herself that only chaste aspirations might conquer the crave for evil
to which all mankind is heir. Her lips formed to the names of her
quondam guardian companions.
“Innocentia, I do not wish to know these dreadful things. Save me from
the knowledge, dear, _dear_ Amor.”
His Majesty’s chuckle sounded. They were gone forever, the pet pests,
he exulted. Ignorance should no longer be her bliss. ’T were folly for
her not to be wise. Why shirk responsibility for the idea born of their
acquaintance--one wickeder, therefore more seducing, than any he alone
had conceived?
His further explication scorched her mind more hotly than did his
breath her cheek. Physical desire he might not have. Yet was not its
source, more than in the case of other passions, a state of mind?
Irrefutable proof lay in the fact that desire wakened or slept as
mortals fell in or out of love. Did not the city rake, accustomed to
think of satisfaction as a necessity of his being, indulge it without
love? And the libertine husband--why did he seek it from fresh subjects
if not that his mind, wearied of his wife, must be freshly inspired?
With every tale told him by Dolores these past nights and nights, Satan
had measured his mentality by that of each of her earthly Don Juans.
Averse at first to the weakness of love, he had come to recognize it as
the match which would fire his affections and, thence, his desire. When
he considered the state of mind into which he could get through hate----
He had come to the acknowledgment that, without love, he had missed
mightily. Now, he longed to strike the ineffectual looking lucifer.
Since, however, any satisfaction or outcome of their alliance must
result, more than in mortal alliances, from a state of mind, he wished
Dolores also to long for love. That was why he plead when he might
compel. He could not risk an heir warped in his evil nature as had
been the Cabots’ in body. No toy pace-setter for the sins of Satan the
Second!
She was the match to fire his imagination, he told her. She was the
seemingly insipid drink which----
He interrupted himself to lick his lips. That fellow Seff was right.
One needed a nectarine. She was his nectarine. She was very visible, as
yet the most material of shades. The ways of the world still controlled
her. Once his wishes were her own, she would of her own accord lift the
stronger cup to his lips; would press the cheek of ripe fruit against
his teeth. Already she had felt an impulse toward him. No use for her
to deny that in the throne-room that afternoon, just before they had
been interrupted----
“No. _No._” The very necessity of Dolores’ denial, however italicized
in her consciousness the knowledge that she lied.
As Satan passed his hand under her arm and pressed her bust, she shrank
from him with moaned aversion for the thought back of the caress.
He _was_ like Vincent Seff. The offense had been the shopman’s on
that first day so very long ago, when she had begun to learn of men.
Then, as now, she had been speechless from apprehension. Had that
apprehension come from subconscious knowledge of herself more than of
the man?
On Earth she had lived down certain inherent tendencies because she had
not understood. From His Highness’ first touch she had trembled, even
as on that day in Dr. Willard’s study when she had implored the hunting
parson of All Mankind to teach her the religion said to cover game like
her from just such hunters as he. The carnality of mortals she had come
to excuse because component of the flesh. Since, instead, it was shown
her to be component of the mind--since she was protected no longer by
her innocence--since here in the inter-world she was hunted by the most
expert of mental sportsmen----
Dolores strove for perspective. How ghoulish an ambition, this desire
of Satan for desire! What could be more inhuman than a passion of the
imagination without hope? And yet he hoped. _What_ was his hope?
An odious thrill answered the question--a thrill which she knew to
be the first farthing of the price she was to pay. The sum total,
then, would be the development of her evil possibilities to the utter
obliteration of the good. All that she had saved of her better self
from her late estate was to be burned to dross by that recognized
flicker of passion which had lit this conflagration. The King, by the
heat of his diabolical imaginings, would kindle, then fan her with the
winds of his swift thought. Her spiritual inflammability was her real
value to him, as had been that of her body to men. He had praised, as
had they, her beauty, her _naïveté_, her teasing silences, but had
passed without a glance others as exceptional as she. That worst of her
which, in the physical, had wrecked her chances on Earth, would wreck
those mental which she still had hoped to realize in Shadow Land. Even
though she saved The Day to the Great-I-Am, she would not by then be a
fit subject for reward. Spiritually ruined, she would be no mate for
John Cabot. Well it was that she had not known in time the fullness of
the price, else might she have been too niggard-souled to contract to
pay.
Forewarned in these premonitions of her fate, the spirit-girl felt, as
never in the past, her own impotency. Innocentia gone, the love-lad
Amor gone, her babe, gallant Old Sam, and now John--all who might
have helped her she had sent beyond recall. Evil expectation was a
compelling force; that she had learned from Clarke Shayle. Even now,
the Master Mind was compelling her--vehemently, evilly expecting of
her. Would she give?
“I am a perfectly free immoral agent,” His Majesty boasted. “You
believe that, don’t you, my poor child? I can seize your mind and hold
it to the last split-second of Eternity, whether you will or no. You
liked that molecule of suppressed power in your love-hound. Aren’t you
appealed to by the fact that I am at this moment suppressing all the
molecules of power that have run the world?”
Dolores felt shocked by several perceptions. He had licked his lips;
had called her “my child”; had concentrated his magnetism upon her;
with deliberate intent, was attracting her through the same means used
unintentionally by John Cabot. As he argued, he bent upon her a smile
no more youthful or friendly than that of the lawyer who had won her
confidence only to spoil John’s life and her own. And he wore a scarlet
tie.
He was, in his conversion of her to his will, like each one of those
mortal men who had converted her. In one consummate personality he
combined their characteristics. Everyman was a part of him. He was all
men.
Since detached integrals of himself had brought her irrevocably to
grief on Earth, what chance had she to resist him as a whole? Despite
her guard, the despondent thought must have shown in her face.
“You do not need to answer in words.” His Highness pressed the point.
“The idea of rectitude, grafted onto women by convention, embarrasses
you. Don’t think of yielding to me. Think, rather, of yielding to
your worse and greater self. You, so lately and so rarely physical,
must share my mental hunger for the appetites. You will feed me
with thoughts of fulfillment? This passion that you have aroused in
mortal males, since born of the mind, on the mind must have violent
recoil. You will tell me--will teach me? I shall not bore you. If the
response of men diverted you, how much greater the diversion of a god’s
response! Is it not an ambition worthy even of you--to inspire the
passion of an immortal whose fervor has not been spent in birth or life
or death? Think of my tireless excesses, of my ingenuity, of my eternal
crave for you! Think of the procreative possibilities of a superman!”
“You explained to me yourself,” the girl-soul sobbed, “that nothing
could be created in Gehenna--that down here it is always too late.”
“It is never too late for me to do worse.”
“But this heir you speak of--must he not come of a mother as well as a
father? I, at least, am subject to the rules that govern earthlings. I
have been born of the flesh and I have died.”
“You quibble.” His frown showed irritation. “Aren’t you lifted to my
estate by our alliance? What you were doesn’t matter, except that your
late mortality brings new vigor to our line. What you are becomes
merged in me. What you shall be----”
The hand that pressed up her arm and gripped her neck pricked as with
many needles from his impatience. Her head he drew backward, as he
lifted to his knees on the couch and leaned over her. Her eyes dilated
under the close gaze of his. Her lips moved to the syllables of his
slow, low declaration.
“When the thought-lust in you has conquered your affectations--from the
moment of the consummation of the union of our minds--you shall be a
goddess--my goddess--for aye.”
Strangely enough, his egotism did not offend her. An expression of
power, it bade fair to convince her. Warning herself that she must not
be convinced, she tried to get from his grasp.
But he held her. “I’d love to love you, sweet Grief,” he murmured close
to her lips. “Ask me to kiss you, Dolores, as once you asked a man
of Earth. Beg me to take you, you devil’s desire. Let our moment of
forever start _now_.”
His reminder helped her to tear her will from his and throw it, like
a tangible thing, to the thought of John. Pushing him away, she found
voice to defy him.
“I’ll never ask you. That moment never can start.”
“Fair fiend, don’t try me too far. I want to want you. I desire desire.”
As his fingers closed around Dolores’ throat, she was weakened by the
thought of strangling. She could not speak, either to deny or implore.
“And you,” he rasped, “shall want me to want you until you’ll pray
that your mind may burn to ash from its own ardor. Or will you
teach me willingly--inspire me as you best know how? I prefer to be
your lover--to miss not a nibble of that smooth cheek, my luscious
nectarine. But I am also your legal lord. And I have tutored too many
legal lords of Earth in their brutalities to miss my divine right now.
I am your master. Ask me to kiss you, slave.”
Dolores strove for the sort of courage that had enabled her before
to repel him. Just one strong, good thought might release her. From
the least likely source--his clutch of her--it came. Baby fingers had
clung tight about her throat a few hours since. She was a mother, and
a mother was enslaved only by her motherhood. She freed herself of his
grip; struggled to her feet; started across the room.
“My wager did not include wants of my own,” she defied him. “You ask
more than I can pay.”
“More? I haven’t begun to ask!”
From the closeness of his voice she realized without glancing back that
he was following. The strength of her good thought was scattered by
panic. All she could do was to flee.
She hurried to the windows, but found them shuttered against the storm.
Behind object after object of the room she took a stand, only to desert
it on his near approach.
He, like a fate evil, leisurely, sure to overtake, pursued. He laughed
from excess of exhilaration when the inevitable occurred. Her long
tulle-like veil caught about the winged foot of an illusion of Mercury.
As though by jealousy of the speed god she was tripped; was about to
fall. He caught her.
“Why did you have to stop? This has been _wonderful_--never could be so
wonderful again! Whatever inspired you with the knowledge that the way
to ask is to deny?”
Freeing the veil, he wrapped it around and around her, binding her
hands to her sides.
“Your intuition is keener than all my keenness,” he panted. “Of course
the fleeing woman is the woman one must overtake. To ask me you have
aroused me to ask you. Your lips, Dolores--I ask your lips.”
He flung her down; knotted the ends of the scarf about her sandals;
crowded over her. The lecherous look of him silenced any protest. His
eyes were aflame and from his whole person fumed that ruddy effluvium
which came of his concentration.
As measured by the slow approach of his face to hers, a death-time of
dreading thoughts preoccupied Dolores. Fragile as were her bonds, she
could not throw them off. Her resistance, she knew, was weakening.
Suppose her mind consented; what then?
Repeatedly had he forced her to his evil will; at times had justified
his boast of making her like--almost love him. Now he was overcoming
her as by a drug, none the easier to resist because she knew it to
be the soporific of sin. Did soul-lust, then, beget soul-lust? Could
he make her crave him to some mental excess? Could spirit be welded
with spirit in such infernal way that the conscience would be raped as
bodies were raped on Earth--ruined for progress and admittance among
unsullied consciences after That Day?
And the outcome of such a ghoulish union? What manner of offspring
would be theirs--if offspring indeed there might be--child-fiend
incarnate--spirit-spawn of the passion of an unbodied god?
For her to have begotten the heir-apparent of Gehenna--that would prove
righteous the Judgments of Men, even should the Greater Judge consider
revoking her decree. Never again could she hope to see John Cabot and
her babe.
And yet--and yet----
She had fought her fight with such strength as she could command.
What though she lost her own immortal soul through weakness--had not
weakness as well as strength been given unto her? She had not been
wasted. She had saved those two best-beloved. And, in saving them, had
she not saved the greater part of herself? All her loyalty had gone
with John. Their babe was the bloom of her heart, that “one, half-blown
rose” of the doomed gardener’s plea. The safety of them who were all
the good in her she had bought. Surely the rest of her did not matter
much. Why now haggle over the price?
The query dismissed her resistance. Her mind opened to her master’s
mind, her eyes to his eyes, her lips to his lips. A hideous impulse
moved her, like the mania to leap from some incalculable height.
Thought-pulse for thought-pulse, her sensation roused to his. A moan of
torturing expectance escaped her.... She closed her eyes....
_She wanted to want him._
In the blackness, Dolores saw the blacker truth. Her swooning sense
of obligation to self was shocked into revival. Not him so much as
something in herself must she resist--that desire put in woman to be
mothers of men. Response meant utter degradation. More culpable than
he who had not known the uplift of true love, she would sink lower far
in hate’s degeneration. Down and down ... always down ... forever and
forever down....
“I am a woman soul--I must have love to live, not lust!”
With the cry, she tore herself out of his grasp. And as she regained
her feet, the bonds that had seemed so strong, broke apart, like
dampened tissue.
“_Vampire._”
His Highness’ hands clutched for her loosened hair. As again she fled
him, he leaped in pursuit; abetted his steps with his hands; pulled
himself forward with grasps of this and that. When he saw that she
was trying the entrance door, he stopped in derisive anticipation of
her return. A gleaming object from his pocket he waved at her, as
illustration of the mental ban:
“The key, my queen--come get the key.”
His chortles loudened at her desperate exclamation:
“If only I could pray!”
Abruptly, however, he ceased to laugh. He stood alone in the chamber.
The locked door had opened to his captive bride. She had passed into
the hall.
He followed. Nearer animal instincts than ever in his past, his tall
form bent until he ran on toes and finger-tips. Through the private
hallway he raced after her--along the central corridor of the palace
into the throne-room.
The great auditorium was dark, except for the jewel-voltage of the
altered Mephistophelian coat-of-arms. With intent to point its full
significance, the All-Man headed off his quarry from doors and windows
and drove her toward the dais. There he seized the back-waving banner
of her hair and dragged her up the steps. With his free hand he
gestured upward.
“Your artistry is unexcelled, Queen Dolores--your sense of fitness
finer than mine own. That you should lead me here is a right royal
inspiration.”
Further excited by her struggles, he laughed the louder. Sinking on one
knee, he again crowded over her.
“You have taught me and I have learned. No longer do I ask. I take.
Lo, at this touch of you, resistant, I feel--I _feel_! Your life--at
this taste of them--a-ah, almost do I taste! At last, fiend-houri--at
last--at last--our eternal moment has begun.”
As he held her head to the step, Dolores saw that the horns which a few
minutes before had been neatly trimmed, were showing through his hair.
Not daring to face the compelling power which had made possible this
phenomenon, she shifted her gaze, first to the escutcheon, then quickly
to the dome.
“If only I knew you, God!”
“That name in my presence again?” Irony followed the Belialic snarl.
“Why hang back for an introduction if you believe the Great-I-Am
stronger than I? It wouldn’t be the first time total stranger had
rescued damsel in distress. Why not ask Him, little heathen? It will do
no harm to ask.”
Unloosening his hand from her hair, he jerked her to her feet. Dolores,
not knowing what next he might will, backed to the wall. There, with
eyes and arms uplifted, she acted in earnest upon his mocking advice.
“_God save me_,” she voiced her first prayer. “I am sinking. I shall be
lost. Are you there, O God? Only you can save my soul.”
Higher than the arch-blasphemer’s shrieks of derision, fugued the storm
winds without. At their demand, the entrance doors swung wide; admitted
them. Across the great room they swept, gentling only at the flutter of
veilings about the girl-soul at bay against the wall.
Close after them lightnings slashed the darkness. Behind her head, from
tip to tip of her upraised hands, thence to her sandled feet, they
concentrated in rays of blinding light.
Crouched to spring, Satan fell back as if struck. In the down-shed
blaze his face worked with superstition. His whine of a maddened dog
slashed across the eyes with a whip, ended in two gasped words.
“_The Cross!_”
Into power unmeasured by watts or kilowatts increased the rays. They
irradiated the face of her whose shape they framed with a beauty never
before seen in Gehenna--the beauty of realized hope.
The uproar of the storm concentrated in one stupendous crash. From out
the contrasting stillnesses, there then spoke a voice calmer and deeper
than the deepest tone of the sea--“a voice ... as the voice of many
waters and ... of a great thunder and ... of harpers harping with their
harps”:
“_Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God._”
Prone fell the Destroyer, lest he be destroyed. Face downward before
that sign, which was the sign of his one fear, he writhed upon the
floor. From his forked tongue of a snake hissed threats and pleas:
“Go away! How dare you trespass into the kingdom I have made for
myself? Don’t blast me. You promised time until Judgment. I’ll give up
the girl-shade. I’ll do anything you say. Don’t blast me now. I might,
you know, repent.”
Without daring to look up, he tugged at the hem of Dolores’ robe.
“You’re to go--to leave Gehenna,” he upflung in his immortal fright.
“Don’t wait to prepare. Take this signet ring. It will pass you through
the gates. Hurry, lest you ruin me with the rest of those that craved
you. Go, Dolores. As you love me--as you hate--for Hell’s sake, _go_!”
For long after she had gone he lay. Only his lips moved, muttering.
“He could have finished me that time. He must have certain powers of
His own, like--like her. Since He can come and go at will, I wonder why
He waits. To-night--I feel afraid--that my Great Intention----”
The winds sounded to be subsiding. Evidently they had roused in his
spirit-bride’s defense. In time he risked a glance toward the Sign.
Entirely it had faded. Not a glimmer of it remained to place that
picture of wondrous loveliness which lately it had lit.
A sob racked His Lowness. His hands searched about, as though for some
treasure he had lost.
“Dolores, _Dolores_, Grief to Men and me. What a fate, to learn love
from the loss of it!”
His fingers found something to clutch. Sitting up, he examined what
they contained--fragments of the illusion of her veil. He bathed his
face in them; swayed sensuously to the feel of them.
“Even the mist of your memory weakens me. Wasted--_you_--when I may
never be so bad again?”
He became interested in a stinging sensation in one eye never felt
before. With a forefinger he touched the lid. Its tip was not moist.
Yet the pressure within increased. Excitement caught him as he realized
what must be about to occur. He lifted his voice in a shouted command.
“Holder of the Tear Bowl! Quick--to hand--the Bowl!”
When only the reverberations of his voice made response, he bemoaned
the lost opportunity.
“Through the sorrows of all ages to expect it, only that, when it
comes, none should be here to catch it!”
It fell. A great, gleaming, heavy drop, it slipped from beneath its
lid. Salt as brine, it smarted as it rolled down his cheek. Yet no
watery, crocodile effluence was this. It did not spatter on the floor.
Lasting as a diamond it looked.
Carefully he picked it up. Solemnly he examined it. This tear that he
had shed--his first--was of that sincerest sort, a tear of pity for
himself.
* * * * *
The while, straight and swift as the spirit’s cry, Dolores had fled the
palace. Out of the portal and through the gate she ran, past darting
demons abroad to enjoy the fury of the storm. A slim creature in white
gleaming through the blackness, she fluttered the imagination of a
group of celebrants staggering from an overplus of draughts inhaled to
the consort of the King. With raucous cries and out-clutching hands,
several pursued her. But too slow were they, or too fleet she.
At the Gehennan gates, the guard fell back, advised by the evil eye of
the royal signet ring. Once safely outside, she turned and flung the
blazing trophy back to them.
Seemingly alone, she felt the presence of guards stronger than they
and more spiritual than herself. These she did not fear to trust, so
tenderly did shadowy wings seem to surround her, so firmly was she
steadied from stumbling, so wise was the counsel she heard. Although
the storm still raged, lightnings concentrated before her and illumined
her way, as up and up she sped.
And with her sped happy thoughts. John she soon should find. That
she knew. Her feet were swift from lightsomeness and he could not
have progressed far, all weighted as he was by the burden of his
disappointment. Amor and Innocentia--even now her sweet comrades must
be seeking her. All things of her they knew and never for long had
they deserted her. Since they were not born of Earth, they must be
well acquainted with the by-paths of this strange Beyond. Should the
way to John prove difficult, the love-lad would lead her aright. And
if reproach still looked from out the soul of him she had forsworn,
Innocentia would appeal. John and their babe she soon should find and
all be well.
Broader and brighter before her shafted that penetrating Light whose
rays she had seen to reach the soddenest scenes of Earth and the
dankest depths of the Lower Land. Now it dispersed the shadows from her
dreading heart and darkened mind.
Her former nescience, then, had not mattered to the Great-I-Am! He had
known her all along; had deplored her plight; had awaited her wish for
an introduction. That restraint which so had fascinated her in one of
Earth was but an impulse from infinite restraint. No longer need she
fear for the fate of the Universe. The All-Power which had restrained
itself toward her that she might work out her own development, would
strike when the souls of men cried out, even as she had cried, their
dependence. Come The Day, His Majesty would fail of his own impotency.
Faith, then, was not the fear of fools. Faith was the courage of gods
and men, a heritage divine.
No voice of sad women or of sobbing winds was Dolores’ as, peering and
hurrying, her joy lifted in fragments of lines learned from a singer on
Earth.
“_Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom...._”
Now a flash of white through whiteness, she sped and sang:
“_The night is dark and I am far from home...._”
Into the land of hope--into air so vital that realization seemed
already reached--into a life of no more sorrows, no more tears----
“_Lead Thou me on._”
From neither sun nor moon came the glory that lit the girl-soul’s way.
She knew and knew. “Home” the Light was leading her. From it she had
come. To it she now was returned.
The strength of that Hell she had fled was only hate.
The Light--the _Light_ was Love.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
Cover image is in the public domain.
There was no chapter XIX in the original. Original chapter numbering
retained.