I
"And the color of _my_ sound is a pale green," he heard behind him in
tones as sweet as a muted violin string, "while the form of my note fits
into yours just like a glove. Dear Spinny, don't tremble so. We shall
always be together, remember, you and I...."
And when, turning, he saw Miriam at his side, radiant with her shining
little smile of welcome, the relief was so great that he took her in his
arms and would not let her go. She drew him tenderly away downstairs, for
the clergyman, it seemed, was still busy with something in the room, and
had left them....
"_I_ know, _I_ know," she said softly, making him sit down beside her on
the sofa, "I know the rush of pain and happiness it brings. It shifts the
whole key of your life, doesn't it? When I first went into my 'room' and
learned the letter I was to utter in the Name, I felt as if I could never
come back to ordinary things again, or--"
"What name?" interrupted Spinrobin, drawing sharply away from her, and
the same second amazed at the recklessness that had prompted the one
question he dreaded.
The inevitable reaction had come. He realized for the first time that
there _was_ an alternative. All the passion of battle was upon him. The
terrific splendors of Skale's possible achievement dazzled the very
windows of his soul, but at the same time the sweet uses of normal human
life called searchingly to him from within. He had been circling about
this fight for days; at last it was unexpectedly upon him. He might climb
to Skale's impossible Heaven, Skale's outrageous Heaven ... on the wings
of this portentous experience, or--he might sink back into the stream of
wholesome and commonplace life, with a delicious little human love to
companion him across the years, the unsoiled love of an embryonic soul
that he could train practically from birth. Miriam was beside him, soft
and yielding, ready, doubtless, to be molded for either path.
"What name?" he repeated, holding his breath once the words were out.
"_The_ name, of course," she answered gently, smiling up into his
eyes. "The name I have lived to know and that you came here to learn,
so that when our voices sing and utter it together in the chord we
shall both become--"
Spinrobin set his mouth against her own to stop her speech. She yielded
to him with her whole little body. Her eyes smiled the great human
welcome as she stared so closely into his.
"Shall become--what we are not now," he cried fiercely, drawing his face
back, but holding her body yet more closely to him. "Lose each other,
don't you see? Don't you realize that?"
"No, no," she said faintly, "find each other--you mean--"
"Yes--if all goes well!" He spoke the words very low. For perhaps thirty
seconds they stared most searchingly into each other's eyes, drawing
slightly apart. Very slowly her face, then, went exceedingly pale.
"_If--all goes well_" she repeated, horrified. Then, after a pause, she
added: "You mean--that he might make a mistake--or--?"
And Spinrobin, drinking in the sweet breath that bore the words
so softly from her lips, answered, measuring his words with ponderous
gravity as though each conveyed a sentence of life or death,
"_If--all--goes--well_."
She watched him with something of that utter clinging mother-love in her
eyes that claims any degree of suffering gladly rather than the loss of
her own--passionately welcoming misery in preference to loss. She, too,
had divined the alternative.
Then, kissing his cheeks and eyes and lips, she untied his arms from
about her neck and ran, blushing furiously, from the room. And with her
went doubt, for the first time--doubt as to the success of the great
experiment--doubt as to their Leader's power.
II
And while Spinrobin still sat there, trembling with the two passions that
tore his soul in twain--the passion to climb forbidden skies with Skale,
and the passion to know sweet human love with Miriam--there came
thundering into the room no less a personage than the giant clergyman,
straight from those haunted rooms. Pallor hung about his face, but there
was a light radiating through it--a high, luminous whiteness--that made
the secretary think of his childhood's pictures of the Hebrew prophet
descending from Mount Sinai, the glory of internal spheres still
reflected upon the skin and eyes. Skale, like a flame and a wind, came
pouring into the room. The thing he had remained upstairs to complete
had clearly proved successful. The experiment had moved another
stage--almost the final one--nearer accomplishment.
The reaction was genuinely terrific. Spinrobin felt himself swept away
beyond all power of redemption. Miriam and the delicious human life faded
into insignificance again. What, in the name of the eternal fires, were a
girl's lips and love compared to the possibilities of Olympian
achievement promised by Skale's golden audacities? Earth faded before the
lights of heaven. The whole tide of human emotion was nothing compared to
a drop of this terrible salt brine from seas in unknown stars.... As
usual Skale's personality caught him up into some seventh heaven of the
soaring imagination.
"Spinrobin, my glorious companion in adventure," thundered the clergyman,
"your note suits perfectly the chord! I am delighted beyond all words.
You chime with amazing precision and accuracy into the complex
Master-Tone I need for the proper pronunciation of the Name! Your coming
has been an inspiration permitted of Him who owns it." His excitement was
profoundly moving. The man was in earnest if ever man was. "We shall
succeed!" And he caught him in his arms. "For the Name manifests the
essential attributes of the Being it describes, and in uttering it we
shall know mystical union with it.... We shall be as Gods!"
"Splendid! Splendid!" exclaimed Spinrobin, utterly carried away by this
spiritual enthusiasm. "I will follow you to the end--"
III
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when framed in the doorway,
delicate and seductive as a witch, again stood Miriam, then moved softly
forward into the room. Her face was pale as the grave. Her little,
delicate mouth was set with resolution. Clearly she had overheard, but
clearly also she had used the interval for serious reflection.
"We cannot possibly--_fail_, can we?" she asked, gliding up like a
frightened fawn to the clergyman's side.
He turned upon her, stern, even terrible. So relentless was his swift
appearance, so implacable in purpose, that Spinrobin felt the sudden
impulse to fly to her assistance. But instantly his great visage broke
into a smile like the smile of thunderous clouds when unexpectedly the
sun breaks through, then quickly hides itself again.
"Everywhere," he roared, "true things are great and clean.... Have
faith... have faith...." And he looked upon them both as though his eyes
would sweep from their petty souls all vestige of what was afraid and
immature. "We all are--pure ... we all are true ... each calls his note
in singleness of heart ... we cannot fail!"
And just here Spinrobin, a little beyond himself with excitement
probably, pattered across the room to his giant leader's side and peered
up into his visage. He stood on tiptoe, craning his neck forwards, then
spoke very low:
"I have the right, _we_ have the right--for I have earned it--to be taken
now fully into confidence, and to know everything--_everything_," came
the words; and the reply, simple and immediate, that dropped back upon
him through all that tangle of ragged beard was brief and to the point:
"You have. Listen, then--" And he led them both by the hand like two
children towards the sofa, and then, standing over them, began to speak.
IV
"I seek," he said slowly and gravely, "the correct utterance of a certain
mighty and ineffable name, and in each of those four rooms lies a letter
of its first syllable. For all these years of research"--his voice
dropped suddenly--"have only brought me to that--the first syllable. And
the name itself is composed of four, each more mighty than the last."
A violent trembling ran over both listeners. Spinrobin, holding a cold
little hand in his, dreaded unuttered sentences. For if mere letters
could spell so vast a message, what must be the meaning of a whole
syllable, and what the dire content of the completed name itself!
"Yes," Skale went on with a reverence born of profoundest awe, "the
captured sounds I hold are but the opening vibrations of this tremendous
name, and the task is of such magnitude that absolute courage and
absolute faith are essential. For the sounds are themselves creative
sounds, and the consequences in case of faulty utterance might be too
appalling to contemplate--"
"Creative!" fell from the little man on the sofa, aghast at the
possibility. Yet the one burning question that lay trembling just behind
his lips dared not frame itself in words, for there was something in Mr.
Skale's face and manner that rendered the asking of it not yet possible.
The revelation of the name must wait.
"Even singly, as you saw, their power is terrific," he went on, ignoring
the pathetic interruption, "but united--as we shall unite them while each
of us utters his letter and summons forth the entire syllable by means of
the chord--they will constitute a Word of Power which shall make us as
Gods if uttered correctly; if incorrectly, shall pour from this house to
consume and alter the surface of the entire world with the destructive
tempest due to mispronunciation and a lie."
Miriam nestled closer into her companion's side. There was otherwise no
sign outwardly of the emotions that surged through the two little figures
upon the sofa.
"And now--now that you have this first syllable complete?" faltered a
high and sharing tenor voice.
"We must transfer it to a home where it shall wait in silence and in
safety until we have also captured the other remaining three." Skale came
forward and lowered his mouth to his companions' ears. "We shall transfer
it, as you now understand, by chanting the four letters. Our living chord
will summon forth that first syllable into visible form and shape. Our
four voices, thus trained and purified, each singing a mighty letter,
shall create the astounding pattern of the name's first syllable--"
"But the home," stammered Spinrobin; "this home where it shall await
the rest?"
"My rooms," was the reply, "can contain letters only, for a whole
syllable I need a larger space. In the crypt-like cellars beneath this
house I have the necessary space all ready and prepared to hold this
first syllable while we work upon the second. Come, and you shall see!"
They crossed the hall and went down the long stone passage beyond the
dining room till they reached a swinging baize door, and so came to the
dark stairs that plunged below ground. Skale strode first, Spinrobin
following with beating heart; he held Miriam by the hand; his steps,
though firm enough, made him think of his efforts as a boy when treading
water for solid ground out of his depth.
V
Cold air met them, yet it was neither dank nor unpleasant as air usually
is that has never tasted sunlight. There was a touch of vitality about it
wholly remarkable. Miriam pressed closer. Every detail, every little
incident that brought them nearer to the climax was now interpreted by
these two loving children as something that might eventually spell for
them separation. Yet neither referred to it directly. The pain of the
ultimate choice possessed them deep within.
"Here," exclaimed the clergyman in a hushed tone that yet woke echoes on
all sides, while he lit a candle and held it aloft, "you see the cellar
vaults all ready for the first great syllable when our chord shall bring
it leaping down from the rooms upstairs. Here will reside the pattern of
the name's opening syllable till we shall have accomplished the
construction of the others."
And like some august master of forbidden ceremonies, looking twice his
natural size as the shadows played tricks with his arms and shoulders,
merging his outline into walls and ceiling, Skale stood and looked
about him.
Spaces stretched away on all sides as in the crypt of a cathedral, most
beautifully and harmoniously draped with the separate colors of the four
rooms, red, yellow, violet and green; immense gongs, connected apparently
with some intricate network of shining wires, hung suspended in midair
beneath the arches; rising from the floor were gigantic tuning forks,
erect and silent, immediately behind which gaped artificial air-cavities
placed to increase the intensity of the respective notes when caught; and
in the dim background the clergyman pointed out an elaborate apparatus
for quickly altering the temperature of the air, and another for the
rapid production of carbonic acid gas, since by means of a lens of
carbonic acid gas sound can be refracted like light, and by changing the
temperature of the air that conveys it, sound can be bent, also like a
ray of light, in any desired direction. The whole cellar seemed in some
way to sum up and synthesize the distinctive characteristics of the four
rooms. Over it all, sheeting ceiling and walls, lay the living and
receptive wax. Singularly suggestive, too, was the appearance of those
huge metal discs, like lifeless, dark faces waiting the signal to open
their bronze lips and cry aloud, ready for the advent of the Sound that
should give them birth and force them to proclaim their mighty secret.
Spinrobin stared, silent and fascinated, almost expecting them to begin
there and then their dreadful and appalling music.
Yet the place was undeniably empty; no ghost of a sound stirred the
gorgeous draperies; nothing but a faint metallic whispering seemed to
breathe out from the big discs and forks and wires as Skale's voice,
modulated and hushed though it was, vibrated gently against them. Nothing
moved, nothing uttered, nothing lived--as yet.
"Destitute of all presence, you see it now," whispered the clergyman,
shading the candle with one huge hand; "though before long, when we
transfer our great captured syllable down here, you shall know it alive
and singing with a thousand thunders. The Letters shall not escape me.
The gongs and colors correspond exactly. They will retain both the sounds
and the outlines ... and the wax is sensitive as the heart of a child."
And his big face shone quite dreadfully as the whole pomp and splendor of
his dream come true set fire to his thoughts.
But Spinrobin was glad when at length they turned and moved slowly again
up the stone steps and emerged into the pale December daylight. That
dark cellar, wired, draped, waxed and be-gonged, awaiting its mighty
occupant, filled his mind with too vast a sensation of wonder and
anticipation for peace.
"And for the syllables to follow," Skale resumed when they were once more
in the library, "we shall want spaces larger still. There are great holes
in these hills"--stretching out an arm to indicate the mountains above
the house--"and down yonder in the heart of those cliffs by the sounding
sea there are caverns. They are far, but the distance is of no
consequence. They will serve us well. I know them. I have marked them.
They are ready."
He swept his beard to and fro with one hand. Spinrobin already saw those
holes and caverns in the terms of sound and color.
"And--for the entire name--when completed?" he asked, knowing that the
question was but a feeble substitute for that other one he burned to ask,
yet dared not allow his lips to utter. Skale turned and looked at him. He
raised his hands aloft. His voice boomed again as of old.
"The open sky!" he cried with enthusiasm; "the vault of heaven itself!
For no solid structure exists in the world, not even the ribs of these
old hills, that could withstand the power of that--of that eternal and
terrific--"
Spinrobin leapt to his feet. The question swept from his lips at last
like a flame. Miriam clung to his arm, trying in vain to stop him.
"Then tell me," he cried aloud, "tell me, you great blasphemer, whose is
the Name that you seek to utter under heaven ... and tell me why it is my
soul faints and is so fearfully afraid?"
Mr. Skale looked at him for a moment as a man might look at some trifling
phenomenon of life that puzzled yet interested him. But there was love in
his eyes--love, and the forgiveness of a great soul. Spinrobin, afraid at
his own audacity, met his eyes recklessly, while Miriam peered from one
to the other, perplexed and questioning.
"Spinrobin," said the clergyman at length, in a voice turned soft and
tender with compassion, "the name I seek--this awful name we may all
eventually utter together, completely formed--is one that no living man
has spoken for nigh two thousand years, though all this time the search
has been kept alive by a few men in every age and every country of the
world. Some few, they say--ah, yes, '_they say_'--have found it, then
instantly forgotten it again; for once pronounced it may not be retained,
but goes utterly lost to the memory on the instant. Only once, so far as
we may know"--he lowered his voice to a hushed and reverent whisper that
thrilled about them in the air like the throbbing of a string--"has it
been preserved: the Prophet of Nazareth, purer and simpler than all other
men, recovered the correct utterance of the first two syllables, and
swiftly--very swiftly--phonetically, too, of necessity,--wrote them down
before the wondrous memory had time to fade; then sewed the piece of
parchment into his thigh, and hence 'had Power' all his life.
"It is a name," he continued, his tone rising to something of its old
thunder, "that sounds like the voice of many waters, that piles the ocean
into standing heaps and makes the high hills to skip like little lambs.
It is a name the ancient Hebrews concealed, as Tetragrammaton, beneath a
thousand devices, the name, they said, that 'rusheth through the
universe,' to call upon which--that is, to utter correctly--is to call
upon that name which is far above all others that can be named--"
He paused midway in the growing torrent of his speech and lifted his
companion out of the sofa. He set him upon his feet, holding both his
hands and peering deep into his eyes--those bewildered yet unflinching
blue eyes of the little man who sought terrific adventure as an escape
from insignificance--
"--to know which," he added, in a sudden awed whisper, "is to know the
ultimate secrets of life and death, and to read the riddle of the world
and the soul--to become even as itself--Gods."
He stopped abruptly, and again that awful, flaming smile ran over his
face, flushing it from chin to forehead with the power of his burning and
tremendous belief.
Spinrobin was already weeping inwardly, without sound. He understood at
last, only too well, what was coming. Skale's expression held the whole
wild glory, and the whole impious audacity of what seemed his blasphemous
spiritual discovery. The fires were alight in his eyes. He stooped down
lower and opened wide his capacious arms. The next second, Spinrobin,
Miriam, and Mrs. Mawle, who had unexpectedly come upon them from behind,
were gathered all together against his breast. His voice then dropped
suddenly to a tiny whisper of awful joy that seemed to creep from his
lips like some message too mighty to be fully known, and half lost itself
among the strands of his beard.
"My wonderful redeemed children, notes in my human chord," he whispered
over their heads, "it is the Name that shall make us as God, for it is
none other than the Name that rusheth through the universe"--his breath
failed him most curiously for an instant--"the NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY!"