Chapter XII: Part 12

And, lifting Lilith’s hand as he spoke, he pressed its roseate palm against his lips,--then on his forehead. A strange sense of relief and peace came upon him with the touch of those delicate fingers--it was as though a cool wind blew, bringing freshness from some quiet mountain lake or river. Silently he knelt,--and presently, somewhat calmed, lifted his eyes again to look at Lilith,--she smiled in her deep trance--she was the very picture of some happy angel sleeping. His arm sank in the soft satin coverlet as he laid back the little hand he held upon her breast,--and with eager scrutiny he noted every tint and every line in her exquisite face;--the lovely long lashes that swept the blush-rose of her cheeks,--the rounded chin, dimpled in its curve,--the full white throat, the perfect outline of the whole fair figure as it rested like a branched lily in a bed of snow,--and, as he looked, he realised that all this beauty was his--his, if he chose to take Love and let Wisdom go. If he chose to resign the chance of increasing his knowledge of the supernatural,--if he were content to accept earth for what it is, and heaven for what it may be, Lilith, the bodily incarnation of loveliness, purity and perfect womanhood, was his--his only. He grew dizzy at the thought,--then by an effort conquered the longing of his heart. He remembered what he had sworn to do,--to discover the one great secret before he seized the joy that tempted him,--to prove the actual, individual, conscious existence of the Being that is said to occupy a temporary habitation in flesh. He knew and he saw the body of Lilith,--he must know, and he must _see_ her Soul. And while he leaned above her couch, entranced, a sudden strain of music echoed through the stillness,--music solemn and sweet, that stirred the air into rhythmic vibrations as of slow and sacred psalmody. He listened, perplexed but not afraid,--he was not afraid of anything in earth or heaven save--himself. He knew that man has his worst enemy in his own Ego,--beyond that, there is very little in life that need give cause for alarm. He had, till now, been able to practise the stoical philosophy of an Epictetus while engaged in researches that would have puzzled the brain of a Plato,--but his philosophy was just now at fault and his self-possession gone to the four winds of heaven--and why? He knew not--but he was certain the fault lay in himself, and not in others. Of an arrogant temper and a self-reliant haughty disposition he had none of that low cowardice which people are guilty of, who, finding themselves in a dilemma, cast the blame at once on others, or on “circumstances” which, after all, were most probably of their own creating. And the strange music that ebbed and flowed in sonorous pulsations through the air around him troubled him not at all,--he attributed it at once to something or other that was out of order in his own mental perceptions. He knew how, in certain conditions of the brain, some infinitesimal trifle gone wrong in the aural nerves will persuade one that trumpets are blowing, violins playing, birds singing or bells ringing in the distance,--just as a little disorder of the visual organs will help to convince one of apparitions. He knew how to cast a “glamour” better than any so-called “theosophist” in full practice of his trickery,--and, being thus perfectly aware how the human sense can be deceived, listened to the harmonious sounds he heard with speculative interest, wondering how long this “fancy” of his would last. Much more startled was he when amid the rising and falling of the mysterious melody he heard the voice of Lilith saying softly in her usual manner--

“I am here!”

His heart beat rapidly, and he rose slowly from his kneeling position by her side. “I did not call you, Lilith!” he said tremblingly.

“No!” and her sweet lips smiled--“you did not call, ... I came!”

“Why did you come?” he asked, still faintly.

“For my own joy and yours!” she answered in thrilling tones--“Sweeter than all the heavens is Love, and Love is here!”

An icy cold crept through him as he heard the rapture in her accents,--such rapture!--like that of a lark singing in the sunlight on a fresh morning of May. And like the dim sound of a funeral bell came the words of the monk, tolling solemnly across his memory, in spite of his efforts to forget them, “With Lilith’s love comes Lilith’s freedom.”

“No, no!” he muttered within himself--“It cannot be,--it shall not be!--she is mine, mine only. Her fate is in my hands; if there be justice in Heaven, who else has so much right to her body or her soul as I?”

And he stood, gazing irresolutely at the girl, who stirred restlessly and flung her white arms upward on her pillows, while the music he had heard suddenly ceased. He dared not speak,--he was afraid to express any desire or impose any command upon this “fine sprite” which had for six years obeyed him, but which might now, for all he could tell, be fluttering vagrantly on the glittering confines of realms far beyond his ken.

Her lips moved,--and presently she spoke again.

“Wonderful are the ways of Divine Law!” she murmured softly--“and infinite are the changes it works among its creatures! An old man, despised and poor, by friends rejected, perplexed in mind, but pure in soul; such Was the Spirit that now Is. Passing me flame-like on its swift way heavenward,--saved and uplifted, not by Wisdom, but by Love.”

El-Râmi listened, awed and puzzled. Her words surely seemed to bear some reference to Kremlin?

“Of the knowledge of the stars and the measuring of light there is more than enough in the Universe;”--went on Lilith dreamily--“but of faithful love, such as keeps an Angel for ever by one’s side, there is little; therefore the Angels on earth are few.”

He could no longer restrain his curiosity.

“Do you speak of one who is dead, Lilith?” he asked--“One whom I knew----”

“I speak of one who is living,”--she replied--“and one whom you _know_. For none are dead; and Knowledge has no Past, but is all Present.”

Her voice sank into silence. El-Râmi bent above her, studying her countenance earnestly--her lashes trembled as though the eyelids were about to open,--but the tremor passed and they remained shut. How lovely she looked!--how more than lovely!

“Lilith!” he whispered, suddenly oblivious of all his former forebodings, and unconscious of the eager passion vibrating in his tone--“Sweet Lilith!”

She turned slightly towards him, and, lifting her arms from their indolently graceful position on the pillows, she clasped her hands high above her head in apparent supplication.

“Love me!” she cried, with such a thrill in her accent that it rang through the room like a note of music--“Oh my Belovëd, love me!”

El-Râmi grew faint and dizzy,--his thoughts were all in a whirl, ... was he made of marble or ice that he should not respond? Scarcely aware of what he did, he took her clasped hands in his own.

“And do I not, Lilith?” he murmured, half anguished, half entranced--“Do I not love you?”

“No, no!” said Lilith with passionate emphasis--“Not me,--not me, Myself! Oh my Belovëd! love Me, not my Shadow!”

He loosened her hands, and recoiled, awed and perplexed. Her appeal struck at the core of all his doubts,--and for one moment he was disposed to believe in the actual truth of the Immortal Soul without those “proofs” for which he constantly searched,--the next he rallied himself on his folly and weakness. He dared not trust himself to answer her, so he was silent,--but she soon spoke again with such convincing earnestness of tone that almost ... almost he believed--but not quite.

“To love the Seeming and not the Real,”--she said--“is the curse of all sad Humanity. It is the glamour of the air,--the barrier between Earth and Heaven. The Body is the Shadow--the Soul is the Substance. The Reflection I cast on Earth’s surface for a little space is but a Reflection only,--it is not Me:--I am beyond it!”

For a moment El-Râmi stood irresolute,--then gathering up his scattered thoughts, he began to try and resolve them into order and connection. Surely the time was ripe for his great Experiment?--and, as he considered this, his nerves grew more steady,--his self-reliance returned--all his devotion to scientific research pressed back its claim upon his mind,--if he were to fail now, he thought, after all his patience and study,--fail to obtain any true insight into the spiritual side of humanity, would he not be ashamed, ay, and degraded in his own eyes? He resolved to end all his torture of pain and doubt and disquietude,--and, sitting on the edge of Lilith’s couch, he drew her delicate hands down from their uplifted position, and laid them one above the other cross-wise on his own breast.

“Then you must teach me, Lilith”--he said softly and with tender persuasiveness--“you must teach me to know you. If I see but your Reflection here,--let me behold your Reality. Let me love you as you are, if now I only love you as you seem. Show yourself to me in all your spiritual loveliness, Lilith!--it may be I shall die of the glory,--or--if there is no death as you say,--I shall not die, but simply pass away into the light which gives you life. Lift the veil that is between us, Lilith, and let me see you face to face. If this that _seems_ you”--and he pressed the little hands he held--“is naught, let me realise the nothingness of so much beauty beside the greater beauty that engenders it. Come to me as you _are_, Lilith!--come!”

As he spoke, his heart beat fast with a nervous thrill of expectancy; what would she answer? ... what would she do? He could not take his eyes from her face--he half fancied he should see some change there; for the moment he even thought it possible that she might transform herself into some surpassing Being, which, like the gods of the Greek mythology, should consume by its flame-like splendour whatever of mortality dared to look upon it. But she remained unaltered, and sculpturally calm,--only her breathing seemed a little quicker, and the hands that he held trembled against his breast.

Her next words, however, startled him--

“I will come!” she said, and a faint sigh escaped her lips--“Be ready for me. Pray!--pray for the blessing of Christ,--for, if Christ be with us, all is well.”

At this, his brow clouded,--his eyes drooped gloomily.

“Christ!” he muttered more to himself than to her--“What is He to me? Who is He that He should be with us?”

“This world’s rescue and all worlds’ glory!”

The answer rang out like a silver clarion, with something full and triumphant in the sound, as though not only Lilith’s voice had uttered it, but other voices had joined in a chorus. At the same moment, her hands moved, as if in an effort to escape from his hold. But he held them closely in a jealous and masterful grasp.

“When will you come to me, Lilith?” he demanded in low but eager accents--“When shall I see you and know you as Lilith? ... _my_ Lilith, my own for ever?”

“God’s Lilith--God’s own for ever!” murmured Lilith dreamily, and then was silent.

An angry sense of rebellion began to burn in El-Râmi’s mind. Summoning up all the force of his iron will, he unclasped her hands and laid them back on each side of her, and placed his own hand on her breast, just where the ruby talisman shone and glowed.

“Answer me, Lilith!” he said, with something of the old sternness which he had used to employ with her on former occasions--“When will you come to me?”

Her limbs trembled violently as though some inward cold convulsed her, and her answer came slowly, though clearly--

“When you are ready.”

“I am ready now!” he cried recklessly.

“No--no!” she murmured, her voice growing fainter and fainter--“Not yet ... not yet! Love is not strong enough, high enough, pure enough. Wait, watch and pray. When the hour has come, a sign will be given--but O my Belovëd, if you would know me, love Me--love Me! not my Shadow!”

A pale hue fell on her face, robbing it of its delicate tint,--El-Râmi knew what that pallor indicated.

“Lilith! Lilith!” he exclaimed, “why leave me thus if you love me? Stay with me yet a little!”

But Lilith--or rather the strange Spirit that made the body of Lilith speak,--was gone. And all that night not another sound, either of music or speech, stirred the silence of the room. Dawn came, misty and gray, and found the proud El-Râmi kneeling before the unveiled picture of the Christ,--not praying, for he could not bring himself down to the necessary humiliation for prayer,--but simply wondering vaguely as to what _could_ be and what _might_ be the one positive reply to that question propounded of old--

“Whom Say Ye That I Am?”

XXXIV.

Of what avail is it to propound questions that no one can answer? Of what use is it to attempt to solve the mystery of life which must for ever remain mysterious? Thus may the intelligent critic ask, and, in asking, may declare that the experiments, researches, and anxieties of El-Râmi, together with El-Râmi himself, are mistaken conceptions all round. But it is necessary to remind the intelligent critic that the eager desire of El-Râmi to prove what appears unprovable is by no means an uncommon phase of human nature,--it is in fact the very key-note and pulse of the present time. Every living creature who is not too stunned by misery for thought craves to know positively whether the Soul,--the Immortal, Individual Ego, be Fable or Fact. Never more than in this, our own period, did people search with such unabated feverish yearning into the things that seem supernatural;--never were there bitterer pangs of recoil and disappointment when trickery and imposture are found to have even temporarily passed for truth. If the deepest feeling in every human heart to-day were suddenly given voice, the shout “Excelsior!” would rend the air in mighty chorus. For we know all the old earth stories;--of love, of war, of adventure, of wealth, we know pretty well the beginning and the end,--we read in our histories of nations that were, but now are not, and we feel that we shall in due time go the same way with them,--that the wheel of Destiny spins on in the same round always, and that nothing--nothing can alter its relentless and monotonous course. We tread in the dust and among the fallen columns of great cities and we vaguely wonder if the spirits of the men that built them are indeed no more,--we gaze on the glorious pile of the Duomo at Milan and think of the brain that first devised and planned its majestic proportions, and ask ourselves--Is it possible that this, the creation, should be Here, and its creator Nowhere? Would such an arrangement be reasonable or just? And so it happens that when the wielders of the pen essay to tell us of wars, of shipwrecks, of hair-breadth escapes from danger, of love and politics and society, we read their pages with merely transitory pleasure and frequent indifference, but when they touch upon subjects beyond earthly experience,--when they attempt, however feebly, to lift our inspirations to the possibilities of the Unseen, then we give them our eager attention and almost passionate interest. Critics look upon this tendency as morbid, unwholesome and pernicious; but nevertheless the tendency is there,--the demand for “Light! more light!” is in the very blood and brain of the people. It would seem as though this world has grown too narrow for the aspirations of its inhabitants;--and some of us instinctively feel that we are on the brink of strange discoveries respecting the powers unearthly, whether for good or evil we dare not presume to guess. The nonsensical tenets of “Theosophy” would not gain ground with a single individual man or woman were not this feeling very strong among many,--the tricky “mediums” and “spiritualists” would not have a chance of earning a subsistence out of the gullibility of their dupes, and the preachers of new creeds and new forms would obtain no vestige of attention if it were not for the fact that there is a very general impression all over the world that the time is ripe for a clearer revelation of God and the things of God than we have ever had before. “Give us something that will endure!” is the exclamation of weary humanity--“The things we have, pass; and, by reason of their ephemeral nature, are worthless. Give us what we can keep and call our own for ever!” This is why we try and test all things that _appear_ to give proof of the super-sensual element in man,--and when we find ourselves deceived by impostors and conjurers our disgust and disappointment are too bitter to ever find vent in words. The happiest are those who, in the shifting up and down of faiths and formulas, ever cling steadfastly to the one pure example of embodied Divinity in Manhood as seen in Christ. When we reject Christ, we reject the Gospel of Love and Universal Brotherhood, without which the ultimate perfection and progress of the world must ever remain impossible.

A few random thoughts such as these occurred to El-Râmi now and then as he lived his life from day to day in perpetual expectation of the “sign” promised by Lilith, which as yet was not forthcoming. He believed she would keep her word, and that the “sign” whatever it was would be unmistakable; and,--as before stated--this was the nearest approach to actual faith he had ever known. His was a nature which was originally disposed to faith, but which had persistently fought with its own inclination till that inclination had been conquered. He had been able to prove as purely natural much that had _seemed_ supernatural, and he now viewed everything from two points--Possibility and Impossibility. His various confusions and perplexities, however, generally arose from the frequent discovery he made that what he had once thought the Impossible suddenly became, through some small chance clue, the Possible. So many times had this occurred that he often caught himself wondering whether anything in very truth could be strictly declared as “impossible.” And yet, ... with the body of Lilith under his observation for six years, and an absolute ignorance as to _how_ her intelligence had developed, or _where_ she obtained the power to discourse with him as she did, he always had the lurking dread that her utterances might be the result of _his own brain unconsciously working upon hers_, and that there was no “soul” or “spirit” in the matter. This, too, in spite of the fact that she had actually given him a concise description of certain planets, their laws, their government, and their inhabitants, concerning which _he_ could know nothing,--and that she spoke with a sure conviction of the existence of a personal God, an idea that was entirely unacceptable to _his_ nature. He was at a loss to explain her “separated consciousness” in any scientific way, and, afraid of himself lest he should believe too easily, he encouraged the presence of every doubt in his mind, rather than give entrance to more than the palest glimmer of faith.

And so time went on, and May passed into June, and June deepened into its meridian glow of bloom and sunlight, and he remained shut up within the four walls of his house, seeing no one, and displaying a total indifference to the fact that the “season” with all its bitter froth and frivolity was seething on in London in its usual monotonous manner. Unlike pretenders to “spiritualistic” powers, he had no inclination for the society of the rich and great,--“titled” people had no attraction for him save in so far as they were cultured, witty, or amiable,--“position” in the world was a very miserable trifle in his opinion, and, though many a gorgeous flunkied carriage at this time found its way into the unfashionable square where he had his domicile, no visitors were admitted to see him,--and “too busy to receive any one” was the formula with which young Féraz dismissed any would-be intruder. Yet Féraz himself wondered all the while how it was that, as a matter of fact, El-Râmi seemed to be just now less absorbed in actual study than he had ever been in his whole life. He read no books save the old Arabic vellum-bound volume which held the explanatory key to so many curious phenomena palmed off as “spiritual miracles” by the theosophists, and he wrote a good deal,--but he answered no letters, accepted no invitations, manifested no wish to leave the house even for an hour’s stroll, and seemed mentally engrossed by some great secret subject of meditation. He was uniformly kind to Féraz, exacting no duties from him save those prompted by interest and affection,--he was marvellously gentle too with Zaroba, who, agitated, restless and perplexed as to his ultimate intentions with respect to the beautiful Lilith, was vaguely uneasy and melancholy, though she deemed it wisest to perform all his commands with exactitude, and, for the present, to hold her peace. She had expected something--though she knew not what--from his last interview with her beautiful charge--but all was unchanged,--Lilith slept on, and the cherished wish of Zaroba’s heart, that she should wake, seemed as far off realisation as ever. Day after day passed, and El-Râmi lived like a hermit amidst the roar and traffic of mighty London,--watching Lilith for long and anxious hours, but never venturing to call her down to him from wherever she might be,--waiting, waiting for _her_ summons, and content for once to sink himself in the thought of _her_ identity. All his ambitions were now centred on the one great object, ... to see the Soul, _as_ it is, _if_ it is indeed existent, conscious and individual. For, as he argued, what is the use of a “Soul” whose capacities we are not permitted to understand?--and if it be no more to us than the intelligent faculty of brain? The chief proof of a possible something behind Man’s inner consciousness was, he considered, the quality of Discontent, and, primarily, because Discontent is so universal. No one is contented in all the world from end to end. From the powerful Emperor on his throne to the whining beggar in the street, all chafe under the goading prick of the great Necessity,--a something better,--a something lasting. Why should this resonant key-note of Discontent be perpetually resounding through space, if this life is all? No amount of philosophy or argument can argue away Discontent--it is a god-like disquietude ever fermenting changes among us, ever propounding new suggestions for happiness, ever restless, never satisfied. And El-Râmi would ask himself--Is Discontent the voice of the Soul?--not only the Universal Soul of things, but the Soul of each individual? Then, if individual, why should not the individual be made manifest, if manifestation be possible? And if not possible, why should we be called upon to believe in what cannot be manifested?

Thus he argued, not altogether unwisely; he had studied profoundly all the divers conflicting theories of religion, and would at one time have become an obstinately confirmed Positivist, had it not been for the fact that the further his researches led him the more he became aware that there was nothing positive,--that is to say, nothing so apparently fixed and unalterable that it might not, under different conditions, prove capable of change. Perhaps there is no better test example of this truth than the ordinary substance known as iron. We use in common parlance unthinkingly the phrase “as hard as iron”--while to the smith and engineer, who mould and twist it in every form, it proves itself soft and malleable as wax. Again, to the surface observer, it might and does seem an incombustible metal,--the chemist knows it will burn with the utmost fury. How then form a _universal_ decision as to its various capabilities when it has so many variations of use all in such contrary directions? The same example, modified or enlarged, will be found to apply to all things, wherefore the word “Positivism” seems out of place in merely mortal language. God may be “positive,” but we and our surroundings have no such absolute quality.

During this period of El-Râmi’s self-elected seclusion and meditation his young brother Féraz was very happy. He was in the midst of writing a poem which he fondly fancied might perhaps--only perhaps--find a publisher to take it and launch it on its own merits,--it is the privilege of youth to be over-sanguine. Then, too, his brain was filled with new musical ideas,--and many an evening’s hour he beguiled away by delicious improvisations on the piano, or exquisite songs to the mandoline. El-Râmi, when he was not upstairs keeping anxious vigil by the tranced Lilith’s side, would sit in his chair, leaning back with half-closed eyes, listening to the entrancing melodies like another Saul to a new David, soothed by the sweetness of the sounds he heard, yet conscious that he took too deep and ardent a pleasure in hearing, when the songs Féraz chose were of love. One night Féraz elected to sing the wild and beautiful “Canticle of Love” written by the late Lord Lytton, when as “Owen Meredith” he promised to be one of the greatest poets of our century, and who would have fulfilled more than that promise if diplomacy had not claimed his brilliant intellectual gifts for the service of his country,--a country which yet deplores his untimely loss. But no fatality had as yet threatened that gallant and noble life in the days when Féraz smote the chords of his mandoline and sang:

“I once heard an angel by night in the sky Singing softly a song to a deep golden lute; The pole-star, the seven little planets and I To the song that he sang listened mute, For the song that he sang was so strange and so sweet, And so tender the tones of his lute’s golden strings, That the seraphs of heaven sat hush’d at his feet And folded their heads in their wings. And the song that he sang to the seraphs up there Is called ‘Love’! But the words ... I had heard them elsewhere.

“For when I was last in the nethermost Hell, On a rock ’mid the sulphurous surges I heard A pale spirit sing to a wild hollow shell; And his song was the same, every word, And so sad was his singing, all Hell to the sound Moaned, and wailing, complained like a monster in pain While the fiends hovered near o’er the dismal profound With their black wings weighed down by the strain; And the song that was sung to the Lost Ones down there Is called ‘Love’! But the spirit that sang was Despair!”

The strings of the mandoline quivered mournfully in tune with the passionate beauty of the verse, and from El-Râmi’s lips there came involuntarily a deep and bitter sigh.

Féraz ceased playing and looked at him.

“What is it?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing!” replied his brother in a tranquil voice--“What should there be? Only the poem is very beautiful, and out of the common,--though, to me, terribly suggestive of--a mistake somewhere in creation. Love to the Saved--Love to the Lost!--naturally it would have different aspects,--but it is an anomaly--Love, to be true to its name, should have no ‘lost’ ones in its chronicle.”

Féraz was silent.

“Do you believe”--continued El-Râmi--“that there is a ‘nethermost Hell’?--a place or a state of mind resembling that ‘rock ’mid the sulphurous surges’?”

“I should imagine,” replied Féraz with some diffidence, “that there must be a condition in which we are bound to look back and see where we were wrong,--a condition, too, in which we have time to be sorry----”

“Unfair and unreasonable!” exclaimed his brother hotly. “For, suppose we did not _know_ we were wrong? We are left absolutely without guidance in this world to do as we like.”

“I do not think you can quite say that”--remonstrated Féraz gently--“We _do_ know when we are wrong--generally; some instinct tells us so--and, while we have the book of Nature, we are not left without guidance. As for looking back and seeing our former mistakes, I think that is unquestionable,--for as I grow older I begin to see where I failed in my former life, and how I deserved to lose my star-kingdom.”

El-Râmi looked impatient.

“You are a dreamer”--he said decisively--“and your star-kingdom is a dream also. You cannot tell me truthfully that you remember anything of a former existence?”

“I am beginning to remember,” said Féraz steadily.

“My dear boy, anybody but myself hearing you would say you were mad--hopelessly mad!”

“They would be at perfect liberty to say so”--and Féraz smiled a little--“Every one is free to have his own opinion--I have mine. My star exists; and I once existed in it--so did you.”

“Well, I know nothing about it then,” declared El-Râmi--“I have forgotten it utterly.”

“Oh no! You think you have forgotten”--said Féraz mildly--“But the truth is, your very knowledge of science and other things is only--_memory_.”

El-Râmi moved in his chair impatiently.

“Let us not argue;”--he said--“We shall never agree. Sing to me again!”

Féraz thought a moment, and then laid aside his mandoline and went to the piano, where he played a rushing rapid accompaniment like the sound of the wind among trees, and sang the following:

“Winds of the mountain, mingle with my crying, Clouds of the tempest, flee as I am flying, Gods of the cloudland, Christus and Apollo, Follow, O follow!

“Through the dark valleys, up the misty mountains, Over the black wastes, past the gleaming fountains, Praying not, hoping not, resting nor abiding, Lo, I am riding!

“Clangour and anger of elements are round me, Torture has clasped me, cruelty has crown’d me, Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her, Fast speed I thither.

* * * * * *

“Gods of the storm-cloud, drifting darkly yonder, Point fiery hands and mock me as I wander; Gods of the forest glimmer out upon me, Shrink back and shun me.

“Gods, let them follow!--gods, for I defy them! They call me, mock me, but I gallop by them; If they would find me, touch me, whisper to me, Let them pursue me!”

He was interrupted in the song by a smothered cry from El-Râmi, and looking round, startled, he saw his brother standing up and staring at him with something of mingled fear and horror. He came to an abrupt stop, his hands resting on the piano-keys.

“Go on, go on!” cried El-Râmi irritably. “What wild chant of the gods and men have you there? Is it your own?”

“Mine!” echoed Féraz--“No indeed! Why? Do you not like it?”

“Of course, of course I like it;”--said El-Râmi, sitting down again, angry with himself for his own emotion--“Is there more of it?”

“Yes, but I need not finish it,”--and Féraz made as though he would rise from the piano.

El-Râmi suddenly began to laugh.

“Go on, I tell you, Féraz”--he said carelessly--“There is a tempest of agitation in the words and in your music that leaves one hurried and breathless, but the sensation is not unpleasant,--especially when one is prepared, ... go on!--I want to hear the end of this ... this--defiance.”

Féraz looked at him to see if he were in earnest, and, perceiving he had settled down to give his whole attention to the rest of the ballad, he resumed his playing, and again the rush of the music filled the room.

“Faster, O faster! Darker and more dreary Groweth the pathway, yet I am not weary-- Gods, I defy them! gods, I can unmake them, Bruise them and break them!

“White steed of wonder with thy feet of thunder, Find out their temples, tread their high-priests under-- Leave them behind thee--if their gods speed after, Mock them with laughter.

* * * * * *

“Shall a god grieve me? shall a phantom win me? Nay!--by the wild wind around and o’er and in me-- Be his name Vishnu, Christus or Apollo-- Let the god follow!

“Clangour and anger of elements are round me, Torture has clasped me, cruelty has crown’d me, Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her, Fast speed I thither!”

The music ceased abruptly with a quick clash as of jangling bells,--and Féraz rose from the piano.

El-Râmi was sitting quite still.

“A mad outburst!” he remarked presently, seeing that his young brother waited for him to speak--“_Do you believe it?_”

“Believe what?” asked Féraz, a little surprised.

“This----” and El-Râmi quoted slowly--

“‘Shall a god grieve me? shall a phantom win me? Nay!--by the wild wind around and o’er and in me-- Be his name Vishnu, Christus or Apollo-- Let the god follow!’

“Do you think”--he continued, “that in the matter of life’s leadership the ‘god’ should follow, or we the god?”

Féraz lifted his delicately-marked eyebrows in amazement.

“What an odd question!” he said--“The song is _only_ a song,--part of a long epic poem. And we do not receive a mere poem as a gospel. And, if you speak of life’s leadership, it is devoutly to be hoped that God not only leads but rules us all.”

“Why should you hope it?” asked El-Râmi gloomily--“Myself, I fear it!”

Féraz came to his side and rested one hand affectionately on his arm.

“You are worried and out of sorts, my brother,”--he said gently--“Why do you not seek some change from so much indoor life? You do not even get the advantages I have of going to and fro on the household business. I breathe the fresh air every day,--surely it is necessary for you also?”

“My dear boy, I am perfectly well”--and El-Râmi regarded him steadily--“Why should you doubt it? I am only--a little tired. Poor human nature cannot always escape fatigue.”

Féraz said no more,--but there was a certain strangeness in his brother’s manner that filled him with an indefinable uneasiness. In his own quiet fashion he strove to distract El-Râmi’s mind from the persistent fixity of whatever unknown purpose seemed to so mysteriously engross him,--and whenever they were together at meals or at other hours of the day he talked in as light and desultory a way as possible on all sorts of different topics in the hope of awakening his brother’s interest more keenly in external affairs. He read much and thought more, and was a really brilliant conversationalist when he chose, in spite of his dreamy fancies--but he was obliged to admit to himself that his affectionate endeavours met with very slight success. True, El-Râmi _appeared_ to give his attention to all that was said, but it was only an appearance,--and Féraz saw plainly enough that he was not really moved to any sort of feeling respecting the ways and doings of the outer world. And when, one morning, Féraz read aloud the account of the marriage of Sir Frederick Vaughan, Bart., with Idina, only daughter of Jabez Chester of New York, he only smiled indifferently and said nothing.

“We were invited to that wedding;”--commented Féraz.

“Were we?” El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders and seemed totally oblivious of the fact.

“Why of course we were”--went on Féraz cheerfully--“And at your bidding I opened and read the letter Sir Frederick wrote you, which said that as you had prophesied the marriage he would take it very kindly if you would attend in person the formal fulfilment of your prophecy. And all you did in reply was to send a curt refusal on plea of other engagements. Do you think that was quite amiable on your part?”

“Fortunately for me I am not called upon to be amiable;”--said El-Râmi, beginning to pace slowly up and down the room--“I want no favours from society, so I need not smile to order. That is one of the chief privileges of complete independence. Fancy having to grin and lie and skulk and propitiate people all one’s days!--I could not endure it,--but most men can--and do!”

“Besides”--he added after a pause--“I cannot look on with patience at the marriage of fools. Vaughan is a fool, and his baronetage will scarcely pass for wisdom,--the little Chester girl is also a fool,--and I can see exactly what they will become in the course of a few years.”

“Describe them, _in futuro_!” laughed Féraz.

“Well--the man will be ‘turfy’; the woman, a blind slave to her dressmaker. That is all. There can be nothing more. They will never do any good or any harm--they are simply--nonentities. These are the sort of folk that make me doubt the immortal soul,--for Vaughan is less ‘spiritual’ than a well-bred dog, and little Chester less mentally gifted than a well-instructed mouse.”

“Severe!”--commented Féraz, smiling--“But, man or woman,--mouse or dog, I suppose they are quite happy just now?”

“Happy?” echoed El-Râmi satirically--“Well--I dare say they are,--with the only sort of happiness their intelligences can grasp. She is happy because she is now ‘my lady’ and because she was able to wear a wedding-gown of marvellous make and cost, to trail and rustle and sweep after her little person up to God’s altar with, as though she sought to astonish the Almighty, before whom she took her vows, with the exuberance of her millinery. He is happy because his debts are paid out of old Jabez Chester’s millions. There the ‘happiness’ ends. A couple of months is sufficient to rub the bloom off such wedlock.”

“And you really prophesied the marriage?” queried Féraz.

“It was easy enough”--replied his brother carelessly--“Given two uninstructed, unthinking bipeds of opposite sexes--the male with debts, the female with dollars, and an urbanely obstinate schemer to pull them together like Lord Melthorpe, and the thing is done. Half the marriages in London are made up like that,--and of the after-lives of those so wedded, ‘there needs no ghost from the grave’ to tell us,--the divorce courts give every information.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Féraz quickly--“That reminds me,--do you know I saw something in the evening paper last night that might have interested you?”

“Really! You surprise me!” and El-Râmi laughed--“That is strange indeed, for papers of all sorts, whether morning or evening, are to me the dullest and worst-written literature in the world.”

“Oh, for literature one does not go to them”--answered Féraz. “But this was a paragraph about a man who came here not very long ago to see you--a clergyman. He is up as a co-respondent in some very scandalous divorce case. I did not read it all--I only saw that his Bishop had caused him to be ‘unfrocked,’ whatever that means--I suppose he is expelled from the ministry?”

“Yes. ‘Unfrocked’ means literally a stripping-off of clerical dignity,” said El-Râmi. “But, if it is the man who came here, he was always naked in that respect. Francis Anstruther was his name?”

“Exactly--that is the man. He is disgraced for life, and seems to be one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever lived. He has deserted his wife and eight children...”

“Spare me and yourself the details!” and El-Râmi gave an expressively contemptuous gesture--“I know all about him and told him what I knew when he came here. But he’ll do very well yet--he’ll get on capitally in spite of his disgrace.”

“How is that possible?” exclaimed Féraz.

“Easily! He can ‘boom’ himself as a new ‘General’ Booth, or he can become a ‘Colonel’ under Booth’s orders--as long as people support Booth with money. Or he can go to America or Australia and start a new creed--he’s sure to fall on his feet and make his fortune--pious hypocrites always do. One would almost fancy there must be a special Deity to protect the professors of Humbug. It is only the sincerely honest folk who get wronged in this admirably-ordered world!”

He spoke with bitterness; and Féraz glanced at him anxiously.

“I do not quite agree with you”--he said; “Surely honest folk always have their reward?--though perhaps superficial observers may not be able to perceive where it comes in. I believe in ‘walking uprightly’ as the Bible says--it seems to me easier to keep along a straight open road than to take dark by-ways and dubious short cuts.”

“What do you mean by your straight open road?” demanded El-Râmi, looking at him.

“Nature,”--replied Féraz promptly--“Nature leads us up to God.”

El-Râmi broke into a harsh laugh.

“O credulous beautiful lad!” he exclaimed; “You know not what you say! Nature! Consider her methods of work--her dark and cunning and cruel methods! Every living thing preys on some other living things;--creatures wonderful, innocent, simple or complex, live apparently but to devour and be devoured;--every inch of ground we step upon is the dust of something dead. In the horrible depths of the earth, Nature,--this generous kindly Nature!--hides her dread volcanic fires,--her streams of lava, her boiling founts of sulphur and molten lead, which at any unexpected moment may destroy whole continents crowded with unsuspecting humanity. This is NATURE,--nothing but Nature! She hides her treasures of gold, of silver, of diamonds and rubies, in the deepest and most dangerous recesses, where human beings are lost in toiling for them,--buried in darkness and slain by thousands in the difficult search;--diving for pearls, the unwary explorer is met by the remorseless monsters of the deep,--in fact, in all his efforts towards discovery and progress, Man, the most naturally defenceless creature upon earth, is met by death or blank discouragement. Suppose he were to trust to Nature alone, what would Nature do for him? He is sent into the world naked and helpless;--and all the resources of his body and brain have to be educated and brought into active requisition to enable him to live at all,--lions’ whelps, bears’ cubs have a better ‘natural’ chance than he;--and then, when he has learned how to make the best of his surroundings, he is turned out of the world again, naked and helpless as he came in, with all his knowledge of no more use to him than if he had never attained it. This is NATURE, if Nature be thus reckless and unreasonable as the ‘reflex of God’--how reckless and unreasonable must be God Himself!”

The beautiful stag-like eyes of Féraz darkened slowly, and his slim hand involuntarily clenched.

“Ay, if God were so,” he said--“the veriest pigmy among men might boast of nobler qualities than He! But God is not so, El-Râmi! Of course you can argue any and every way, and I cannot confute your reasoning. Because you reason with the merely mortal intelligence; to answer you rightly I should have to reply as a Spirit,--I should need to be out of the body before I could tell you where you are wrong.”

“Well!” said his brother curiously--“Then why do you not do so? Why do you not come to me out of the body, and enlighten me as to what you know?”

Féraz looked troubled.

“I cannot!” he said sadly--“When I go--away yonder--I seem to have so little remembrance of earthly things--I am separated from the world by thousands of air-spaces. I am always conscious that you exist on earth,--but it is always as of some one who will join _me_ presently--not of one whom _I_ am compelled to join. There is the strangeness of it. That is why I have very little belief in the notion of ghosts and spirits appearing to men--because I know positively that no detached soul willingly returns to or remains on earth. There is always the upward yearning. If it returns, it does so simply because it is, for some reason, _commanded_, not because of its own desire.”

“And who do you suppose commands it?” asked El-Râmi.

“The Highest of all Powers,”--replied Féraz reverently--“whom we all, whether spirit or mortal, obey.”

“I do not obey,”--said El-Râmi composedly--“I enforce obedience.”

“From whom?” cried Féraz with agitation--“O my brother, from whom? From mortals perhaps--yes,--so long as it is permitted to you--but from Heaven--no! No, not from Heaven can you win obedience. For God’s sake do not boast of _such_ power!”

He spoke passionately, and in anxious earnest.

El-Râmi smiled.

“My good fellow, why excite yourself? I do not ‘boast’--I am simply--strong! If I am immortal, God Himself cannot slay me,--if I am mortal only, I can but die. I am indifferent either way. Only I will not shrink before an imaginary Divine terror till I prove what right it has to my submission. Enough!--we have talked too much on this subject, and I have work to do.”

He turned to his writing-table as he spoke and was soon busy there. Féraz took up a book and tried to read, but his heart beat quickly, and he was overwhelmed by a deep sense of fear. The daring of his brother’s words smote him with a chill horror,--from time immemorial, had not the forces divine punished pride as the deadliest of sins? His thoughts travelled over the great plain of History, on which so many spectres of dead nations stand in our sight as pale warnings of our own possible fate, and remembered how surely it came to pass that when men became too proud and defiant and absolute,--rejecting God and serving themselves only, then they were swept away into desolation and oblivion. As with nations, so with individuals--the Law of Compensation is just, and as evenly balanced as the symmetrical motion of the Universe. And the words, “Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” rang through his ears, as he sat heavily silent, and wondering, wondering _where_ the researches of his brother would end, and _how_?

El-Râmi himself meanwhile was scanning the last pages of his dead friend Kremlin’s private journal. This was a strange book,--kept with exceeding care, and written in the form of letters which were all addressed “To the Beloved Maroussia in Heaven”--and amply proved that, in spite of the separated seclusion and eccentricity of his life, Kremlin had not only been faithful to the love of his early days, the girl who had died self-slain in her Russian prison,--but he had been firm in his acceptance of and belief in the immortality of the soul and the reunion of parted spirits. His last “letter” ran thus--it was unfinished and had been written the night before the fatal storm which had made an end of his life and learning together,--

“I seem to be now on the verge of the discovery for which I have yearned. Thou knowest, O heart of my heart, how I dream that these brilliant and ceaseless vibrations of light may perchance carry to the world some message which it were well and wise we should know. Oh, if this ‘Light,’ which is my problem and mystery, could but transmit to my earthly vision one flashing gleam of thy presence, my beloved child! But thou wilt guide me, so that I presume not too far;--I feel thou art near me, and that thou wilt not fail me at the last. If in the space of an earthly ten minutes this marvellous ‘Light’ can travel 111,600,000 miles, thou as a ‘spirit of light’ canst not be very far away. Only till my work for poor humanity is done, do I choose to be parted from thee--be the time long or short--we shall meet. ...”

Here the journal ended.

“And have they met?” thought El-Râmi, as closing the book he locked it away in his desk--“And do they remember they were ever mortal? And _what_ are they--and _where_ are they?”

XXXV.

In the midst of the strange “summer” weather which frequently falls to the lot of England,--weather alternating between hot and cold, wet and dry, sun and cloud with the most distracting rapidity and irregularity,--there came at last one perfect night towards the end of June,--a night which could have met with no rival even in the sunniest climes of the sunniest south. A soft tranquillity hovered dove-like in the air,--a sense of perfect peace seemed to permeate all visible and created things. The sky was densely blue and thickly strewn with stars, though these glimmered but faintly, their light being put to shame by the splendid brilliancy of the full moon which swam aloft airily like a great golden bubble. El-Râmi’s windows were all set open; a big bunch of heliotrope adorned the table, and the subtle fragrance of it stole out delicately to mingle with the faintly-stirring evening breeze. Féraz was sitting alone,--his brother had just left the room,--and he was indulging himself in the _dolce far niente_ as only the Southern or Eastern temperament can do. His hands were clasped lightly behind his head, and his eyes were fixed on the shabby little trees in the square which had done their best to look green among the whirling smuts of the metropolis and had failed ignominiously in the attempt, but which now, in the ethereal light of the moon, presented a soft outline of gray and silver like olive-boughs seen in the distance. He was thinking, with a certain serious satisfaction, of an odd circumstance that had occurred to himself that day. It had happened in this wise: Since the time Zaroba had taken him to look upon the beautiful creature who was the “subject” of his brother’s experiments, he had always kept the memory of her in his mind without speaking of her, save that whenever he said a prayer or offered up a thanksgiving he had invariably used the phrase--“God defend her!” He could only explain “Her” to himself by the simple pronoun, because, as El-Râmi had willed, he had utterly and hopelessly forgotten her name. But now, strange to say, he remembered it!--it had flashed across his mind like a beam of light or a heaven-sent signal,--he was at work, writing at his poem, when some sudden inexplicable instinct had prompted him to lift his eyes and murmur devoutly--“God defend Lilith!” Lilith!--how soft the sound of it!--how infinitely bewitching! After having lost it for so long, it had come back to him in a moment--how or why, he could not imagine. He could only account for it in one way--namely, that El-Râmi’s will-forces were so concentrated on some particularly absorbing object that his daily influence on his brother’s young life was thereby materially lessened. And Féraz was by no means sorry that this should be so.

“Why should it matter that I remember her name?” he mused--“I shall never speak of her--for I have sworn I will not. But I can think of her to my heart’s content,--the beautiful Lilith!”

Then he fell to considering the old legend of that Lilith who it is said was Adam’s first wife,--and he smiled as he thought what a name of evil omen it was to the Jews, who had charms and talismans wherewith to exorcise the supposed evil influence connected with it,--while to him, Féraz, it was a name sweeter than honey-sweet singing. Then there came to his mind stray snatches of poesy,--delicate rhymes from the rich and varied stores of one of his favourite poets, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,--rhymes that sounded in his ears just now like the strophes of a sibylline chant or spell:

“It was Lilith the wife of Adam: (_Sing Eden Bower!_) Not a drop of her blood was human, But she was made like a soft sweet woman.”

“And that is surely true!” said Féraz to himself, a little startled,--“For--if she is _dead_, as El-Râmi asserts, and her seeming life is but the result of his art, then indeed in the case of this Lilith ‘not a drop of her blood is human.’”

And the poem ran on in his mind--

“Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden: (_Alas, the hour!_) She was the first that thence was driven: With her was hell, and with Eve was heaven.”

“Nay, I should transpose that,”--murmured the young man drowsily, staring out on the moonlit street--“I should say, ‘With Eve was hell, and with Lilith heaven.’ How strange it is I should never have thought of this poem before!--and I have often turned over the pages of Rossetti’s book,--since--since I saw her;--I must have actually seen the name of Lilith printed there, and yet it never suggested itself to me as being familiar or offering any sort of clue.”

He sighed perplexedly,--the heliotrope odours floated around him, and the gleam of the lamp in the room seemed to pale in the wide splendour of the moon-rays pouring through the window,--and still the delicate sprite of Poesy continued to remind him of familiar lines and verses he loved, though all the while he thought of Lilith, and kept on wondering vaguely and vainly what would be, what could be, the end of his brother’s experiment (whatever that was, for he, Féraz, did not know) on the lovely, apparently living girl who yet was dead. It was very strange--and surely, it was also very terrible!

“The day is dark and the night
To him that would search their heart;
No lips of cloud that will part,
Nor morning song in the light:
Only, gazing alone
To him wild shadows are shown,
Deep under deep unknown
And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go,--
‘Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.’”