Chapter XI: Part 11

“Ay, it do roar,” replied the man who was his mate in the boat when they went fishing; “and did ye hear a cormorant scream a while ago?”

“Ay, ay! I heard it!” They were silent then, and turned in, after making inquiries concerning Karl at the cottage where they had left him. He was still unconscious.

XXXI.

A couple of days later, El-Râmi was engaged in what was not a very favourite occupation with him,--he was reading the morning’s newspaper. He glanced over the cut-and-dry chronicle of “Storms and Floods”--he noted that a great deal of damage had been wrought by the gale at Ilfracombe and other places along the Devonshire coast,--but there was nothing of any specially dreadful import to attract his attention, and nothing either in politics or science of any pressing or vital interest. There were two or three reviews of books, one of these being pressed into a corner next to the advertisement of a patent pill; there were announcements of the movements of certain human units favoured with a little extra money and position than ordinary, as being “in” or “out” of town, and there was a loftily-patronising paragraph on the “Theosophical Movement,” or, as it is more frequently termed, the “Theosophical Boom.” From this, El-Râmi learned that a gentleman connected with the Press, who wrote excessively commonplace verse, and thereby had got himself and his name (through the aforesaid press connection) fairly well known, had been good enough to enunciate the following amazing platitude:--“That, as a great portion of the globe is composed of elements which cannot be seen, and as the study of the invisible may be deemed as legitimate as the study of the visible, he” (the press-connected versifier) “is inclined to admit that there are great possibilities on the lines of that study.”

“Inclined to admit it, is he!” and El-Râmi threw aside the paper and broke into a laugh of the sincerest enjoyment, “Heavens! what fools there are in this world, who call themselves wise men! This little poetaster, full of the conceit common to his imitative craft, is ‘inclined to admit’ that there are great possibilities in the study of the invisible! Excellent condescension! How the methods of life have turned topsy-turvy since the ancient days! Then the study of the Invisible was the first key to the study of the Visible,--the things which are seen being considered only as the reflexes of the things which are unseen--the Unseen being accepted as Cause, the Seen as Effect. Now we all drift the other way,--taking the Visible as Fact,--the Invisible as Fancy!”

Féraz, who was writing at a side-table, looked up at him.

“Surely you are inconsistent?” he said--“You yourself believe in nothing unless it is _proved_.”

“But then, my dear fellow, I _can_ prove the Invisible and follow the grades of it, and the modes by which it makes itself the Visible,--to a certain extent--but only to a certain extent. Beyond the provable limit I do not go. You, on the contrary, aided by the wings of imagination, outsoar that limit, and profess to find angels, star-kingdoms, and God Himself. I cannot go so far as this. But, unlike our blown-out frog of a versifier here, who would fain persuade mankind he is a bull, I am not only ‘inclined’ to admit--I _do_ admit that there are ‘great possibilities’--only I must test them all before I can accept them as facts made clear to my comprehension.”

“Still, you believe in the Invisible?”

“Naturally. I believe in the millions of suns in the Milky Way, though they can scarcely be called ‘visible.’ I should be a fool if I did not believe in the Invisible, under the present conditions of the Universe. But I cannot be tricked by ‘shams’ of the Invisible. The Theosophical business is a piece of vulgar imposture, in which the professors themselves are willing to delude their own imaginations, as well as the imaginations of others--they are the most wretched imitators that ever were of the old Eastern sorcerers,--the fellows who taught Moses and Aaron how to frighten their ignorant cattle-like herds of followers. None of the modern ‘mediums,’ as they are called, have the skill over atmospheric phenomena, metals, and light-reflexes that Apollonius of Tyana had, or Alexander the Paphlagonian. Both these scientific sorcerers were born about the same time as Christ, and Apollonius, like Christ, raised a maiden from the dead. Miracles were the fashion in that period of time,--and, according to the monotonous manner in which history repeats itself, they are coming into favour again in this century. All that we know now has been already known. The ancient Greeks had their ‘penny-in-the-slot’ machine for the purpose of scattering perfume on their clothes as they passed along the streets--they had their ‘syphon’ bottles and vases as we have, and they had their automatically opening and closing doors. Compare the miserable ‘spiritualistic phenomena’ of the Theosophists with the marvels wrought by Hakem, known as Mokanna! Mokanna could cause an orb like the moon to rise from a well at a certain hour and illumine the country for miles and miles around. How did he do it? By a knowledge of electric force applied to air and water. The ‘bogies’ of a modern _séance_ who talk bad grammar and pinch people’s toes and fingers are very coarse examples of necromancy, compared with the scientific skill of Mokanna and others of this tribe. However, superstition is the same in all ages, and there will always be fools ready to believe in ‘Mahatmas’ or anything else,--and the old ‘incantation of the Mantra’ will, if well done, influence the minds of the dupes of the nineteenth century quite as effectively as it did those of the bygone ages before Christ.”

“What is the incantation of the Mantra?” asked Féraz.

“A ridiculous trick”--replied El-Râmi--“known to every Eastern conjurer and old woman who professes to see the future. You take your dupe, and fling a little water over him, fixing upon him your eyes and all the force of your will,--then, you take a certain mixture of chemical substances and perfumes, and set them on fire--the flames and fumes produce a dazzling and drowsy effect on the senses of your ‘subject,’ who will see whatever you choose him to see, and hear whatever you intend him to hear. But Will is the chief ingredient of the spell,--and if I, for example, choose to influence any one, I can dispense with both water and fire--I can do it alone and without any show of preparation.”

“I know you can!” said Féraz meaningly, with a slight smile, and then was silent.

“I wonder what the art of criticism is coming to nowadays!” exclaimed El-Râmi presently, taking up the paper again--“Here is a remark worthy of Dogberry’s profundity--‘_This is a book that must be read to be understood._’[3] Why, naturally! Who can understand a book without reading it?”

Féraz laughed--then his eyes darkened.

“I saw an infamous so-called critique of one of Madame Vassilius’s books the other day”--he said--“I should like to have thrashed the man who wrote it. It was not criticism at all--it was a mere piece of scurrilous vulgarity.”

“Ah, but that sort of thing pays!” retorted El-Râmi satirically. “The modern journalist attains his extremest height of brilliancy when he throws the refuse of his inkpot at the name and fame of a woman more gifted than himself. It’s nineteenth-century chivalry you know,--above all ... it’s manly!”

Féraz shrugged his shoulders with a faint gesture of contempt.

“Then--if there is any truth in old chronicles--men are not what they were;”--he said.

“No--they are not what they were, my dear boy--because all things have changed. Women were once the real slaves and drudges of men,--now, they are very nearly their equals, or can be so if they choose. And men have to get accustomed to this--at present they are in the transition state and don’t like it. Besides, there will always be male tyrants and female drudges as long as the world lasts. Men are not what they were,--and, certes, they are not what they might be.”

“They might be gods;”--said Féraz--“but I suppose they prefer to be devils.”

“Precisely!” agreed El-Râmi--“it is easier, and more amusing.”

Féraz resumed his writing in silence. He was thinking of Irene Vassilius, whom he admired;--and also of that wondrous Sleeping Beauty enshrined upstairs whose loveliness he did not dare to speak of. He had latterly noticed a great change in his brother,--an indefinable softness seemed to have imperceptibly toned down the habitual cynicism of his speech and manner,--his very expression of countenance was more gracious and benign,--he looked handsomer,--his black eyes shot forth a less fierce fire,--and yet, with all his gentleness and entire lack of impatience, he was absorbed from morning to night in such close and secret study as made Féraz sometimes fear for its ultimate result on his health.

“Do you really believe in prayer, Féraz?” was the very unexpected question he now asked, with sudden and startling abruptness; “I mean, do you think any one in the invisible realms _hears_ us when we pray?”

Féraz laid down his pen, and gazed at his brother for a moment without answering. Then he said slowly--

“Well, according to your own theories the air is a vast phonograph,--so it follows naturally that everything is _heard_ and _kept_. But as to prayer, that depends, I think, altogether on how you pray. I do not believe in it at all times. And I’m afraid my ideas on the subject are quite out of keeping with those generally accepted----”

“Never mind--let me have them, whatever they are”--interrupted El-Râmi with visible eagerness--“I want to know when and how you pray?”

“Well, the fact is I very seldom pray”--returned Féraz--“I offer up the best praise I can in mortal language devise, both night and morning--but I never _ask_ for anything. It would seem so vile to ask for more, having already so much. And I am sure God knows best--in which case I have nothing to ask, except one thing.”

“And that is----?” queried his brother.

“Punishment!” replied Féraz emphatically; “I pray for that--I crave for that--I implore that I may be punished at once when I have done wrong, that I may immediately recognise my error. I would rather be punished here, than hereafter.”

El-Râmi paled a little, and his lips trembled.

“Strange boy!” he murmured--“All the churches are praying God to take away the punishments incurred for sin,--you, on the contrary, ask for it as if it were a blessing.”

“So it is a blessing”--declared Féraz--“It must be a blessing--and it is absurd of the churches to pray against a Law. For it is a Law. Nature punishes us, when we physically rebel against the rules of health, by physical suffering and discomfort,--God punishes us in our mental rebellions by mental wretchedness. This is as it should be. I believe we get everything in this world that we deserve--no more and no less.”

“And do you never pray”--continued El-Râmi slowly, “for the accomplished perfection of some cherished aim,--the winning of some special joy----”

“Not I”--said Féraz--“because I know that if it be good for me I shall have it,--if bad, it will be withheld; all my prayers could not alter the matter.”

El-Râmi sat silent for a few minutes,--then, rising, he took two or three turns up and down the room, and gradually a smile, half scornful, half sweet, illumined his dark features.

“Then, O young and serene philosopher, I will not pray!” he said, his eyes flashing a lustrous defiance--“I have a special aim in view--I mean to grasp a joy!--and whether it be good or bad for me, I will attempt it unassisted.”

“If it be good you will succeed;”--said Féraz with a glance expressive of some fear as well as wonderment. “If it be bad, you will not. God arranges these things for us.”

“God--God--always God!” cried El-Râmi with some impatience--“No God shall interfere with me!” At that moment there came a hesitating knock at the street door. Féraz went to open it, and admitted a pale grief-stricken man whose eyes were red and heavy with tears and whose voice utterly failed him to reply when El-Râmi exclaimed in astonishment:

“Karl! ... Karl! You here? Why, what has happened?”

Poor Karl made a heroic struggle to speak,--but his emotion was too strong for him--he remained silent, and two great drops rolled down his cheeks in spite of all his efforts to restrain them.

“You are ill;”--said Féraz kindly, pushing him by gentle force into a chair and fetching him a glass of wine--“Here, drink this--it will restore you.”

Karl put the glass aside tremblingly, and tried to smile his gratitude,--and presently gaining a little control over himself he turned his piteous glances towards El-Râmi whose fine features had become suddenly grave and fixed in thought.

“You ... you ... have not heard, sir----” he stammered.

El-Râmi raised his hand gently, with a solemn and compassionate gesture.

“Peace, my good fellow!--no, I have not heard,--but I can guess;--Kremlin, ... your master ... is dead.”

And he was silent for many minutes. Fresh tears trickled from Karl’s eyes, and he made a pretence of tasting the wine that Féraz pressed upon him--Féraz, who looked as statuesque and serene as a young Apollo.

“You must console yourself;”--he said cheerfully to Karl, “Poor Dr. Kremlin had many troubles and few joys--now he has gone where he has no trouble and all joy.”

“Ah!” sighed Karl dolefully--“I wish I could believe that, sir,--I wish I could believe it! But it was the judgment of God upon him--it was indeed!--that is what my poor mother would say,--the judgment of God!”

El-Râmi moved from his meditative attitude with a faint sense of irritation. The words he had so lately uttered--“No God shall interfere with me”--re-echoed in his mind. And now here was this man,--this servant, weeping and trembling and talking of the “judgment of God” as if it were really something divinely directed and inexorable.

“What do you mean?” he asked, endeavouring to suppress the impatience in his voice--“Of course, I know he must have had some violent end, or else he could not”--and he repeated the words impressively--“could not have died,--but was there anything more than usually strange in the manner of his death?”

Karl threw up his hands.

“More than usually strange! Ach, Gott!” and, with many interpolations of despair and expressions of horror, he related in broken accents the whole of the appalling circumstances attending his master’s end. In spite of himself a faint shudder ran through El-Râmi’s warm blood as he heard--he could almost see before him the horrible spectacle of the old man’s mangled form lying crushed under the ponderous Disc his daring skill had designed; and under his breath he murmured, “Oh Lilith, oh my too happy Lilith! and yet you tell me there is no death!” Féraz, however, the young and sensitive Féraz, listened to the sad recital with quiet interest, unhorrified, apparently unmoved,--his eyes were bright, his expression placid.

“He could not have suffered;”--he observed at last, when Karl had finished speaking--“The flash of lightning must have severed body and spirit instantly and without pain. I think it was a good end.”

Karl looked at the beautiful smiling youth in vague horror. What!--to be flattened out like a board beneath a ponderous weight of fallen stone--to be so disfigured as to be unrecognisable--to be only a mangled mass of flesh difficult of decent burial,--and call that “a good end”! Karl shuddered and groaned;--he was not versed in the strange philosophies of young Féraz--_he_ had never been out of his body on an ethereal journey to the star-kingdoms.

“It was the judgment of God,”--he repeated dully--“Neither more nor less. My poor master studied too hard, and tried to find out too much, and I think he made God angry----”

“My good fellow,” interrupted El-Râmi rather irritably--“do not talk of what you do not understand. You have been faithful, hard-working and all the rest of it,--but as for your master trying to find out too much, or God getting angry with him, that is all nonsense. We were placed on this earth to find out as much as we can, about it and about ourselves, and do the best that is possible with our learning,--and the bare idea of a great God condescending to be ‘angry’ with one out of millions upon millions of units is absurd----”

“But even if an unit rebels against the Law the Law crushes him”--interrupted Féraz softly--“A gnat flies into flame--the flame consumes it--the Law is fulfilled,--and the Law is God’s Will.”

El-Râmi bit his lip vexedly.

“Well, be that as it may, one must needs find out what the Law _is_ first, before it can either be accepted or opposed,” he said.

Féraz made no answer. He was thinking of the simplicity of certain Laws of Spirit and Matter which were accepted and agreed to by the community of men of whom the monk from Cyprus was the chief master.

Karl meanwhile stared bewilderedly from Féraz to El-Râmi and from El-Râmi back to Féraz again. Their remarks were totally beyond his comprehension; he never could understand, and never wanted to understand, these subtle philosophies.

“I came to ask you, sir”--he said after a pause--“whether you would not, now you know all, manage to take away that devilish thing that killed my master? I’m afraid to touch it myself, and no one else will--and there it lies up in the ruined tower shining away like a big lamp, and sticking like a burr to the iron rod I lifted it with, If it’s any good to you, I’m sure you’d better have it--and by the bye, I found this, sir, in my master’s room addressed to you.”

He held out a sealed envelope, which El-Râmi opened. It contained a folded paper, on which were scratched these lines--

“To El-Râmi Zarânos.

“Good friend, in the event of my death, I beg you to accept all my possessions such as they are, and do me the one favour I ask, which is this--Destroy the Disc, and let my problem die with me.”

This paper, duly signed, bore the date of two years previously. El-Râmi read it, and handed it to Karl, who read it also. They were silent for a few minutes; then El-Râmi crossed the room, and, unlocking a small cupboard in the wall, took out a sealed flask full of what looked like red wine.

“See here, Karl”--he said;--“There is no devil in the great stone you are so afraid of. It is as perishable as anything else in this best of all possible worlds. It is nothing but a peculiar and rare growth of crystal, which, though found in the lowest depths of the earth, has the quality of absorbing light and emitting it. It clings to the iron rod in the way you speak of because it is a magnet,--and iron not only attracts but fastens it. It is impossible for me just now to go to Ilfracombe--besides there is really no necessity for my presence there. I can fully trust you to bring me the papers and few possessions of my poor old friend,--and for the rest, you can destroy the stone yourself--the Disc, as your master called it. All you have to do is simply to pour this liquid on it,--it will pulverise--that is, it will crumble into dust while you watch it, and in ten minutes will be indistinguishable from the fallen mortar of the shattered tower. Do you understand?”

Karl’s mouth opened a little in wonderment, and he nodded feebly,--he found it quite easy and natural to be afraid of the flask containing a mixture of such potent quality, and he took it from El-Râmi’s hand very gingerly and reluctantly. A slight smile crossed El-Râmi’s features as he said--

“No, Karl! there is no danger--no fear of pulverisation for _you_. You can put the phial safely in your pocket,--and though its contents would pulverise a mountain if used in sufficient quantities,--the liquid has no effect on flesh and blood.”

“Pulverise a mountain!” repeated Karl nervously--“Do you mean that it could turn a mountain into a dust-heap?”

“Or a city--or a fortress--or a rock-bound coast--or anything in the shape of stone that you please”--replied El-Râmi carelessly--“but it will not harm human beings.”

“Will it not explode, sir?” and Karl still looked at the flask in doubt.

“Oh no--it will do its work with extraordinary silence and no less extraordinary rapidity. Do not be afraid!”

Slowly and with evident uneasiness Karl put the terrifying composition into his pocket, deeply impressed by the idea that he had about him stuff, which, if used in sufficient quantity, could “pulverise a mountain.” It was awful! worse than dynamite, he considered, his thoughts flying off wantonly to the woes of Irishmen and Russians. El-Râmi seemed not to notice his embarrassment and went on talking quietly, asking various questions concerning Kremlin’s funeral, and giving advice as to the final arrangements which were necessary, till presently he inquired of Karl what he proposed doing with himself in the future.

“Oh I shall look out for another situation,”--he said--“I shall not go back to Germany. I like to think of the ‘Fatherland,’ and I can sing the ‘Wacht am Rhein’ with as much lung as anybody, but I wouldn’t care to live there. I think I shall try for a place where there’s a lady to serve; you know, sir, gentlemen’s ways are apt to be monotonous. Whether they are clever or foolish they always stick to it, whatever it is. A gentleman that races is always racing, and always talking and thinking about racing,--a gentleman that drinks is always on the drink,--a gentleman that coaches is always coaching, and so on; now a lady _does_ vary! One day she’s all for flowers, another for pictures, another for china,--sometimes she’s mad about music, sometimes about dresses,--or else she takes a fit for study, and gets heaps of books from the libraries. Now for a man-servant all that is very agreeable and lively.”

Féraz laughed at this novel view of domestic service, and Karl, growing a little more cheerful, went on with his explanation--

“You see, supposing I get into a lady’s service, I shall have so much more to distract me. One afternoon I shall be waiting outside a picture-gallery with her shawls and wraps; another day I shall be running backwards and forwards to a library,--and then there’s always the pleasure of never quite knowing what she will do next. And it’s excitement I want just now--it really is!”

The corners of his good-humoured mouth drooped again despondently, and his thoughts reverted with unpleasant suddenness to the “pulverising” liquid in his pocket. What a terrible thing it was to get acquainted with scientists!

El-Râmi listened to his observations patiently.

“Well, Karl,” he said at last--“I think I can promise you a situation such as you would like. There is a very famous and lovely lady in London, known to the reading-world as Irene Vassilius--she writes original books; is sweetly capricious, yet nobly kind-hearted. I will write to her about you, and I have no doubt she will give you a trial.”

Karl brightened up immensely at this prospect.

“Thank you, sir!” he said fervently--“You’ve no idea what a deal of good it will do me to take in the tea to a sweet-looking lady--a properly-served tea, you know, all silver and good china. It will be a sort of tonic to me,--it will indeed, after that terrible place at Ilfracombe. You can tell her I’m a very handy man,--I can do almost anything, from cooking a chop, up to stretching my legs all day in a porter’s chair in the hall and reading the latest ‘special.’ Anything she wishes, whether for show or economy, she couldn’t have a better hand at it than me;--will you tell her so, sir?”

“Certainly!” replied El-Râmi with a smile. “I’ll tell her you are a domestic Von Moltke, and that under your management her household will be as well ordered as the German army under the great Field-Marshal.”

After a little more desultory conversation, Karl took his departure, and returned by the afternoon train to Ilfracombe. He was living with one of his fisher-friends, and as it was late when he arrived he made no attempt to go to the deserted house of his deceased master that night. But early the next morning he hurried there before breakfast, and ascended to the shattered tower,--that awful scene of desolation from whence poor Kremlin’s mangled remains had been taken, and where only a dark stain of blood on the floor silently testified of the horror that had there been enacted. The Disc, lying prone, glittered as he approached it, with, as he thought, a fiendish and supernatural light--the early sunlight fell upon its surface, and a thousand prismatic tints and sparkles dazzled his eyes as he drew near and gazed dubiously at it where it still clung to the iron pendulum. What could his master have used such a strange object for?--what did it mean? And that solemn humming noise which he had used to hear when the nights were still,--had that glistening thing been the cause?--had it any sound? ... Struck by this idea, and filled with a sudden courage, he seized a piece of thick wire, part of the many tangled coils that lay among the ruins of roof and wall, and with it gave the Disc a smart blow on its edge ... hush! ... hush! ... The wire dropped from his hand, and he stood, almost paralysed with fear. A deep, solemn, booming sound, like a great cathedral bell, rang through the air,--grand, and pure and musical, and ... unearthly!--as might be the clarion stroke of a clock beating out, not the short pulsations of Time, but the vast throbs of Eternity. Round and round, in eddying echoes swept that sweet, sonorous note,--till--growing gradually fainter and fainter, it died entirely away from human hearing, and seemed to pass out and upwards into the gathering sun-rays that poured brightly from the east, there to take its place, perchance, in that immense diapason of vibrating tone-music that fills the star-strewn space for ever and ever. It was the last sound struck from the great Star-Dial:--for Karl, terrified at the solemn din, wasted no more time in speculative hesitation, but, taking the flask El-Râmi had given him, he opened it tremblingly and poured all its contents on the surface of the crystal. The red liquid ran over the stone like blood, crumbling it as it ran and extinguishing its brilliancy,--eating its substance away as rapidly as vitriol eats away the human skin,--blistering it and withering it visibly before Karl’s astonished eyes,--till, as El-Râmi had said, it was hardly distinguishable from the dust and mortar around it. One piece lasted just a little longer than the rest--it curled and writhed like a living thing under the absolutely noiseless and terribly destructive influence of that blood-like liquid that seemed to sink into it as water sinks into a sponge,--Karl watched it, fascinated--till all at once it broke into a sparkle like flame, gleamed, smouldered, leaped high ... and--disappeared. The wondrous Dial, with its “perpetual motion” and its measured rhythm, was as if it had never been,--it had vanished as utterly as a destroyed Planet,--and the mighty Problem reflected on its surface remained ... and will most likely still remain ... a mystery unsolved.

XXXII.

For two or three weeks after he had received the news of Kremlin’s death, El-Râmi’s mind was somewhat troubled and uneasy. He continued his abstruse studies ardently, yet with less interest than usual,--and he spent hour after hour in Lilith’s room, sitting beside the couch on which she reposed, saying nothing, but simply watching her, himself absorbed in thought. Days went by and he never roused her,--never asked her to reply to any question concerning the deep things of time and of eternity with which her aërial spirit seemed conversant. He was more impressed by the suddenness and terror of Kremlin’s end than he cared to admit to himself,--and the “Light-Maps” and other papers belonging to his deceased old friend, all of which had now come into his possession, were concise enough in many marvellous particulars to have the effect of leading him almost imperceptibly to believe that after all there was a God,--an actual Being whose magnificent attributes baffled the highest efforts of the imagination, and who indeed, as the Bible grandly hath it--“holds the Universe in the hollow of His hand.” And he began to go back to the Bible for information;--for he, like most students versed in Eastern philosophies, knew that all that was ever said or will be said on the mysteries of life and death is to be found in that Book, which, though full of much matter that does not pertain to its actual teaching, remains the one chief epitome of all the wisdom of the world. When it is once remembered that the Deity of Moses and Aaron was their own invented hobgoblin, used for the purpose of terrifying and keeping the Jews in order, much becomes clear that is otherwise impossible to accept or comprehend. Historians, priests, lawgivers, prophets and poets have all contributed to the Bible,--and when we detach class from class and put each in its proper place, without confounding them all together in an inextricable jumble as “Divine inspiration,” we obtain a better view of the final intention of the whole. El-Râmi considered Moses and Aaron in the light of particularly clever Eastern conjurers,--and not only conjurers, but tacticians and diplomatists, who had just the qualities necessary to rule a barbarous, ignorant, and rebellious people. The thunders of Mount Sinai, the graving of the commandments on tablets of stone,--the serpent in the wilderness,--the bringing of water out of a rock,--the parting of the sea to let an army march through; he, El-Râmi, knew how all these things were done, and was perfectly cognisant of the means and appliances used to compass all these seemingly miraculous events.

“What a career I could make if I chose!” he thought--“What wealth I could amass,--what position! I who know how to quell the wildest waves of the sea,--I who, by means of a few drops of liquid, can corrode a name or a device so deeply on stone that centuries shall not efface it--I who can do so many things that would astonish the vulgar and make them my slaves,--why am I content to live as I do, when I could be greater than a crowned king? Why, because I scorn to trick the ignorant by scientific skill which I have neither the time nor the patience to explain to them--and again--because I want to fathom the Impossible;--I want to prove if indeed there is any Impossible. What _can_ be done and proved, when once it _is_ done and proved, I regard as nothing,--and because I know how to smooth the sea, call down the rain, and evoke phantoms out of the atmosphere, I think such manifestations of power trifling and inadequate. These things are all _provable_; and the performance of them is attained through a familiar knowledge of our own earth elements and atmosphere, but to find out the subtle Something that is not of earth, and has not yet been made provable,--that is the aim of my ambition. The Soul! What is it? Of what ethereal composition? of what likeness? of what feeling? of what capacity? This, and this alone, is the Supreme Mystery,--when once we understand it, we shall understand God. The preachers waste their time in urging men and women to save their souls, so long as we remain in total ignorance as to what the Soul is. We cannot be expected to take any trouble to “save” or even regard anything so vague and dubious as the Soul under its present conditions. What is visible and provable to our eyes is that our friends die, and, to all intents and purposes, disappear. We never know them as they were any more, ... and, ... what is still more horrible to think of, but is nevertheless true,--our natural tendency is to forget them,--indeed, after three or four years, perhaps less, we should find it difficult, without the aid of a photograph or painted picture, to recall their faces to our memories. And it is curious to think of it, but we really remember their ways, their conversation, and their notions of life better than their actual physiognomies. All this is very strange and very perplexing too,--and it is difficult to imagine the reason for such perpetual tearing down of affections, and such bitter loss and harassment, unless there is some great Intention behind it all,--an Intention of which it is arranged we shall be made duly cognisant. If we are _not_ to be made cognisant,--if we are _not_ to have a full and perfect Explanation,--then the very fact of Life being lived at all is a mere cruelty,--a senseless jest which lacks all point,--and the very grandeur and immensity of the Universe becomes nothing but the meanest display of gigantic Force remorselessly put forth to overwhelm creatures who have no power to offer resistance to its huge tyranny. If I could but fathom that ultimate purpose of things!--if I could but seize the subtle clue--for I believe it is something very slight and delicate which by its very fineness we have missed,--something which has to do with the Eternal Infinitesimal--that marvellous power which creates animated and regularly organised beings, many thousands of whose bodies laid together would not extend _one inch_. It is not to the Infinitely Great one must look for the secret of creation, but to the Infinitely Little.”

So he mused, as he sat by the couch of Lilith and watched her sleeping that enchanted sleep of death-in-life. Old Zaroba, though now perfectly passive and obedient, and fulfilling all his commands with scrupulous exactitude, was not without her own ideas and hopes as she went about her various duties connected with the care of the beautiful tranced girl. She seldom spoke to Féraz now except on ordinary household matters, and he understood and silently respected her reserve. She would sit in her accustomed corner of Lilith’s regal apartment, weaving her thread-work mechanically, but ever and anon lifting her burning eyes to look at El-Râmi’s absorbed face and note the varied expressions she saw, or fancied she saw there.

“The feverish trouble has begun”--she muttered to herself on one occasion, as she heard her master sigh deeply--“The stir in the blood,--the restlessness--the wonder--the desire. And out of heart’s pain comes heart’s peace;--and out of desire, accomplishment; and shall not the old gods of the world rejoice to see love born again of flames and tears and bitter-sweet as in the ancient days? For there is no love now such as there used to be--the pale Christ has killed it,--and the red rose aglow with colour and scent is now but a dull weed on a tame shore, washed by the salt sea, but never warmed by the sun. In the days of old, in the nights when Ashtaroth was queen of the silver hours, the youths and maidens knew what it was to love in the very breath of Love!--and the magic of all Nature, the music of the woods and waters, the fire of the stars, the odours of the flowers--all these were in the dance and beat of the young blood, and in the touch of the soft red lips as they met and clung together in kisses sweeter than honey in wine. But now--now the world has grown old and cold, and dreary and joyless,--it is winter among men and the summer is past.”

So she would murmur to herself in her wild half-poetical jargon of language--her voice never rising above an inarticulate whisper. El-Râmi never heard her or seemed to regard her--he had no eyes except for the drowsing Lilith.

If he had been asked, at this particular time, why he went to that room day after day, to stare silently at his beautiful “subject” and ponder on everything connected with her, he could not have answered the question. He did not himself know why. Something there was in him, as in every portion of created matter, which remained inexplicable,--something of his own nature which he neither understood nor cared to analyse. He who sought to fathom the last depth of research concerning God and the things divine would have been compelled to own, had he been cross-examined on the matter, that he found it impossible to fathom himself. The clue to his own Ego was as desperately hard to seize, as curiously subtle and elusive, as the clue to the riddle of Creation. He was wont to pride himself on his consistency--yet in his heart of hearts he knew that in many things he was inconsistent,--he justly triumphed in his herculean Will-force,--yet now he was obliged to admit to himself that there was something in the silent placid aspect of Lilith as she lay before him, subservient to his command, that quite unnerved him and scattered his thoughts. It had not used to be so--but now,--it _was_ so. And he dated the change, whether rightly or wrongly, from the day on which the monk from Cyprus had visited him, and this thought made him restless and irritable, and full of unjust and unreasonable suspicions. For had not the “Master,” as he was known in the community to which he belonged, said that he had _seen_ the Soul of Lilith, while he, El-Râmi, had never attained to so beatific an altitude of vision? Then was it not possible that, notwithstanding his rectitude and steadfastness of purpose, the “Master,” great and Christ-like in self-denial though he was, might influence Lilith in some unforeseen way? Then there was Féraz--Féraz, whose supplications and protestations had won a smile from the tranced girl, and who therefore must assuredly have roused in her some faint pleasure and interest. Such thoughts as these rankled in his mind and gave him no peace--for they conveyed to him the unpleasing idea that Lilith was not all his own as he desired her to be,--others had a share in her thoughts. Could he have nothing entirely to himself? he would demand angrily of his own inner consciousness--not even this life which he had, as it were, robbed from death? And an idea, which had at first been the merest dim suggestion, now deepened into a passionate resolve--he would _make_ her his own so thoroughly and indissolubly that neither gods nor devils should snatch her from him.

“Her life is mine!” he said--“And she shall live as long as I please. Her body shall sleep, ... if I still choose, ... or ... it shall _wake_. But whether awake, or sleeping in the flesh, her spirit shall obey me always--like the satellite of a planet, that disembodied Soul shall be mine for ever!”

When he spoke thus to himself, he was sitting in his usual contemplative attitude by the couch where Lilith lay;--he rose up suddenly and paced the room, drawing back the velvet portière and setting open the door of the ante-chamber as though he craved for fresh air. Music sounded through the house, ... it was Féraz singing. His full pure tenor voice came floating up, bearing with it the words he sang:

“And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee!

“For the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,-- And the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee-- And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In her tomb by the sounding sea!”

With a shaking hand El-Râmi shut the door more swiftly than he had opened it, and dragged the heavy portière across it to deaden the sound of that song!--to keep it out from his ears ... from his heart, ... to stop its passionate vibration from throbbing along his nerves like creeping fire. ...

“And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.” ...

“God!--my God!” he muttered incoherently--“What ails me? ... Am I going mad that I should dream thus?”

He gazed round the room wildly, his hand still clutching the velvet portière,--and met the keenly watchful glance of Zaroba. Her hands were mechanically busy with her thread-work,--but her eyes, black, piercing and brilliant, were fixed on him steadfastly. Something in her look compelled his attention,--something in his compelled hers. They stared across the room at each other, as though a Thought had sprung between them like an armed soldier with drawn sword, demanding from each the pass-word to a mystery. In and out, across and across went the filmy glistening threads in Zaroba’s wrinkled hands, but her eyes never moved from El-Râmi’s face, and she looked like some weird sorceress weaving a web of destiny.

“For you were the days of Ashtaroth!” she said in a low, monotonous, yet curiously thrilling tone--“You are born too late, El-Râmi,--the youth of the world has departed and the summer seasons of the heart are known on earth no more. You are born too late--too late!--the Christ claims all,--the body, the blood, the nerve and the spirit,--every muscle of His white limbs on the cross must be atoned for by the dire penance and torture of centuries of men. So that now even love is a thorn in the flesh and its prick must be paid with a price,--these are the hours of woe preceding the end. The blood that runs in your veins, El-Râmi, has sprung from kings and strong rulers of men,--and the pale faint spirits of this dull day have naught to do with its colour and glow. And it rebels, O El-Râmi!--as God liveth, it rebels!--it burns in your heart--the proud, strong heart,--like ruddy wine in a ruby cup; it rebels, El-Râmi!--it rises to passion as rise the waves of the sea to the moon, by a force and an impulse in Nature stronger than yours! Ay, ay!--for you were the days of Ashtaroth”--and her voice sank into a wailing murmur--“but now--now--the Christ claims all.”

He heard her as one may hear incoherencies in a nightmare vision;--only a few weeks ago he would have been angry with her for what he would then have termed her foolish jargon,--but he was not angry now. Why should he be angry? he wondered dully--had he time to even think of anger while thus unnerved by that keen tremor that quivered through his frame--a tremor he strove in vain to calm? His hand fell from the curtain,--the sweet distracting song of Poe’s “Annabel Lee” had ceased,--and he advanced into the room again, his heart beating painfully still, his head a little drooped as though with a sense of conscious shame. He moved slowly to where the roses in the Venetian vase exhaled their odours on the air, and breaking one off its branch toyed with it aimlessly, letting its pale pink leaves flutter down one by one on the violet carpet at his feet. Suddenly, as though he had resolved a doubt and made up his mind to something, he turned towards Zaroba, who watched him fixedly,--and with a mute signal bade her leave the apartment. She rose instantly, and crossing her hands upon her breast made her customary obeisance and waited,--for he looked at her with a meditative expression which implied that he had not yet completed his instructions. Presently, and with some hesitation, he made her another sign--a sign which had the effect of awakening a blaze of astonishment in her dark sunken eyes.

“No more to-night!” she repeated aloud--“It is your will that I return here no more to-night?”

He gave a slow but decided gesture of assent,--there was no mistaking it.

Zaroba paused an instant, and then with a swift noiseless step went to the couch of Lilith and bent yearningly above that exquisite sleeping form.

“Star of my heart!” she muttered--“Child whose outward fairness I have ever loved, unheedful of the soul within,--may there still be strength enough left in the old gods to bid thee wake!”

El-Râmi caught her words, and a faint smile, proud yet bitter, curved his delicate lips.

“The old gods or the new--does it matter which?” he mused vaguely.--“And what is their strength compared with the Will of Man by which the very elements are conquered and made the slaves of his service? ‘My Will is God’s Will’ should be every strong man’s motto. But I--am I strong--or the weakest of the weak? ... and ... shall the Christ claim all?”

The soft fall of the velvet portière startled him as it dropped behind the retreating figure of Zaroba--she had left the room, and he was alone,--alone with Lilith.

XXXIII.

He remained quite still, standing near the tall vase that held the clustered roses,--in his hand he grasped unconsciously the stalk of the one he had pulled to pieces. He was aware of his own strange passiveness,--it was a sort of inexplicable inertia which like temporary paralysis seemed to incapacitate him from any action. It would have appeared well and natural to him that he should stay there so, dreamily, with the scented rose-stalk in his hand, for any length of time. A noise in the outer street roused him a little,--the whistling, hooting, and laughing of drunken men reeling homewards,--and, lifting his eyes from their studious observation of the floor, he sighed deeply.

“That is the way the great majority of men amuse themselves,”--he mused. “Drink, stupidity, brutality, sensuality--all blatant proofs of miserable unresisted weakness,--can it be possible that God can care for such? Could even the pity of Christ pardon such wilful workers of their own ruin? The pity of Christ, said I?--nay, at times even He was pitiless. Did He not curse a fig-tree because it was barren?--though truly we are not told the cause of its barrenness. Of course the lesson is that Life--the fig-tree--has no right to be barren of results,--but why curse it, if it is? What is the use of a curse at any time? And what, may equally be asked, is the use of a blessing? Neither are heard; the curse is seldom, if ever, wreaked,--and the blessing, so the sorrowful say, is never granted.”

The noise and the laughter outside died away,--and a deep silence ensued. He caught sight of himself in the mirror, and noted his own reflective attitude,--his brooding visage; and studied himself critically as he would have studied a picture.

“You are no Antinous, my friend”--he said aloud, addressing his own reflection with some bitterness--“A mere suntanned Oriental with a pair of eyes in which the light is more of hell than heaven. What should you do with yourself, frowning at Fate? You are a superb egoist,--no more.”

As he spoke, the roses in the vase beside him swayed lightly to and fro, as though a faint wind had fanned them, and their perfume stole upon the air like the delicate breath of summer wafted from some distant garden.

There was no window open--and El-Râmi had not stirred, so that no movement on his part could have shaken the vase,--and yet the roses quivered on their stalks as if brushed by a bird’s wing. He watched them with a faint sense of curiosity--but with no desire to discover why they thus nodded their fair heads to an apparently causeless vibration. He was struggling with an emotion that threatened to overwhelm him,--he knew that he was not master of himself,--and instinctively he kept his face turned away from the tranced Lilith.

“I must not look upon her--I dare not;” he whispered to the silence--“Not yet--not yet.”

There was a low chair close by, and he dropped into it wearily, covering his eyes with one hand. He tried to control his thoughts--but they were rebellious, and ran riot in spite of him. The words of Zaroba rang in his ears--“For you were the days of Ashtaroth.” The days of Ashtaroth!--for what had they been renowned? For Jove and the feasts of love,--for mirth and song and dance--for crowns of flowers, for shouting of choruses and tinkling of cymbals, for exquisite luxury and voluptuous pleasures,--for men and women who were not ashamed of love and took delight in loving;--were there not better, warmer ways of life in those old times than now--now when cautious and timid souls make schemes for marriage as they scheme for wealth,--when they snigger at “love” as though it were some ludicrous defect in mortal composition, and when real passion of any kind is deemed downright improper, and not to be spoken of before cold and punctilious society?

“Ay, but the passion is there all the same;”--thought El-Râmi--“Under the ice burns the fire,--all the fiercer and the more dangerous for its repression.”

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

“The Christ claims all”--had said Zaroba. Nay, what has Christ done that He should claim all? “He died for us!” cry the preachers. Well,--others can die also. “He was Divine!” proclaim the churches. We are all Divine, if we will but let the Divinity in us have way. And moved by these ideas, El-Râmi rose up and crossed to a niche in the purple-pavilioned walls of the room, before which hung a loose breadth of velvet fringed with gold,--this he drew aside, and disclosed a picture very finely painted, of Christ standing near the sea, surrounded by His disciples--underneath it were inscribed the words--“Whom say ye that I am?”

The dignity and beauty of the face and figure were truly marvellous, the expression of the eyes had something of pride as well as sweetness, and El-Râmi confronted it as he had confronted it many times before, with a restless inquisitiveness.

“Whom say ye that I am?”

The painted Christ seemed to audibly ask the question.

“O noble Mystery of a Man, I cannot tell!” exclaimed El-Râmi suddenly and aloud--“I cannot say who you are, or who you were. A riddle for all the world to wonder at,--a white Sphinx with a smile inscrutable,--all the secrets of Egypt are as nothing to your secret, O simple, pure-souled Nazarene! You, born in miserable plight in miserable Bethlehem, changed the aspect of the world, altered and purified the modes of civilisation, and thrilled all life with higher motives for work than it had ever been dowered with before. All this in three years’ work, ending in a criminal’s death! Truly, if there was not something Divine in you, then God Himself is an error!”

The grand face seemed to smile upon him with a deep and solemn pity, and “Whom say ye that I am?” sounded in his ears as though it were spoken by some one in the room.

“I must be getting nervous;”--he muttered, drawing the curtain softly over the picture again, and looking uneasily round about him, “I think I cannot be much more than the weakest of men,--after all.”

A faint tremor seized him as he turned slowly but resolutely round towards the couch of Lilith, and let his eyes rest on her enchanting loveliness. Step by step he drew nearer and nearer till he bent closely over her, but he did not call her by name. A loose mass of her hair lay close to his arm,--with an impetuous suddenness he gathered it in his hands and kissed it.

“A sheaf of sunbeams!”--he whispered, his lips burning as they caressed the shining wealth of silken curls--“A golden web in which kisses might be caught and killed! Ah Heaven, have pity on me!” and he sank by the couch, stifling his words beneath his breath--“If I love this girl--if all this mad tumult in my soul is Love--let her never know it, O merciful Fates!--or she is lost, and so am I. Let me be bound,--let her be free,--let me fight down my weakness, but let her never know that I am weak, or I shall lose her long obedience. No, no! I will not summon her to me now--it is best she should be absent,--this body of hers, this fair fine casket of her spirit is but a dead thing when that spirit is elsewhere. She cannot hear me,--she does not see me--no, not even when I lay this hand--this ‘shadow of a hand,’ as she once called it, here, to quell my foolish murmurings.”