To detain as a captive and a culprit, thus converting my own house
into a prison, my would-be murderess and former plaything, was
intolerably painful. To leave her at large was to incur danger such as
I had no right to bring on others. To dismiss her was less perilous
than the one course, less painful than the other, but combined peril
and pain in a degree which rendered both Eveena and myself most
reluctant to adopt it. From words of Esmo's, and from other sources, I
gathered that the usual course under such circumstances would have
been to keep the culprit under no other restraint than that
confinement to the house which is too common to be remarkable,
trusting to the terror which punishment inflicted and menaced by
domestic authority would inspire. But Eivé now understood the limits
which conscience or feeling imposed on the use of an otherwise
unlimited power. She knew very nearly how much she could have to fear;
and, timid as she was, would not be cowed or controlled by
apprehensions so defined and bounded. Eveena herself naturally
resented the peril, and was revolted by the treason even more
intensely than myself; and was for once hardly content that so heinous
a crime should be so lightly visited. In interposing "between the
culprit and the horrors of the law, she had taken for granted the
strenuous exertion of a domestic jurisdiction almost as absolute under
the circumstances as that of ancient Rome.
"What suggested to you," I asked one day of Eveena, "the suspicion
that so narrowly saved my life?"
"The carefully steadied hand—you have teased her so often for
spilling everything it carried—and the unsteady eyes. But," she added
reluctantly, "I never liked to watch her—no, not lest you should
notice it—but because she did not seem true in her ways with you; and
I should have missed those signs but for a strange warning." ... She
paused.
"_I_ would not be warned," I answered with a bitter sigh. "Tell me,
Madonna."
"It was when you left me in this room alone," she said, her exquisite
delicacy rendering her averse to recal, not the coercion she had
suffered, but the pain she knew I felt in so coercing her. "Dearest,"
she added with a sudden effort, "let me speak frankly, and dispel the
pain you feel while you think over it in silence."
I kissed the hand that clasped my own, and she went on, speaking with
intentional levity.
"Had a Chief forgotten?" tracing the outline of a star upon her bosom.
"Or did you think Clavelta's daughter had no share in the hereditary
gifts of her family?"
"But how did you unlock the springs?"
"Ah! those might have baffled me if you had trusted to them. You made
a double mistake when you left Enva on guard.... You don't think I
tempted her to disobey? Eager as I was for release, I could not have
been so doubly false. She did it unconsciously. It is time to put her
out of pain."
"Does she know me so little as to think I could mean to torture her by
suspense? Besides, even she must have seen that you had secured her
pardon."
"Or my own punishment," Eveena answered.
"Spare me such words, Eveena, unless you mean to make me yet more
ashamed of the compulsion I did employ. I never spoke, I never
thought"——
"Forgive me, dearest. Will it vex you to find how clearly your
flower-bird has learned to read your will through your eyes? When I
refused to obey, and you felt yourself obliged to compel, your first
momentary thought was to threaten, your next that I should not believe
you. When you laid your hand upon my shoulder, thus, it was no gesture
of anger or menace. You thought of the only promise I must believe,
and you dropped the thought as quickly as your hand. You would not
speak the word you might have to keep. Nay, dearest, what pains you
so? You gave me no pain, even when you called another to enforce your
command. Yet surely you know that _that_ must have tried my spirit far
more than anything else you could do. You did well. Do you think that
I did not appreciate your imperious anxiety for me; that I did not
respect your resolution to do what you thought right, or feel how much
it cost you? If anything in the ways of love like yours could pain me,
it would be the sort of reserved tenderness that never treats me as
frankly and simply as" ... "There was no need to name either of those
so dearly loved, so lately—and, alas! so differently—lost. Trusting
the loyalty of my love so absolutely in all else, can you not trust it
to accept willingly the enforcement of your will ... as you have
enforced it on all others you have ruled, from the soldiers of your
own world to the rest of your household? Ah! the light breaks through
the mist. Before you gave Enva her charge you said to me in her
presence, 'Forgive me what you force upon me;' as if I, above all,
were not your own to deal with as you will. Dearest, do you so wrong
her who loves you, and is honoured by your love, as to fancy that any
exertion of your authority could make her feel humbled in your eyes or
her own?"
It was impossible to answer. Nothing would have more deeply wounded
her simple humility, so free from self-consciousness, as the plain
truth; that as her character unfolded, the infinite superiority of her
nature almost awed me as something—save for the intense and
occasionally passionate tenderness of her love—less like a woman than
an angel.
"I was absorbed," she continued, "in the effort that had thrown Enva
into the slumber of obedience. I did not know or feel where I was or
what I had next to do. My thought, still concentrated, had forgotten
its accomplished purpose, and was bent on your danger. Somehow on the
cushioned pile I seemed to see a figure, strange to me, but which I
shall never forget. It was a young girl, very slight, pale, sickly,
with dark circles round the closed eyes, slumbering like Enva, but in
everything else Enva's very opposite. I suppose I was myself entranced
or dreaming, conscious only of my anxiety for you, so that it seemed
natural that everything should concern you. I remember nothing of my
dream but the words which, when I came to myself in the peristyle,
alone, were as clear in my memory as they are now:—
"'Watch the hand and read the eyes;
On his breast the danger lies—
Strength is weak and childhood wise.
"'Fail the bowl, and—'ware the knife!
Rests on him the Sovereign's life,
Rests the husband's on the wife.
"'They that would his power command
Know who holds his heart in hand:
Silken tress is surest band.
"'Well they judge Kargynda's mood,
Steel to peril, pain, and blood,
Surely through his mate subdued.
"'Love can make the strong a slave,
Fool the wise and quell the brave ...
Love by sacrifice can save.'"
"She again!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
"You hear," murmured Eveena. "In kindness to me heed my warning, if
you have neglected all others. Do not break my heart in your mercy to
another. Eivé"——
"_Eivé_!—The prophetess knows me better than you do! The warning
means that they now desire my secret before my life, and scheme to
make your safety the price of my dishonour. It is the Devil's
thought—or the Regent's!"
As I could not decide to send Eivé forth without home, protection, or
control, and Eveena could suggest no other course, the days wore on
under a domestic thunder-cloud which rendered the least sensitive
among us uncomfortable and unhappy, and deprived three at least of the
party of appetite, of ease, and almost of sleep, till two alarming
incidents broke the painful stagnation.
I had just left Eivé's prison one morning when Eveena, who was
habitually entrusted with the charge of these communications, put into
my hands two slips of tafroo. The one had been given her by an ambâ,
and came from Davilo's substitute on the estate. It said simply: "You
and you alone were recognised among the rescuers of your friend.
Before two days have passed an attempt will be made to arrest you."
The other came from Esmo, and Eveena had brought it to me unread, as
was indeed her practice. I could not bear to look at her, though I
held her closely, as I read aloud the brief message which announced
the death, by the sting of two dragons (evidently launched by some
assassin's hand, but under circumstances that rendered detection by
ordinary means hopeless for the moment), of her brother and Esmo's
son, Kevimâ; and invited us to a funeral ceremony peculiar to the
Zinta. I need not speak of the painful minutes that followed, during
which Eveena strove to suppress for my sake at once her tears for her
loss and her renewed and intensified terror on my own account. It was
suddenly announced by the usual signs of the mute messenger that a
visitor awaited me in the hall. Ergimo brought a message from the
Camptâ, which ran as follows:—
"Aware that their treachery is suspected, the enemy now seek your
secret first, and then your life. Guard both for a very short time.
Your fate, your friends', and my own are staked on the issue. The same
Council that sends the traitors to the rack will see the law
repealed."
I questioned Ergimo as to his knowledge of the situation.
"The enemy," he said, "must have changed their plan. One among them,
at least, is probably aware that his treason is suspected both by his
Sovereign and by the Order. This will drive him desperate; and if he
can capture you and extort your secret, he will think he can use it to
effect his purpose, or at least to ensure his escape. He may think
open rebellion, desperate as it is, safer than waiting for the first
blow to come from the Zinta or from the Palace."
My resolve was speedily taken. At the same moment came the necessity
for escape, and the opportunity and excuse. I sought out the writer of
the first message, who entirely concurred with me in the propriety of
the step I was about to take; only recommending me to apply personally
for a passport from the Camptâ, such as would override any attempt to
detain me even by legal warrant. He undertook to care for those I left
behind; to release and provide for Eivé, and to see, in case I should
not return, that full justice was done to the interests of the others,
as well as to their claim to release from contracts which my departure
from their world ought, like death itself, to cancel. The royal
passport came ere I was ready to depart, expressed in the fullest,
clearest language, and such as none, but an officer prepared instantly
to rebel against the authority which gave it, dared defy. During the
last preparations, Velna and Eveena were closeted together in the
chamber of the former; nor did I care to interrupt a parting the most
painful, save one, of those that had this day to be undergone. I went
myself to Eivé.
"I leave you," I said, "a prisoner, not, I hope, for long. If I return
in safety, I will then consider in what manner the termination of your
confinement can be reconciled with what is due to myself and others.
If not, you will be yet more certainly and more speedily released. And
now, child whom I once loved, to whom I thought I had been especially
gentle and indulgent, was the miserable reward offered you the sole
motive that raised your hand against my life? Poison, I have always
said, is the protection of the household slave against the domestic
tyrant. If I had ever been harsh or unjust to you, if I had made your
life unhappy by caprice or by severity, I could understand. But you of
all have had least reason to complain. Not Enva's jealous temper, not
Leenoo's spite, ever suggested to them the idea which came so easily
and was so long and deliberately cherished in your breast."
She rose and faced me, and there was something of contempt in the eyes
that answered mine for this once with the old fearless frankness.
"I had no reason to hate you? Not certainly for the kind of injury
which commonly provokes women to risk the lives their masters have
made intolerable. That your discipline was the lightest ever known in
a household, I need not tell you. That it fell more lightly, if
somewhat oftener, on me than on others, you know as well as I. Put all
the correction or reproof I ever received from you into one, and
repeat it daily, and never should I have complained, much less dreamed
of revenge. You think Enva or Leenoo might less unnaturally, less
unreasonably, have turned upon you, because your measure to their
faults was somewhat harder and your heart colder to them! You did not
scruple to make a favourite of me after a fashion, as you would never
have done even of Eunané. You could pet and play with me, check and
punish me, as a child who would not 'sicken at the sweets, or be
humbled by the sandal.' You forbore longer, you dealt more sternly
with them, because, forsooth, they were women and I a baby. I, who was
not less clever than Eunané, not less capable of love, perhaps of
devotion to you, than Eveena, _I_ might rest my head on your knee when
she was by, I might listen to your talk when others were sent away; I
was too much the child, too little the woman, to excite your distrust
or her jealousy. Do you suppose I think better of you, or feel the
more kindly towards you, that you have not taken vengeance? No! still
you have dealt with me as a child; so untaught yet by that last
lesson, that even a woman's revenge cannot make you treat me as a
woman! Clasfempta! you bear, I believe, outside, the fame of a wise
and a firm man; but in these little hands you have been as weak a fool
as the veriest dotard might have been;—and may be yet."
"As you will," I answered, stung into an anger which at any rate
quelled the worst pain I had felt when I entered the room. "Fool or
sage, Eivé, I was your fellow-creature, your protector, and your
friend. When bitter trouble befals you in life, or when, alone, you
find yourself face to face with death, you may think of what has
passed to-day. Then remember, for your comfort, my last words—I
forgive you, and I wish you happy."
To Velna I could not speak. Sure that Eveena had told her all she
could wish to know or all it was safe to tell, a long embrace spoke my
farewell to her who had shared with me the first part of the long
watch of the death-chamber. Enva and her companions had gathered, not
from words, that this journey was more than an ordinary absence. Some
instinct or presentiment suggested to them that it might, possibly at
least, be a final parting; and I was touched as much as surprised by
the tears and broken words with which they assured me that, greatly as
they had vexed my home life, conscious as they were that they had
contributed to it no element but bitterness and trouble, they felt
that they had been treated with unfailing justice and almost unfailing
kindness. Then, turning to Eveena, Enva spoke for the rest—
"We should have treated you less ill if we could at all have
understood you. We understand you just as little now. Clasfempta is
man after all, bridling his own temper as a strong man rules a large
household of women or a herd of _ambau_. But you are not woman like
other women; and yet, in so far as women are or think they are softer
or gentler than men, so far, twelvefold twelve times told, are you
softer, tenderer, gentler than woman."
Eveena struggled hard so far to suppress her sobs as to give an
answer. But, abandoning the effort, she only kissed warmly the lips,
and clasped long and tenderly the hands, that had never spoken a kind
word or done a kind act for her. At the very last moment she faltered
out a few words which were not for them.
"Tell Eivé," she said, "I wish her well; and wishing her well, I
cannot wish her happy—_yet_."
We embarked in the balloon, attended as on our last journey by two of
the brethren in my employment, both, I noticed, armed with the
lightning gun. I myself trusted as usual to the sword, strong,
straight, heavy, with two edges sharp as razors, that had enabled my
hand so often to guard my head; and the air-gun that reminded me of so
many days of sport, the more enjoyed for the peril that attended it.
Screened from observation, both reclining in our own compartment of
the car, Eveena and I spent the long undisturbed hours of the first
three days and nights of our journey in silent interchange of thought
and feeling that seldom needed or was interrupted by words. Her family
affections were very strong. Her brother had deserved and won her
love; but conscious so long of a peril surrounding myself, fearfully
impressed by the incident which showed how close that peril had come,
her thought and feeling were absorbed in me. So, could they have known
the present and foreseen the future, even those who loved her best and
most prized her love for them would have wished it to be. As we
crossed, at the height of a thousand feet, the river dividing that
continent between east and west which marks the frontier of Elcavoo, a
slight marked movement of agitation, a few eager whispers of
consultation, in the other compartment called my attention.
As I parted the screen, the elder of the attendant brethren addressed
me—
"There is danger," he said in a low tone, not low enough to escape
Eveena's quick ear when my safety was in question. "Another balloon is
steering right across our path, and one in it bears, as we see through
the _pavlo_ (the spectacle-like double field-glass of Mars), the sash
of a Regent, while his attendants wear the uniform of scarlet and
grey" (that of Endo Zamptâ). "Take, I beg you, this lightning-piece.
Will you take command, or shall we act for you?"
Parting slightly the fold of the mantle I wore, for at that height,
save immediately under the rays of the sun, the atmosphere is cold, I
answered by showing the golden sash of my rank. We went on steadily,
taking no note whatever of the hostile vessel till it came within
hailing distance.
"Keep your guns steadily pointed," I said, "happen what may. If you
have to fire, fire one at any who is ready to fire at us, the other at
the balloon itself."
A little below but beside us Endo Zamptâ hailed. "I arrest you," he
said, addressing me by name, "on behalf of the Arch-Court and by their
warrant. Drop your weapons or we fire."
"And I," I said, "by virtue of the Camptâ's sign and signet attached
to this," and Eveena held forth the paper, while my weapon covered the
Regent, "forbid you to interrupt or delay my voyage for a moment."
I allowed the hostile vessel to close so nearly that Endo could read
through his glass the characters—purposely, I thought, made unusually
large—of his Sovereign's peremptory passport. To do so he had dropped
his weapon, and his men, naturally expecting a peaceable termination
to the interview, had laid down theirs. Mine had obeyed my order, and
we were masters of the situation, when, with a sudden turn of the
screw, throwing his vessel into an almost horizontal position, Endo
brought his car into collision with ours and endeavoured to seize
Eveena's person, as she leaned over with the paper in her hand. She
was too quick for him, and I called out at once, "Down, or we fire."
His men, about to grasp their pieces, saw that one of ours was
levelled at the balloon, and that before they could fire, a single
shot from us must send them earthwards, to be crushed into one
shapeless mass by the fall. Endo saw that he had no choice but to obey
or affect obedience, and, turning the tap that let out the gas by a
pipe passing through the car, sent his vessel rapidly downward, as
with a formal salute he affected to accept the command of his Prince.
Instantly grasping, not the lightning gun, which, if it struck their
balloon, must destroy their whole party in an instant, but my air-gun,
which, by making a small hole in the vast surface, would allow them to
descend alive though with unpleasant and perilous rapidity, I fired,
and by so doing prevented the use of an asphyxiator concealed in the
car, which the treacherous Regent was rapidly arranging for use.
The success of these manoeuvres delighted my attendants, and gave them
a confidence they had not yet felt in my appreciation of Martial
perils and resources. We reached Ecasfe and Esmo's house without
further molestation, and a party of the Zinta watched the balloon
while Eveena and I passed into the dwelling.
Preserved from corruption by the cold which Martial chemistry applies
at pleasure, the corpse of Kevimâ looked as the living man looked in
sleep, but calmer and with features more perfectly composed. Quietly,
gravely, with streaming tears, but with self-command which dispelled
my fear of evil consequences to her, Eveena kissed the lips that were
so soon to exist no longer. From the actual process by which the body
is destroyed, the taste and feeling of the Zinta exclude the immediate
relatives of the dead; and not till the golden chest with its
inscription was placed in Esmo's hands did we take further part in the
proceeding. Then the symbolic confession of faith, by which the
brethren attest and proclaim their confidence in the universal
all-pervading rule of the Giver of life and in the permanence of His
gift, was chanted. A Chief of the Order pronounced a brief but
touching eulogy on the deceased. Another expressed on behalf of all
their sympathy with the bereaved father and family. Consigned to their
care, the case that contained all that now remained to us of the last
male heir of the Founder's house was removed for conveyance to the
mortuary chamber of the subterrene Temple. But ere those so charged
had turned to leave the chamber in which the ceremony had passed, a
flash so bright as at noonday to light up the entire peristyle and the
chambers opening on it, startled us all; and a sentinel, entering in
haste and consternation, announced the destruction of our balloon by a
lightning flash from the weapon of some concealed enemy. Esmo, at this
alarming incident, displayed his usual calm resolve. He ordered that
carriages sufficient to convey some twenty-four of the brethren should
be instantly collected, and announced his resolve to escort us at once
to the Astronaut. Before five minutes had elapsed from the destruction
of the balloon, Zulve and the rest of the family had taken leave of
Eveena and myself. Attended by the party mustered, occupying a
carriage in the centre of the procession, we left the gate of the
enclosure. I observed, what seemed to escape even Esmo's attention,
that angry looks were bent upon us from many a roof, and that here and
there groups were gathered in the enclosures and on the road, among
whom I saw not a few weapons. I was glad to remember that a party of
the Zveltau still awaited Esmo's return at his own residence. We drove
as fast as the electric speed would carry us along the road I had
traversed once before in the company of her who was now my wife—to
be, I hoped, for the future my sole wife—and of him who had been ever
since our mortal enemy. Where the carriages could proceed no further
we dismounted, and Esmo mustered the party in order. All were armed
with the spear and lightning gun. Placing Eveena in the centre of a
solid square, Esmo directed me to take my place beside her. I
expostulated—
"Clavelta, it is impossible for me to take the place of safety, when
others who owe me nothing may be about to risk life on my behalf.
Eveena, as woman and as descendant of the Founder, may well claim
their protection. It is for me to share in her defence, not in her
safety."
He raised the arm that bore the Signet, and looked at me with the calm
commanding glance that never failed to enforce his will. "Take your
place," he said; and recalled to the instincts of the camp, I raised
my hand in the military salute so long disused, and obeyed in silence.
"Strike promptly, strike hard, and strike home," said Esmo to his
little party. "The danger that may threaten us is not from the law or
from the State, but from an attempt at murder through a perversion of
the law and in the name of the Sovereign. Those who threaten us aim
also at the Camptâ's life, and those we may meet are his foes as well
as ours. Conquered here, they can hardly assail us again. Victorious,
they will destroy us, not leave us an appeal to the law or to the
throne."
Placing himself a little in front of the troop, our Chief gave the
signal to advance, and we moved forward. It seemed to me a fatal error
that no scout preceded us, no flanking party was thrown out. This
neglect reminded me that, my comrades and commander were devoid of
military experience, and I was about to remonstrate when, suddenly
wheeling on the rocky platform on which I had first paused in my
descent from the summit, and facing towards the latter, we encountered
a force outnumbering our own as two to one and wearing the colours of
the Regent. The front ranks quailed, as men always quailed under
Esmo's steady gaze, and lost nerve and order as they fell back to
right and left; a movement intended to give play to the asphyxiator
they had brought with them. Their strategy was no less ridiculous than
our own. Devoid for ages of all experience in conflict, both leaders
might have learned better from the conduct of the theme at bay. The
enemy were drawn up so near the turn that there was no room for the
use of their most destructive engine; and, had we been better
prepared, neither this nor their lightning guns would have been quick
enough to anticipate a charge that would have brought us hand to hand.
Even had they been steady and prompt, the suffocating shell would
probably have annihilated both parties, and the discharge would
certainly have been as dangerous to them as to us. In another instant
a flash from several of our weapons, simultaneously levelled,
shattered the instrument to fragments. We advanced at a run, and the
enemy would have given way at once but that their retreat lay up so
steep an incline, and neither to right nor left could they well
disperse, being hemmed in by a rocky wall on one side and a
precipitous descent on the other. From our right rear, however, where
the ground would have concealed a numerous ambush, I apprehended an
attack which must have been fatal; but even so simple and decisive a
measure had never occurred to the Regent's military ignorance.
At this critical moment a flash from a thicket revealed the weapon of
some hidden enemy, who thus escaped facing the gaze that none could
encounter; and Esmo fell, struck dead at once by the lightning-shot.
The assassin sprang up, and I recognised the features of Endo Zamptâ.
Confounded and amazed, the Zveltau broke and fell backward, hurrying
Eveena away with them. Enabled by size and strength to extricate
myself at once, I stood at bay with my back against the rocks on our
left, a projection rising as high as my knee assisting to hinder the
enemy from entirely and closely surrounding me. I had thrown aside at
the moment of the attack the mantle that concealed my sash and star;
and I observed that another Chief had done the same. It was he who,
occupying at the trial the seat on Esmo's left, had shown the
strongest disposition to mercy, and now displayed the coolest courage
amid confusion and danger.
"Rally them," I cried to him, "and trust the crimson blade [cold
steel]. These hounds will never face that."
The enemy had rushed forward as our men fell back, and I was almost in
their midst, thus protected to a considerable extent from the
lightning projectile, against which alone I had no defence. Hand to
hand I was a match for more than one or two of my assailants, though
on this occasion I wore no defensive armour, and they were clad in
shirts of woven wire almost absolutely proof against the spear in
hands like theirs.
To die thus, to die for her under her eyes, leaving to her widowed
life a living token of our love—what more could Allah grant, what
better could a lover and a soldier desire? There was no honour, and
little to satisfy even the passion of vengeance, in the sword-strokes
that clove one enemy from the shoulder to the waist, smote half
through the neck of a second, and laid two or three more dead or dying
at my feet. If the weight of the sword were lighter here than on
Earth, the arm that wielded it had been trained in very different
warfare, and possessed a strength which made the combat so unequal
that, had no other life hung on my blows, I should have been ashamed
to strike. As I paused for a moment under this feeling, I noted that,
outside the space half cleared by slaughter and by terror, the bearers
of the lightning gun were forming a sort of semicircle, embarrassed by
the comrades driven back upon them, but drawing momentarily nearer,
and seeking to enclose before firing the object of their aim. They
would have shattered my heart and head in another instant but
that—springing on the projecting stone of which I have spoken, which
raised her to my level—Eveena had flung her arms around me, and
sheltered my person with her own. This, and the confusion,
disconcerted the aim of most of the assailants. The roar and flash
half stunned me for a moment;—then, as I caught her in my left arm, I
became aware that it was but her lifeless form that I clasped to my
breast. Giving her life for mine, she had made mine worse than
worthless. My sword fell for a moment from my hand, retained only by
the wrist-knot, as I placed her gently and tenderly on the ground,
resting against the stone which had enabled her to effect the
sacrifice I as little desired as deserved. Then, grasping my weapon
again, and shouting instinctively the war-cry of another world, I
sprang into the midst of the enemy. At the same moment, "_Ent ân
Clazinta_" (To me the Zinta), cried the Chief behind; and having
rallied the broken ranks, even before the sight of Eveena's fall had
inspired reckless fury in the place of panic confusion, he led on the
Zveltau, the spear in hand elevated over their heads, and pointed at
the unprotected faces of the enemy. Exposed to the cold steel or its
Martial equivalent, the latter, as I had predicted, broke at once. My
sword did its part in the fray. They scarcely fought, neither did they
fling down their weapons. But in that moment neither force nor
surrender would have availed them. We gave no quarter to wounded or
unwounded foe. When, for lack of objects, I dropped the point of my
streaming sword, I saw Endo Zamptâ alive and unwounded in the hands of
the victors.
"Coward, scoundrel, murderer!" I cried. "You shall die a more terrible
death than that which your own savage law prescribes for crimes like
yours. Bind him; he shall hang from my vessel in the air till I see
fit to let him fall! For the rest, see that none are left alive to
boast what they have done this day."
Struggling and screaming, the Regent was dragged to the summit, and
hung by the waist, as I had threatened, from the entrance window of
the Astronaut. Esmo's body and those of the other slain among the
Zveltau had been raised, and our comrades were about to carry them to
the carriages and remove them homeward. From the wardrobe of the
Astronaut, furnished anew for our voyage, I brought a long soft
therne-cloak, intended for Eveena's comfort; and wrapped in it all
that was left to us of the loveliest form and the noblest heart that
in two worlds ever belonged to woman. I shred one long soft tress of
mingled gold and brown from those with which my hand had played; I
kissed for the last time the lips that had so often counselled,
pleaded, soothed, and never spoken a word that had better been left
unsaid. Then, veiling face and form in the soft down, I called around
me again the brethren who had fallen back out of sight of my last
farewell, and gave the corpse into their charge. Turning with restless
eagerness from the agony, which even the sudden shock that rendered me
half insensible could not deaden into endurable pain, to the passion
of revenge, I led two or three of our party to the foot of the ladder
beneath the entrance window of my vessel, and was about in their
presence to explain his fate more fully to the struggling, howling
victim, half mad with protracted terror. But at that moment my purpose
was arrested. I had often repeated to Eveena passages from those
Terrestrial works whose purport most resembled that of the mystic
lessons she so deeply prized; and words, on which in life she had
especially dwelt, seemed now to be whispered in my ear or my heart by
the voice which with bodily sense I could never hear again:—
"Vengeance is Mine; I will repay." The absolute control of my will and
conscience, won by her perfect purity and unfailing rectitude,
outlasted Eveena's life. Turning to her murderer—
"You shall die," I said, "but you shall die not by revenge but by the
law; and not by your own law, but by that which, forbidding that
torture shall add to the sting of death, commands that 'Whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Yet I cannot give you a
soldier's death," as my men levelled their weapons. Cutting the cord
that bound him, and grasping him from behind, I flung the wretch forth
from the summit far into the air; well assured that he would never
feel the blow that would dismiss his soul to its last account, before
that Tribunal to whose judgment his victim had appealed. Then I
entered the vessel, waved my hand in farewell to my comrades, and,
putting the machinery in action, rose from the surface and prepared to
quit a world which now held nothing that could detain or recal me.