bridesmaid stole a glance at her reflection, flirting her fan and
giving an imposing whisk to the train of her gown. Helwyse, whom,
three days before, this behavior would simply have amused, felt only
pitying sympathy to-day. Gnulemah was always before him, and charmed
his eyes and thoughts even to the hag on his arm. He brought himself
to address courteous and pleasant remarks to his companion, and to
meet unwincingly her one-eyed glance; and was as gallant as though her
pretence had been truth.
On entering the conservatory, Nurse seemed as much agitated as though
she, instead of Gnulemah, were to be chief actress in the coming
ceremony. At the Sphinx door she relinquished Balder's arm, and,
hurrying across the conservatory, vanished behind Gnulemah's curtain.
As she passed out of sight she threw a parting glance over her
shoulder. The action recalled Gnulemah's backward look of the day
previous, when she had fled at the sound of the closing door. What
ugly fatality suggested so fantastic a parallel between this creature
and Balder's future wife!
He entered the temple, which glowed and sparkled like a sombre gem.
Many-colored lamps were hung on wires passing round the hall from
pillar to massive pillar. Their glare defined the strange character of
the Egyptian architecture and ornament; nevertheless, the place looked
less real and substantial than in the morning. It seemed the
impalpable creation of an enchanter, which his wand would anon
dissolve into air once more!
On each side the door sat a statue of polished red granite, with calm
regular face and hands on knees. Helwyse, who had not observed them
before, fancied them summoned as witnesses to the compact then to be
solemnized. Doubtless they had witnessed ceremonies not less solemn or
imposing.
On the black marble altar at the further end of the hall was burning
some rich incense, whose perfumed smoke, clambering heavily upwards,
mingled with that of the lamps beneath the ceiling. On the polished
floor, in front, lay a rug of dark blue cloth, heavily bordered with
gold; upon it were represented in conscientious profile a number of
lank-limbed Egyptians performing some mystic rite. To the right of the
altar stood the priest Manetho, apparently engaged in prayer. Balder
spoke to him.
"This is more like a tomb than a wedding hall. Would not the
conservatory have been more fitting?"
"Better make a tomb the starting-point of marriage than its goal!"
smiled the holy man. "And is it not well that your posterity should
begin from the spot which saw the union that gave you being? and
beneath the eyes of him but for whom neither this hall nor we who here
assemble would to-day have existed!" He pointed to the mummy of old
Hiero Glyphic, the aspect of which might have left a bad taste in the
mouth of Joy herself. Balder shrugged his shoulders.
"It matters little, perhaps, where the seed is sown, so that the
flower reach the sunshine at last. But your mummy is an ill-favored
wedding-guest, whatever honor we may owe the man who once lived in it.
I would, not have Gnulemah--"
"Behold her!" interrupted Manetho, speaking as hough a handful of dust
had suddenly got in his throat.
Yes, there she came, the old Nurse following her like a misshapen
shadow. Daughter of sun and moon,--a modern Pandora endowed with the
strength of a loftier nature! She was robed in creamy white; her
pendants were woven pearls. Fine lines of virgin gold gleamed in her
turban, and through her long veil, and along the folds of her girdle.
But the serpent necklace had been replaced by the dandelion chain that
Balder had made her. Her lips and cheeks were daintily aflame, and a
tender fire flickered in her eyes, which saw only Balder. She was a
bridal song such as had not been sung since Solomon.
As the two reached the altar, Salome stepped to one side, and
Manetho's eye fell upon her; for a moment his gaze fixed, while a
slight movement undulated through his body, as the wave travels along
the cord. The old white dress, unseen for five-and-twenty years; some
intangible trick of motion or attitude in the wearer; the occasion and
circumstance recurring with such near similarity,--these and perhaps
other trifles combined to recall long-vanished Salome. She had stood
at that other wedding, just where Nurse was now,--bright, shapely,
sparkling-eyed, full of love for him. What a grisly contrast was
this!--Why had he thrown away that ardent, loving heart? How sweet and
comfortable might life have been to-day, with Salome his wife, and
sons and daughters at her side,--daughters beautiful as Gnulemah, sons
tall as Balder! But Hatred had been his chosen mistress, and dismal
was the progeny begotten on her! The pregnant existence that might
have been his, and the scars and barrenness which had actually
redounded to him, were symbolized in the remembered Salome and her of
to-day.
The brief reminiscence passed, leaving Manetho face to face with his
sacred duty. With the warning of the past in his ears and that of the
future before his eyes, did he step unrelenting across the threshold
of his crime? At all events he neither hesitated nor turned back. But
there was no triumph in his eyes, and his tones and manner were heavy
and mechanical; as though the Devil (having brought him thus far with
his own consent and knowledge) had now to compel a frozen soul in a
senseless body!
The service began, none the less hallowed for the lovers, because for
Manetho it was the solemn perversion of a sacred ceremony. His voice
labored through the perfumed air, and recoiled in broken echoes from
gloomy corners and deep-tinted walls. The encircling lamps glowed in
serried lines of various light; the fantastic incense-flame rustled
softly on the altar. The four figures seemed a group of phantoms,--a
momentary rich illusion of the eye. And save for their viewless souls,
what were they more? Earth is a phantom; but what we cannot grasp is
real and remains!--
The rite was over, the diamond gleamed from Gnulemah's finger, and the
priest with uplifted hands had bade man not part whom God had united.
Husband and wife gazed at each other with freshness and wonder in
their eyes; as having expected to see some change, and anew delighted
at finding more of themselves than ever!
Male and female pervades the universe, and marriage is the end and
fulfilment of creation. God has builded the world of love and wisdom,
woman and man; truly to live they must unite, she yielding herself to
his form, he moulding himself of her substance. As love unquickened by
wisdom is barren, and knowledge impotent unkindled by affection, so
are the unmarried lifeless.
Ill and bitter was it, therefore, for Manetho and Salome, after the
married ones had departed, taking their happiness with them. The
priest's, eyes were dry and dull, as he leaned wearily against the
smoking altar.
"You did not speak!" he said to the woman; "you saw her betrayed to
ruin and pollution, and spoke not to save her!--Dumb? the dead might
have moved their tongues in such need as this! She will abhor and
curse me forever! may you share her curse weighted with mine!--O
Gnulemah!"--
Salome cowered and trembled in her satin dress, beneath the burden of
that heavy anathema. She had risen that day determined to reveal the
secret of her life before night. She had been awaiting a favorable
moment, but opportunity or decision still had failed her.
Nevertheless, another morning should not find her the same nameless,
forsaken creature that she was now.--Manetho had bowed his face upon
the altar, and so remained without movement. With one hand fumbling at
the bosom of her dress--(the scar of her lover's blow should be the
talisman to recall his allegiance),--Salome made bold to approach him
and timidly touch his arm.
"Unhand me! whatever you are,--devil! my time is not yet come!"
He raised a threatening arm, with a gleam of mad ferocity beneath his
brows. But the woman did not shrink; the man was her god, and she
preferred death at his hands to life without him. Ignorant of the
cause of her firmness, it seemed to cow him. He slunk behind the
altar, hurriedly unlocked the secret door, and let himself into the
study. His haste had left the key in the lock outside. The door
slammed together, the spring-bolt caught, and the swathed head of old
Hiero Glyphic shook as though the cold of twenty winters had come on
him at once.
XXXII.
SHUT IN.
Left alone, Salome was taken with a panic; she fancied herself
deserted in a giant tomb, with dead men gathering about her. She
herself was in truth the grisliest spectre there, in her white satin
gown and feathers, and the horror of her hideous face. But she took to
flight, and the key remained unnoticed in the lock.
We, however, must spend an hour with Manetho in his narrow and
prison-like retreat. There is less day and more night between these
high-shouldered walls than elsewhere; for though the sun is scarce
below the horizon, cobwebs seem to pervade the air, making the evening
gray before its time. Yonder seated figure is the nucleus of the
gloom. The room were less dark and oppressive, but for him!
Does he mean to spend the night here? He sits at ease, as one who,
having labored the day long hard and honestly, finds repose at sundown
grateful. Such calm of mind and body argues inward peace--or
paralysis!
But Manetho has food for meditation, for his work is still
incomplete. Ah, it has been but a sour and anxious work after all!
when it is finished, let death come, since Death-in-life will be the
sole alternative. Yet will death bring rest to your weariness, think
you? Would not Death's eyes look kindlier on you, if you had used more
worthily Death's brother,--Life? What would you give, Manetho, to see
all that you have done undone? if to undo it were possible!
One picture is ever before you,--you see it wherever you look, and
whether your eyes be shut or open,--two loving souls, standing hand in
hand before you to be married. How happy they look! how nobly
confident is their affection! with what clear freedom their eyes sound
one another's depths! Neither cares to have a thought or feeling
unshared by the other.--What have you done, Manetho?--shall the deed
stand? O dark and distorted soul! the minutes are slipping fast away,
and you are slipping with them to a black eternity. Will you stir hand
nor foot to save yourself, to break your fall? not raise your voice,
for once to speak the truth? Even yet the truth may save!--
The night of your life will this be, Manetho. Will you dream of those
whose few hours of bliss will stamp Forever on the seal of your
damnation? Think,--through what interminable æons the weight of their
just curse will pile itself higher and heavier on your miserable
soul! Fain would you doubt the truth of immortality: but the power of
unbelief is gone; devil-like, you believe and tremble. And where is
the reward which should recompense you for this large outlay? Does the
honey of your long-awaited triumph offend your lips like gall?--Then
woe for him whose morning dreams of vengeance become realities in the
evening!--
How stands it between you and Gnulemah, Manetho? She has never loved
you ardently, perhaps; but how will you face her hatred? It is late to
be asking such questions,--but has not her temperate affection been
your most precious possession? have you not yearned and labored for
it? have you not loved her with more than a father's tenderness? Under
mask of planning her ruin, have not all the softer and better impulses
of your nature found exercise and sustenance? Conceiving a devil, have
you brought forth an angel, and unawares tasted angelic joy?--If this
be true, Manetho, your guilty purpose towards her is not excused, but
how much more awful becomes the contemplation of her fate! Rouse up!
sluggard, rush forth! you may save her yet. Up! would you risk the
salvation of three souls to glut a meaningless spite? You have been
fighting shadows with a shadow. Up!--it is the last appeal.--
You stir,--get stiffly to your feet,--put hand to forehead,--stare
around. The twilight has deepened apace; only by glancing upwards can
you distinguish a definite light. You are uncertain and lethargic in
your movements, as though the dawning in you of a worthy resolution
had impaired the evil principle of your vitality. You are as a man
nourished on poison, who suddenly tastes an antidote,--and finds it
fatal!
You halt towards the door and put forth a hand to open it. You will
save Gnulemah; her innocence will save her from the knowledge of her
loss. As for Balder,--his suffering will satisfy a reasonable enemy.
No wife, no fortune, the cup dashed from his lips just as the aroma
was ravishing his nostrils!--O, enough! Open the door, therefore, and
go forth.
In your magnanimity you feel for the key, but it is not in its
accustomed place. Try your pockets; still in vain! Startled, you turn
to the table, and feel carefully over it from end to end. You raise
the heavy chair like a feather, and shake it bottom downwards. Nothing
falls. You are down on your knees groping affrighted amongst the dust
and rubbish of the floor. The key is lost! You spring up,--briskly
enough now,--and stand with your long fingers working against one
another, trying to think. That key,--where had you it last?--
A blank whirl is your memory,--nothing stands clearly out. How came
you here? With whom did you speak just now? What was said?--Two
persons there seemed to be, oddly combined in one,--most unfamiliar in
their familiarity. Or was it your evil genius, Manetho? who by
devilish artifice has at this last hour shut the door against your
first good impulse; locked the door against soul and body; shut you in
and carried off the key of your salvation.
Do not give way yet; review your situation carefully.--Your voice
would be inaudible through these massive walls, were the listener but
a yard away.--Be quick with your thinking, for the unmitigable minutes
are dying fast and forever.--Were it known that you were here, could
you be got out? No, for the secret of the door is known only to
yourself. Those who once shared the knowledge with you are dead, or
many years gone! Your evil genius no doubt knows it, and all your
secrets; but dream not that she will liberate you. She has been
awaiting this opportunity. You shall remain here to-night and many
nights. Your bones shall lie gaunt on this cobwebbed floor. Only the
daily sunbeam shall know of your tomb. And Gnulemah?...
Your knees falter beneath you, and you sink in wretched tears to the
floor,--tears that bring no drop of comfort. To be shut up alone with
a soul like yours, at the moment when the sin so long tampered with
has escaped your control, and is pitilessly doing its devilish work
on the other side your prison-walls, near, yet inaccessible,--who can
measure the horror of it? Till now you have made your will the law of
right and wrong, and read your life by no higher light than your own.
You read it otherwise to-night, lying here helpless and alone. That
lost key has unlocked the fair front of your complacency and revealed
the wizened deformity behind it. You have been insane; but the anguish
that would craze a sane man clears the mist from your reason. You
behold the truth at last; but as the drowning man sees the ship pass
on and leave him.
But we care not to watch too curiously the writhings of your
imprisoned soul, Manetho; the less, because we doubt whether the agony
will be of benefit to you. Forgiveness of enemies is perhaps beyond
your scope; even your rage to save Gnulemah was kindled chiefly by
your impotence to do so. God forbid we do you less than justice! but
hope seems dim for such as you; nor will a death-bed repentance,
however sincere, avail to wipe away the sins of a lifetime. Jealousy
of Balder, rather than desire for Gnulemah's eternal weal, awoke your
conscience. For the thought of their spending life in happy ignorance
of their true relationship inflames--does not allay--your agony!
Your womanish outburst of despairing tears over, a hot fever of
restlessness besets you. The space is narrow for disquiet such as
yours,--you hunt up and down the strip of floor like a caged beast. No
way out,--no way out!--Face to face with lingering death, why not
hasten it? No moral scruple withholds you. Yet will you not die by
your own hand. Through all your suffering you will cling to life and
worship it. Never will you open your arms to death,--which seems to
you no grave, compassionate angel, but a malignant fiend lying in
ambush for your soul. And such a fiend will your death be; for to all
men death is the reflection of their life in the mind's mirror.--Still
to and fro you fare, a moving shadow through a narrow gloom, walled in
with stone.
Awful is this unnatural sanity of intellect: it is like the calm in
the whirlwind's centre, where the waves run higher though the air is
deadly still, and the surly mariner wishes the mad wind back
again.--To and fro you flit, goaded on and strengthened by untiring
anguish. You are but the body of a man; your thought and emotion are
abroad, haunting the unconscious, happy lovers!--
Suddenly you stop short in your blind walk, throw up your arms, and
break into an irrepressible chuckle. Has your brain given way at
last?--No, your laugh is the outcome of a genuine revulsion of
feeling, intense but legitimate. What is the cause of it?--You plunge
into the rubbish-heap at one end of the room, and grasp and draw
forth the rickety old ladder which has been lying there these twenty
years. You have seen it almost daily, poking out amidst the cobwebs,
and probably for that very reason have so long failed to perceive that
it was susceptible of a better use than to be food for worms. You set
it upright against the wall; its top round falls three feet below the
horizontal aperture. Enough, if you tread with care. Narrow, steep,
and rickety is the path to deliverance; but up! for your time is
short.
Upward, with cautious eagerness! The ladder is warped and rests
unevenly, and once or twice a round cracks beneath the down-pressing
foot; the thing is all unsound and might fall to pieces at any moment.
However, the top is gained, and your nervous hands are on the sill at
last. Easing yourself a little higher, you look forth on the world
once more.
Not so late after all! Red still lingers along the western horizon,
but against it is mounting and expanding a black cloud, glancing ever
and anon with dangerous lightning. In a clear sky-lake above the
cloud, steadily burns a planet. The gentle twilight rests lovingly on
earth's warm bosom--
Hark! look! what moves yonder beneath the trees?--
Your parched, eager face strained forwards, your hungry eyes eating
through the gloom,--see emerge from the avenue two figures, sauntering
lover-like side to side! How forgetful of the world they seem! Little
think they of you, of the rack on which you have been outstretched.
But their hour has come. This moment shall be their last of
peace,--their last of happy love.
* * * * *
--What sound was that?--Was it a yell of triumph,--a shout for
help,--a scream of terror?--It does not come again; but the silence is
more terrible than the cry.
XXXIII.
THE BLACK CLOUD.
"Hiero,--it was his voice!" said Gnulemah. She looked in her lover's
face, trusting to his wisdom and strength. She rested her courage on
his, but her eyes stirred him like a trumpet-call. The burden of that
cry had been calamity. Love is protean, makes but a step from
dalliance to grandeur. Balder, no longer a sentimental bridegroom,
stood forth ready, brief, energetic,--but more a lover than before!
The voice had at the first moment sounded startlingly clear, then it
had seemed distant and muffled. As Helwyse swiftly skirted the granite
wall of the temple, his mind was busy with conjecture; but he failed
to hit upon any reasonable explanation. The cry had come from the
direction of the temple, and had he known of the existence of the
apertures through the masonry, he might partly have solved the
mystery. As it was, he thought only of getting inside, feeling sure
that, explainably or not, Manetho must be there.
In the oaken hall he met Nurse, who had also heard the cry, but knew
not whence it proceeded.
"In the temple, I think," said Helwyse, answering her agitated
gesture.
The clew was sufficient; she sped along towards the door whence she
had so lately fled panic-stricken, Helwyse following. Beneath the
solemn excitement and perplexity, lay warm and secure in his heart the
thought of Gnulemah,--his wife. Blessed thought! which the whips and
scorns of time should make but more tenderly dear and precious.
As he breathed the incense-laden air of the temple, Balder's face grew
stern. At each step he thought to see death in some ghastly form. In
the joy of this his marriage night he had wished all the world might
have rejoiced with him; but already was calamity abroad. Birth and
death, love and hate, happiness and woe, are borne on every human
breath, and mingled with daily meat and drink. So be it!--They were
parodies of humanity who should live on a purer diet or inhale a rarer
atmosphere.
All the lights in the great hall, except the altar lamp, were burnt
out, and the place was very dusky. Nurse went straight towards the
secret door, looking neither to the right nor left; while Helwyse, who
did not suspect its existence, was prying into each dark nook and
corner. An inarticulate exclamation from the woman arrested him. She
was standing behind the altar, close to the clock. As he approached
she pointed to the wall. She had found the key in the lock, but dared
not be first to brave the sight of what might be within. She appealed
to the strength of the man, yet with a morbid jealousy of his
precedence.
Helywse saw the key, and, turning it, the seeming-solid wall disclosed
a door, opening outwards, a single slab of massive granite. Within all
was dark, and there was no sound. Was anything there?
He looked round to address Nurse, but her appearance checked him. She
was staring into the darkness; he could feel her one-eyed glance pass
him, fastening on something beyond. He moved to let the lamplight
enter the doorway; and then in the illuminated square that fell on the
floor he saw Manetho's upturned face. The fallen priest lay with one
arm doubled under him, the other thrown across his breast. Nurse
stared at her broken idol, motionless, with stertorous breathing.
But was Manetho dead? Helwyse, the physician, stepped across the
threshold, and stooped to examine the body. The dumb creature followed
and lay down, animal-like, close beside the deity of her worship.
Presently the physician said,--
"There's life in him, but he's hurt internally. We must find a way to
move him from here."
"Life!"--the woman heard, nor cared for more. Her dry fixedness gave
way with a gasp, and she broke into hysteric tears, rocking herself
backwards and forwards, crooning over the insensible body, or stooping
to kiss it. She had no sense nor heed for the lover of her youth.
"Could such a creature have been his wife? even his mistress?"
questioned Helwyse of himself. But he spoke out sharply:--
"You must stop this. He must be revived at once. Go and make ready a
bed, and I will carry him to it."
As he spoke, a silent shadow fell across the body, and Gnulemah stood
in the doorway. Balder's first impulse was to motion her away from a
spectacle so unsuited to her eyes. But though the shadow made her face
inscrutable, the lines of her figure spoke, and not of weak timidity
or effeminate consternation. Womanly she was,--instinct with that
tender, sensitive power, the marvellous gift of God to woman only,
which almost moves the sick man to bless his sickness. A holy
gift,--surely the immediate influx of Christ's spirit. Man knows it
not, albeit when he and woman have become more closely united than
now, he may attain to share the Divine prerogative. Study nor skill
can counterfeit it; but in the true woman it is perfect at the first
appeal as at the last.
"He shall have my bed," said this young goddess Isis; "it is ready,
and my lamp is burning."
Balder stooped to uplift his insensible burden.
"O, not so!--more tenderly than that," she interposed, softly. A
moment's hesitation, and then she unfastened the golden
shoulder-clasp, and shook off her ample mantle. This was Manetho's
litter.
"I will help you carry him.--Why do you-weep, Nurse? he will awake, or
Balder would have told us."