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BY
DANTE G. ROSSETTI
'Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman'
and complex character of the psychological Dane for himself, with the result that even the listless, languid, generally impassive occupants of the stalls, many of whom had no doubt heard a hundred Hamlets, were roused for once out of their chronic state of boredom into something like attention, as the familiar lines fell on their ears with a slow and meditative richness of accent not commonly heard on the modern stage. This new Hamlet chose his attitudes well,--instead of walking or rather strutting about as he uttered the soliloquy, he seated himself and for a moment seemed lost in silent thought;-- then, without changing his position he began, his voice gathering deeper earnestness as the beauty and solemnity of the immortal lines became more pronounced and concentrated.
"To die--to sleep;--
To sleep!--perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause..."
Here there was a brief and impressive silence. In that short interval,
and before the actor could resume his speech, a man entered the theatre
with noiseless step and
seated himself in a vacant stall of the second row. A few heads were instinctively turned to look at him, but in the semi-gloom of the auditorium, his features could scarcely be discerned, and Hamlet's sad rich voice again compelled attention.
"Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action."
The scene went on to the despairing interview with Ophelia, which was
throughout performed with such splendid force and feeling as to awaken a
perfect hurricane of applause;--then the curtain went down, the lights
went up, the orchestra recommenced, and again inquisitive eyes were turned
towards the latest new-comer in the stalls who had made his quiet entrance
in the very midst of the great philosophical Soliloquy.
He was immediately discovered to be a person well worth observing; and observed he was accordingly, though he seemed quite unaware of the attention he was attracting. Yet he was singular-looking enough to excite a little curiosity even among modern fashionable Londoners, who are accustomed to see all sorts of eccentric beings, both male and female, æsthetic and common-place, and he was so distinctively separated from ordinary folk by his features and bearing, that the rather loud whisper of an irrepressible young American woman--"I'd give worlds to know who that man is!" was almost pardonable under the circumstances. His skin was dark as a mulatto's,--yet smooth, and healthily coloured by the warm blood flushing through the olive tint,--his eyes seemed black, but could scarcely be seen on account of the extreme length and thickness of their dark lashes,--the fine, rather scornful curve of his short upper lip was partially hidden by a black moustache; and with all this blackness and darkness about his face, his hair, of which he seemed to have an extraordinary profusion, was perfectly white. Not merely a
silvery white, but a white as pronounced as that of a bit of washed fleece or newly-fallen snow. In looking at him it was impossible to decide whether he was old or young,--because, though he carried no wrinkles or other defacing marks of Time's power to destroy, his features wore an impress of such stern and deeply resolved thought as is seldom or never the heritage of those to whom youth still belongs. Nevertheless, he seemed a long way off from being old,--so that, altogether, he was a puzzle to his neighbours in the stalls, as well as to certain fair women in the boxes, who levelled their opera-glasses at him with a pertinacity which might have made him uncomfortably self-conscious had he looked up. Only he did not look up; he leaned back in his seat with a slightly listless air, studied his programme intently, and appeared half asleep, owing to the way in which his eyelids drooped, and the drowsy sweep of his lashes. The irrepressible American girl almost forgot "Hamlet," so absorbed was she in staring at him, in spite of the sotto-voce remonstrances of her decorous mother, who sat beside her,--and presently,
as if aware of, or annoyed by, her scrutiny, he lifted his eyes, and looked full at her. With an instinctive movement she recoiled,--and her own eyes fell. Never in all her giddy, thoughtless little life had she seen such fiery, brilliant, night-black orbs,--they made her feel uncomfortable,--gave her the "creeps," as she afterwards declared;--she shivered, drawing her satin opera-wrap more closely about her, and stared at the stranger no more. He soon removed his piercing gaze from her to the stage, for now the great "Play scene" of "Hamlet" was in progress, and was from first to last a triumph for the actor chiefly concerned. At the next fall of the curtain, a fair, dissipated-looking young fellow leaned over from the third row of stalls, and touched the white-haired individual lightly on the shoulder.
"My dear El-Râmi! You here? At a theatre? Why, I should
never have thought you capable of indulging in such frivolity!"
"Do you consider 'Hamlet' frivolous?" queried
the other, rising from his seat to shake hands, and showing himself to be a
man of medium height, though having such
peculiar dignity of carriage as made him appear taller than he really was.
"Well, no!"--and the young man yawned rather
effusively. "To tell you the truth, I find him insufferably
dull."
"You do?" and the person addressed as El-Râmi smiled
slightly. "Well,--naturally you go with the opinions of your
age. You would no doubt prefer a burlesque?"
"Frankly speaking, I should! And now I begin to think of it, I
don't know really why I came here. I had intended to look in at the
Empire--there's a new ballet going on there--but a fellow at
the club gave me this stall, said it was a 'first-night,' and
all the rest of it--and so--"
"And so Fate decided for you," finished El-Râmi
sedately. "And instead of admiring the pretty ladies without proper
clothing at the Empire, you find yourself here, wondering why the deuce
Hamlet the Dane could not find anything better to do than bother himself
about his father's ghost! Exactly! But, being here, you are here for a
purpose, my friend;" and he lowered his voice to a confidential
whisper. "Look!--Over there--
observe her well!--sits your future wife;"--and he indicated, by the slightest possible nod, the American girl before alluded to. "Yes,--the pretty creature in pink, with dark hair. You don't know her? No, of course you don't--but you will. She will be introduced to you to-night before you leave this theatre. Don't look so startled--there's nothing miraculous about her, I assure you! She is merely Miss Chester, only daughter of Jabez Chester, the latest New York millionaire. A charmingly shallow, delightfully useless, but enormously wealthy little person!--you will propose to her within a month, and you will be accepted. A very good match for you, Vaughan--all your debts paid, and everything set straight with certain Jews. Nothing could be better, really--and, remember,--I am the first to congratulate you!"
He spoke rapidly, with a smiling, easy air of conviction; his friend
meanwhile stared at him in profound amazement and something of fear.
"By Jove, El-Râmi!"--he began
nervously--"you know, this is a little too much of a
good thing. It's all very well to play prophet sometimes, but it can be overdone."
"Pardon!" and El-Râmi turned to resume his seat.
"The play begins again. Insufferably dull as 'Hamlet' may
be, we are bound to give him some slight measure of attention."
Vaughan forced a careless smile in response, and threw himself
indolently back in his own stall, but he looked annoyed and puzzled. His
eyes wandered from the back of El-Râmi's white head to the
half-seen profile of the American heiress who had just been so coolly and
convincingly pointed out to him as his future wife.
"I don't know the girl from Adam,"--he thought
irritably, "and I don't want to know her. In fact, I won't
know her. And if I won't, why, I shan't know her. Will is
everything, even according to El-Râmi. The fellow's always so
confoundedly positive of his prophecies. I should like to confute him for
once and prove him wrong."
Thus he mused, scarcely heeding the progress of Shakespeare's great
tragedy, till, at the close of the scene of Ophelia's burial,
he saw El-Râmi rise and prepare to leave the auditorium. He at once rose himself.
"Are you going?" he asked.
"Yes;--I do not care for 'Hamlet's' end, or
for anybody's end in this particular play. I don't like the hasty
and wholesale slaughter that concludes the piece. It is
inartistic."
"Shakespeare inartistic?" queried Vaughan, smiling.
"Why yes, sometimes. He was a man, not a god;--and no
man's work can be absolutely perfect. Shakespeare had his faults like
everybody else,--and with his great genius he would have been the
first to own them. It is only your little mediocrities who are never wrong.
Are you going also?"
"Yes; I mean to damage your reputation as a prophet, and avoid the
chance of an introduction to Miss Chester--for this evening, at any
rate."
He laughed as he spoke, but El-Râmi said nothing. The two passed
out of the stalls together into the lobby, where they had to wait a few
minutes to get their hats and overcoats, the man in charge of the cloakroom
having gone to cool his chronic thirst
at the convenient "bar." Vaughan made use of the enforced delay to light his cigar.
"Did you think it a good 'Hamlet'?" he asked his
companion carelessly while thus occupied.
"Excellent," replied El-Râmi. "The leading actor
has immense talent, and thoroughly appreciates the subtlety of the part he
has to play;--but his supporters are all sticks,--hence the
scenes drag where he himself is not in them. That is the worst of the
'star' system,--a system which is perfectly ruinous to
histrionic art. Still--no matter how it is performed,
'Hamlet' is always interesting. Curiously inconsistent, too,
but impressive."
"Inconsistent? how?" asked Vaughan, beginning to puff rings
of smoke into the air, and to wonder impatiently how much longer the keeper
of the cloak-room meant to stay absent from his post.
"Oh, in many ways. Perhaps the most glaring inconsistency of the
whole conception comes out in the great soliloquy, 'To be or not to
be.'"
"Really?" and Vaughan became interested.
--"I thought that was considered one of the finest bits in the play."
"So it is. I am not speaking of the lines themselves, which are
magnificent, but of their connection with 'Hamlet's' own
character. Why does he talk of a 'bourne from whence no traveller
returns,' when he has, or thinks he has, proof positive of the return
of his own father in spiritual form;--and it is just concerning that
return that he makes all the pother? Don't you see inconsistency
there?"
"Of course,--but I never thought of it," said Vaughan,
staring. "I don't believe anyone but yourself has ever thought
of it. It is quite unaccountable. He certainly does say 'no traveller
returns,'--and he says it after he has seen the ghost
too."
"Yes," went on El-Râmi, warming with his subject.
"And he talks of the 'dread of something after death,' as
if it were only a 'dread,' and not a Fact;--whereas if he
is to believe the spirit of his own father, which he declares is 'an
honest ghost,' there is no possibility of doubt on the matter. Does
not the mournful phantom say--
"'But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end. . .'?"
"By Jove! I say, El-Râmi; don't look at me like
that!" exclaimed Vaughan uneasily, backing away from a too close
proximity to the brilliant flashing eyes and absorbed face of his
companion, who had recited the lines with extraordinary passion and
solemnity.
El-Râmi laughed.
"Did I scare you? Was I too much in earnest? I beg your pardon!
True enough,--'this eternal blazon must not be, to ears of flesh
and blood!' But, the 'something after death' was a
peculiarly aggravating reality to that poor ghost, and Hamlet knew that it
was so when he spoke of it as a mere 'dread.' Thus, as I say,
he was inconsistent, or, rather, Shakespeare did not argue the case
logically."
"You would make a capital actor,"--said Vaughan, still
gazing at him in astonishment.
"Why, you went on just now as if,--well, as if you meant it, you know."
"So I did mean it," replied El-Râmi
lightly--"for the moment! I always find 'Hamlet' a
rather absorbing study; so will you, perhaps, when you are my
age."
"Your age?" and Vaughan shrugged his shoulders. "I
wish I knew it! Why, nobody knows it. You may be thirty or a
hundred--who can tell?"
"Or two hundred--or even three hundred?" queried
El-Râmi, with a touch of satire in his tone;--"why stint
the measure of limitless time? But here comes our recalcitrant
knave"--this, as the keeper of the cloakroom made his appearance
from a side-door with a perfectly easy and unembarrassed air, as though he
had done rather a fine thing than otherwise in keeping two gentlemen
waiting his pleasure. "Let us get our coats, and be well away before
the decree of Fate can be accomplished in making you the winner of the
desirable Chester prize. It is delightful to conquer Fate--if one
can!"
His black eyes flashed curiously, and
Vaughan paused in the act of throwing on his overcoat to look at him again in something of doubt and dread.
At that moment a gay voice exclaimed:
"Why, here's Vaughan!--Freddie Vaughan--how
lucky!" and a big handsome man of about two or three and thirty
sauntered into the lobby from the theatre, followed by two ladies.
"Look here, Vaughan, you're just the fellow I wanted to see.
We've left Hamlet in the thick of his fight, because we're going
on to the Somers's ball,--will you come with us? And I say,
Vaughan, allow me to introduce to you my friends--Mrs. Jabez Chester,
Miss Idina Chester--Sir Frederick Vaughan."
For one instant Vaughan stood inert and stupefied; the next he
remembered himself, and bowed mechanically. His presentation to the
Chesters was thus suddenly effected by his cousin, Lord Melthorpe, to whom
he was indebted for many favours, and whom he could not afford to offend by
any show of brusquerie. As soon as the necessary salutations were
exchanged, however, he looked round vaguely, and in a sort of
superstitious terror, for the man who had so surely prophesied this introduction. But El-Râmi was gone. Silently and without adieu he had departed, having seen his word fulfilled.
Vaughan smiled at this description.
"He is certainly rather singular in personal appearance," he
began, when his cousin, Lord Melthorpe, interrupted him.
"You mean El-Râmi? It was El-Râmi,
wasn't it? Ah, I thought so. Why did he give us the slip, I wonder? I
wish he had waited a minute--he is a most interesting
fellow."
"But who is he?" persisted Miss Chester. She
was now comfortably ensconced in her luxurious brougham, her mother beside
her, and two men of "title" opposite to her--a position which exactly suited the aspirations of her soul. "How very tiresome you both are! You don't explain him a bit; you only say he is 'interesting,' and of course one can see that; people with such white hair and such black eyes are always interesting, don't you think so?"
"Well, I don't see why they should be," said Lord
Melthorpe dubiously. "Now, just think what horrible chaps Albinos
are, and they have white hair and pink eyes--"
"Oh, don't drift off on the subject of Albinos,
please!" pleaded Miss Chester, with a soft laugh. "If you do, I
shall never know anything about this particular person--El-Râmi,
did you say? Isn't it a very odd name? Eastern, of course?"
"Oh yes! he is a pure Oriental thoroughbred," replied Lord
Melthorpe, who took the burden of the conversation upon himself, while he
inwardly wondered why his cousin Vaughan was in such an evidently taciturn
mood. "That is, I mean, he is an Oriental of the very old stock, not
one of the modern Indian mixtures of vice and knavery. But
when he came from the East, and why he came from the East, I don't suppose anyone could tell you. I have only met him two or three times in society, and on those occasions he managed to perplex and fascinate a good many people. My wife, for instance, thinks him quite a marvellous man; she always asks him to her parties, but he hardly ever comes. His name in full is El-Râmi-Zarânos, though I believe he is best known as El-Râmi simply."
"And what is he?" asked Miss Chester. "An
artist?--a literary celebrity?"
"Neither, that I am aware of. Indeed, I don't know what he
is, or how he lives. I have always looked upon him as a sort of
magician--a kind of private conjurer, you know."
"Dear me!" said fat Mrs. Chester, waking up from a
semi-doze, and trying to get interested in the subject. "Does he do
drawing-room tricks?"
"Oh no, he doesn't do tricks;" and Lord Melthorpe
looked a little amused. "He isn't that sort of man at all;
I'm afraid I explain myself badly. I mean that he can
tell you extraordinary things about your past and future--"
"Oh, by your hand--I know!" and the pretty
Idina nodded her head sagaciously. "There really is something awfully
clever in palmistry. I can tell fortunes that way!"
"Can you?" Lord Melthorpe smiled indulgently, and went
on,--"But it so happens that El-Râmi does not tell
anything by the hand,--he judges by the face, figure, and movement. He
doesn't make a profession of it; but, really, he does foretell events
in rather a curious way now and then."
"He certainly does!" agreed Vaughan, rousing himself from a
reverie into which he had fallen, and fixing his eyes on the small piquante
features of the girl opposite him. "Some of his prophecies are quite
remarkable."
"Really! How very delightful!" said Miss Chester, who was
fully aware of Sir Frederick's intent, almost searching, gaze, but
pretended to be absorbed in buttoning one of her gloves. "I must ask
him to tell me what sort of fate is in store for me--something awful,
I'm positive! Don't you
think he has horrid eyes?--splendid, but horrid? He looked at me in the theatre--"
"My dear, you looked at him first," murmured Mrs.
Chester.
"Yes; but I'm sure I didn't make him shiver. Now, when
he looked at me, I felt as if someone were pouring cold water very slowly
down my back. It was such a creepy sensation! Do fasten this,
mother--will you?" and she extended the hand with the refractory
glove upon it to Mrs. Chester, but Vaughan promptly interposed:
"Allow me!"
"Oh, well! if you know how to fix a button that is almost
off!" she said laughingly, with a blush that well became her
transparent skin.
"I can make an attempt"--said Vaughan, with due
humility. "If I succeed, will you give me one or two dances
presently?"
"With pleasure!"
"Oh! you are coming in to the Somers's,
then!" said Lord Melthorpe, in a pleased tone. "That's
right. You know, Fred, you're so absent-minded to-night, that you
never said 'Yes' or 'No' when I asked you to accompany us."
"Didn't I? I'm awfully sorry!" and, having
fastened the glove with careful daintiness, he smiled. "Please set
down my rudeness and distraction to the uncanny influence of El-Râmi;
I can't imagine any other reason."
They all laughed carelessly, as people in an idle humour laugh at
trifles, and the carriage bore them on to their destination--a great
house in Queen's Gate, where a magnificent entertainment was being
held in honour of some Serene and Exalted foreign potentate who had taken
it into his head to see how London amused itself during a
"season." The foreign potentate had heard that the splendid
English capital was full of gloom and misery--that its women were
unapproachable, and its men difficult to make friends with; and all these
erroneous notions had to be dispersed in his serene and exalted brain, no
matter what his education cost the "Upper Ten" who undertook to
enlighten his barbarian ignorance.
Meanwhile, the subject of Lord Mel-
thorpe's conversation--El-Râmi, or El-Râmi-Zarânos, as he was called by those of his own race--was walking quietly homewards with that firm, swift, yet apparently unhasting pace which so often distinguishes the desert-born savage, and so seldom gives grace to the deportment of the cultured citizen. It was a mild night in May; the weather was unusually fine and warm; the skies were undarkened by any mist or cloud, and the stars shone forth with as much brilliancy as though the city lying under their immediate ken had been the smiling fairy, Florence, instead of the brooding giant, London. Now and again El-Râmi raised his eyes to the sparkling belt of Orion, which glittered aloft with a lustre that is seldom seen in the hazy English air;--he was thinking his own thoughts, and the fact that there were many passers to and fro in the streets besides himself did not appear to disturb him in the least, for he strode through their ranks, without any hurry or jostling, as if he alone existed, and they were but shadows.
"What fools are the majority of men!" he mused. "How
easy to gull them, and
how willing they are to be gulled! How that silly young Vaughan marvelled at my prophecy of his marriage!--as if it were not as easy to foretell as that two and two inevitably make four! Given the characters of people in the same way that you give figures, and you are certain to arrive at a sum-total of them in time. How simple the process of calculation as to Vaughan's matrimonial prospects! Here are the set of numerals I employed: Two nights ago I heard Lord Melthorpe say he meant to marry his cousin Fred to Miss Chester, daughter of Jabez Chester, of New York,--Miss Chester herself entered the room a few minutes later on, and I saw the sort of young woman she was. To-night at the theatre I see her again;--in an opposite box, well back in shadow, I perceive Lord Melthorpe. Young Vaughan, whose character I know to be of such weakness that it can be moulded whichever way a stronger will turns it, sits close behind me; and I proceed to make the little sum-total. Given Lord Melthorpe, with a determination that resembles the obstinacy of a pig rather than of a man;
Frederick Vaughan, with no determination at all; and the little Chester girl, with her heart set on an English title, even though it only be that of a baronet, and the marriage is certain. What was uncertain was the possibility of their all meeting to-night; but they were all there, and I counted that possibility as the fraction over,--there is always a fraction over in character-sums; it stands as Providence or Fate, and must always be allowed for. I chanced it,--and won. I always do win in these things,--these ridiculous trifles of calculation, which are actually accepted as prophetic utterances by people who never will think out anything for themselves. Good heavens! what a monster-burden of crass ignorance and wilful stupidity this poor planet has groaned under ever since it was hurled into space! Immense!--incalculable! And for what purpose? For what progress? For what end?"
He stopped a moment; he had walked from the Strand up through
Piccadilly, and was now close to Hyde Park. Taking out his watch, he
glanced at the time--it was close upon midnight. All at once he was
struck fiercely from behind, and the watch he held was snatched from his hand by a man who had no sooner committed the theft than he uttered a loud cry, and remained inert and motionless. El-Râmi turned quietly round, and surveyed him.
"Well, my friend?" he inquired blandly--"What did
you do that for?"
The fellow stared about him vaguely, but seemed unable to
answer,--his arm was stiffly outstretched, and the watch was clutched
fast within his palm.
"You had better give that little piece of property back to
me," went on El-Râmi, coldly smiling,--and, stepping close
up to his assailant, he undid the closed fingers one by one, and, removing
the watch, restored it to his own pocket. The thief's arm at the same
moment fell limply at his side; but he remained where he was, trembling
violently as though seized with a sudden ague-fit.
"You would find it an inconvenient thing to have about you, I
assure you. Stolen goods are always more or less of a bore, I believe. You
seem rather discomposed? Ah! you have had a little shock,--that's
all.
You've heard of torpedos, I dare say? Well, in this scientific age of ours, there are human torpedos going about; and I am one of them. It is necessary to be careful whom you touch nowadays,--it really is, you know! You will be better presently--take time!"
He spoke banteringly, observing the thief meanwhile with the most
curious air, as though he were some peculiar specimen of beetle or frog.
The wretched man's features worked convulsively, and he made a gesture
of appeal:
"Yer won't 'ave me took up!" he muttered hoarsely.
"I'm starvin'!"
"No, no!" said El-Râmi persuasively--"you
are nothing of the sort. Do not tell lies, my friend; that is a great
mistake--as great a mistake as thieving. Both things, as you practise
them, will put you to no end of trouble,--and to avoid trouble is the
chief aim of modern life. You are not starving--you are as plump as a
rabbit,"--and, with a dexterous touch, he threw up the
man's loose shirt-sleeve, and displayed the full, firm flesh of the
strong and sinewy arm beneath. "You have had more meat in you to-day
than I
can manage in a week; you will do very well. You are a professional thief,--a sort of--lawyer, shall we say? Only, instead of protesting the right you have to live, politely by means of documents and red-tape, you assert it roughly by stealing a watch. It's very frank conduct,--but it is not civil; and, in the present state of ethics, it doesn't pay--it really doesn't. I'm afraid I'm boring you! You feel better? Then--good-evening!"
He was about to resume his walk, when the now-recovered rough took a
hasty step towards him.
"I wanted to knock yer down!" he began.
"I know you did,"--returned El-Râmi composedly.
"Well--would you like to try again?"
The man stared at him, half in amazement, half in fear.
"Yer see," he went on, "yer pulled out yer watch, and
it was all jools and sparkles--"
"And it was a glittering temptation"--finished
El-Râmi. "I see. I had no business to pull it out; I grant it;
but, being
pulled out, you had no business to want it. We were both wrong; let us both endeavour to be wiser in future. Good-night!"
"Well, I'm blowed if ye're not a rum un, and an orful
un!" ejaculated the man, who had certainly received a fright, and was
still nervous from the effects of it. "Blowed if he ain't the
rummest card!"
But the "rummest card" heard none of these observations. He
crossed the road, and went on his way serenely, taking up the thread of his
interrupted musings as though nothing had occurred.
"Fools--fools all!" he murmured. "Thieves steal,
murderers slay, labourers toil, and all men and women lust and live and
die--to what purpose? For what progress? For what end? Destruction or
new life? Heaven or hell? Wisdom or caprice? Kindness or cruelty? God or
the Devil? Which? If I knew that I should be wise,--but
till I know, I am but a fool also,--a fool among fools,
fooled by a Fate whose secret I mean to discover and conquer--and
defy!"
He paused,--and, drawing a long, deep
breath, raised his eyes to the stars once more. His lips moved as though he repeated inwardly some vow or prayer, then he proceeded at a quicker pace, and stopped no more till he reached his destination, which was a small, quiet and unfashionable square off Sloane Street. Here he made his way to an unpretentious-looking little house, semi-detached, and one of a row of similar buildings; the only particularly distinctive mark about it being a heavy and massively-carved ancient oaken door, which opened easily at the turn of his latch-key, and closed after him without the slightest sound as he entered.
turned on the electric burner, which, in the form of a large flower, depended from the ceiling by quaintly-worked silver chains, and was connected by a fine wire with a shaded reading-lamp on the table. There was not much of either beauty or value in the room,--yet without being at all luxurious, it suggested luxury. The few chairs were of the most ordinary make, all save one, which was of finely carved ebony, and was piled with silk cushions of amber and red,--the table was of plain painted deal, covered with a dark woollen cloth worked in and out with threads of gold,--there were a few geometrical instruments about,--a large pair of globes,--a rack on the wall stocked with weapons for the art of fence,--and one large book-case full of books. An ebony-cased pianette occupied one corner,--and on a small side-table stood a heavily-made oaken chest, brass-bound and double-locked. The furniture was completed by a plain camp-bedstead such as soldiers use, which at the present moment was partly folded up and almost hidden from view by a rough bearskin thrown carelessly across it.
El-Râmi sat down in the big ebony chair and looked at a pile of
letters lying on his writing-table. They were from all sorts of
persons,--princes, statesmen, diplomats, financiers, and artists in
all the professions,--he recognised the handwriting on some of the
envelopes, and his brows contracted in a frown as he tossed them aside
still unopened.
"They must wait," he said half aloud. "Curious that it
is impossible for a man to be original without attracting around him a set
of unoriginal minds, as though he were a honey-pot and they the flies! Who
would believe that I, poor in worldly goods, and living in more or less
obscurity, should, without any wish of my own, be in touch with
kings?--should know the last new policy of governments before it is
made ripe for public declaration?--should hold the secrets of
'my lord' and 'my lady' apart from each
other's cognisance, and be able to amuse myself with their little
ridiculous matrimonial differences, as though they were puppets playing
their parts for use at a marionette show! I do not ask these people to
confide in me,--I do not want them to
seek me out,--and yet the cry is, 'still they come!'--and the attributes of my own nature are such, that like a magnet, I attract, and so am never left in peace. Yet perhaps it is well it should be thus,--I need the external distraction,--otherwise my mind would be too much like a bent bow,--fixed on the one centre,--the Great Secret,--and its powers might fail me at the last. But no!--failure is impossible now. Steeled against love,--hate,--and all the merely earthly passions of mankind as I am,--I must succeed--and I will!"
He leaned his head on one hand, and seemed to suddenly concentrate his
thoughts on one particular subject,--his eyes dilated and grew luridly
brilliant as though sparks of fire burnt behind them. He had not sat thus
for more than a couple of minutes, when the door opened gently, and a
beautiful youth clad in a loose white tunic and vest of Eastern fashion,
made his appearance, and standing silently on the threshold seemed to wait
for some command.
"So, Féraz! you heard my summons?" said El-Râmi
gently.
"I heard my brother speak,"--responded Féraz in
a low melodious voice that had a singularly dreamy far-away tone within
it--"Through a wall of cloud and silence his beloved accents
fell like music on my ears;--he called me and I came."
And sighing lightly, he folded his arms cross-wise on his breast and
stood erect and immovable, looking like some fine statue just endowed by
magic with the flush of life. He resembled El-Râmi in features, but
was fairer-skinned,--his eyes were softer and more femininely
lovely,--his hair, black as night, clustered in thick curls over his
brow, and his figure, straight as a young palm-tree, was a perfect model of
strength united with grace. But just now he had a strangely absorbed
air,--his eyes, though they were intently fixed on
El-Râmi's face, looked like the eyes of a sleep-walker, so
dreamy were they while wide-open,--and as he spoke he smiled vaguely
as one who hears delicious singing afar off.
El-Râmi studied him intently for a minute or two,--then,
removing his gaze, pressed a small silver hand-bell at his side. It rang
sharply out on the silence.
"Féraz!"
Féraz started,--rubbed his eyes,--glanced about him,
and then sprang towards his brother with quite a new expression,--one
of grace, eagerness and animation, that intensified his beauty and made him
still more worthy the admiration of a painter or a sculptor.
"El-Râmi! at last! How late you are! I waited for you
long--and then I slept. I am sorry! But you called me in the usual
way, I suppose?--and I did not fail you? Ah no! I should come to you
if I were dead!"
He dropped on one knee, and raised El-Râmi's hand caressingly
to his lips.
"Where have you been all the evening?" he went on. "I
have missed you greatly--the house is so silent."
El-Râmi touched his clustering curls tenderly.
"You could have made music in it with your lute and voice,
Féraz, had you chosen," he said. "As for me, I went to
see 'Hamlet.'"
"Oh, why did you go?" demanded Féraz
impetuously. "I would not see it--no! not for worlds! Such poetry must needs be spoilt by men's mouthing of it,--it is better to read it, to think it, to feel it,--and so one actually sees it,--best."
"You talk like a poet,"--said El-Râmi
indulgently. "You are not much more than a boy, and you think the
thoughts of youth. Have you any supper ready for me?"
Féraz smiled and sprang up, left the room, and returned in a few
minutes with a daintily arranged tray of refreshments, which he set before
his brother with all the respect and humility of a well-trained domestic in
attendance on his master.
"You have supped?" El-Râmi asked, as he poured out
wine from the delicately shaped Italian flask beside him.
Féraz nodded.
"Yes. Zaroba supped with me. But she was cross to-night--she
had nothing to say."
El-Râmi smiled. "That is unusual!"
Féraz went on. "There have been many people
here,--they all wanted to see you. They have left their cards. Some of
them
asked me my name and who I was. I said I was your servant--but they would not believe me. There were great folks among them--they came in big carriages with prancing horses. Have you seen their names?"
"Not I."
"Ah, you are so indifferent," said Féraz
gaily,--he had now quite lost his dreamy and abstracted look, and
talked on in an eager boyish way that suited his years,--he was barely
twenty. "You are so bent on great thoughts that you cannot see little
things. But these dukes and earls who come to visit you do not consider
themselves little,--not they!"
"Yet many of them are the least among little men," said
El-Râmi with a touch of scorn in his mellow accents. "Dowered
with great historic names which they almost despise, they do their best to
drag the memory of their ancient lineage into dishonour by vulgar passions,
low tastes, and a scorn as well as lack of true intelligence. Let us not
talk of them. The English aristocracy was once a magnificent tree, but
its broad boughs are fallen,--lopped off and turned into saleable timber,--and there is but a decaying stump of it left. And so Zaroba said nothing to you to-night?"
"Scarce a word. She was very sullen. She bade me tell you all was
well,--that is her usual formula. I do not understand it;--what
is it that should be well or ill? You never explain your
mystery!"
He smiled, but there was a vivid curiosity in his fine eyes,--he
looked as if he would have asked more had he dared to do so.
El-Râmi evaded his questioning glance. "Speak of
yourself," he said. "Did you wander at all into your Dreamland
today?"
"I was there when you called me," replied Féraz
quickly. "I saw my home,--its trees and flowers,--I
listened to the ripple of its fountains and streams. It is harvest-time
there, do you know? I heard the reapers singing as they carried home the
sheaves."
His brother surveyed him with a fixed and wondering scrutiny.
"How absolute you are in your faith!" he said half
enviously. "You think it is your
home,--but it is only an idea after all,--an idea, born of a vision."
"Does a mere visionary idea engender love and longing?"
exclaimed Féraz impetuously. "Oh no, El-Râmi,--it
cannot do so! I know the land I see so often in what you call
a 'dream,'--its mountains are familiar to me,--its
people are my people; yes!--I am remembered there, and so are
you,--we dwelt there once,--we shall dwell there again. It is
your home as well as mine,--that bright and far-off star where there
is no death but only sleep,--why were we exiled from our happiness,
El-Râmi? Can your wisdom tell?"
"I know nothing of what you say," returned El-Râmi
brusquely. "As I told you, you talk like a poet,--harsher men
than I, would add, like a madman. You imagine you were born or came into
being in a different planet to this,--that you lived there,--that
you were exiled from thence by some mysterious doom, and were condemned to
pass into human existence here;--well, I repeat,
Féraz--this is your own fancy,--the result of the strange
double life
you lead, which is not by my will or teaching. I believe only in what can be proved--and this that you tell me is beyond all proof."
"And yet," said Féraz
meditatively,--"though I cannot reason it out, I am sure of what
I feel. My 'dream' is more life-like than life
itself,--and as for my beloved people yonder, I tell you I have heard
them singing the harvest-home."
And with a quick soft step, he went to the piano, opened it and began to
play. EI-Râmi leaned back in his chair mute and absorbed,--did
ever common keyed instrument give forth such enchanting sounds? Was ever
written music known that could, when performed, utter such divine and
dulcet eloquence? There was nothing earthly in the tune,--it seemed to
glide from under the player's fingers like a caress upon the
air,--and an involuntary sigh broke from El-Râmi's lips as
he listened. Féraz heard that sigh, and turned round smiling.
"Is there not something familiar in the strain?" he asked.
"Do you not see them all, so fair and light and lithe of limb, coming
over the fields homewards as the red Ring
burns low in the western sky? Surely--surely you remember?"
A slight shudder shook El-Râmi's frame,--he pressed his
hands over his eyes, and seemed to collect himself by a strong
effort,--then walking over to the piano, he took his young
brother's hands from the keys and held them for a moment against his
breast.
"Keep your illusions"--he said in a low voice that
trembled slightly. "Keep them,--and your faith,--together.
It is for you to dream, and for me to prove. Mine is the hardest lot. There
may be truth in your dreams,--there may be deception in my
proofs--Heaven only knows! Were you not of my own blood, and dearer to
me than most human things, I should, like every scientist worthy of the
name, strive to break off your spiritual pinions and make of you a mere
earth-grub even as most of us are made,--but I cannot do it,--I
have not the heart to do it,--and if I had the heart"--he
paused a moment,--then went on slowly--"I have not the
power. Good-night!"
He left the room abruptly without another
word or look,--and the beautiful young Féraz gazed after his retreating figure doubtfully and with something of wondering regret. Was it worth while, he thought, to be so wise, if wisdom made one at times so sad?--was it well to sacrifice Faith for Fact, when Faith was so warm and Fact so cold? Was it better to be a dreamer of things possible, or a worker-out of things positive? And how much was positive after all? and how much possible? He balanced the question lightly with himself,--it was like a discord in the music of his mind, and disturbed his peace. He soon dismissed the jarring thought, however, and closing the piano, glanced round the room to make sure that nothing more was required for his brother's service or comfort that night, and then he went away to resume his interrupted slumbers,--perchance to take up the chorus of his "people" singing in what he deemed his native star.
hung with pale clambering roses and purple passion-flowers,--on the upper half among the blossoms sat a meditative cupid, pressing a bud against his pouting lips, while below him, stretched in full-length desolation on a bent bough, his twin brother wept childishly over the piteous fate of a butterfly that lay dead in his curled pink palm. El-Râmi stared so long and persistently at the pretty picture that it might have been imagined he was looking at it for the first time and was absorbed in admiration, but truth to tell he scarcely saw it. His thoughts were penetrating beyond all painted semblances of beauty,--and,--as in the case of his young brother Féraz,--those thoughts were speedily answered. A key turned in the lock,--the door opened, and a tall old woman, bronze-skinned, black-eyed, withered, uncomely yet imposing of aspect, stood in the aperture.
"Enter, El-Râmi!" she said in a low yet harsh
voice--"The hour is late,--but when did ever the lateness
of hours change or deter your sovereign will! Yet truly as God liveth, it
is hard that I should seldom be permitted to pass a night in
peace!"
El-Râmi smiled indifferently, but made no reply, as it was useless
to answer Zaroba. She was stone deaf, and therefore not in a condition to
be argued with. She preceded him into a small ante-room, provided with no
other furniture than a table and chair;--one entire side of the wall
however was hung with a magnificent curtain of purple velvet bordered in
gold. On the table were a slate and pencil, and these implements
El-Râmi at once drew towards him.
"Has there been any change to-day?" he wrote.
Zaroba read the words.
"None," she replied.
"She has not moved?"
"Not a finger."
He paused, pencil in hand,--then he wrote--
"You are ill-tempered. You have your dark humour upon
you."
Zaroba's eyes flashed, and she threw up her skinny hands with a
wrathful gesture.
"Dark humour!" she cried in accents that were almost
shrill--"Ay!--and if it be so, El-Râmi, what is my
humour to you? Am
I anything more to you than a cipher,--a mere slave? What have the thoughts of a foolish woman, bent with years and close to the dark gateways of the tomb, to do with one who deems himself all wisdom? What are the feelings of a wretched perishable piece of flesh and blood to a self-centred god and opponent of Nature like El-Râmi-Zarânos!" She laughed bitterly. "Pay no heed to me, great Master of the Fates invisible!--superb controller of the thoughts of men!--pay no heed to Zaroba's 'dark humours' as you call them. Zaroba has no wings to soar with--she is old and feeble, and aches at the heart with a burden of unshed tears,--she would fain have been content with this low earth whereon to tread in safety,--she would fain have been happy with common joys,--but these are debarred her, and her lot is like that of many a better woman,--to sit solitary among the ashes of dead days and know herself desolate!"
She dropped her arms as suddenly as she had raised them. El-Râmi
surveyed her with a touch of derision, and wrote again on the slate.
"I thought you loved your charge?"
Zaroba read, and drew herself up proudly, looking almost as dignified as
El-Râmi himself.
"Does one love a statue?" she demanded. "Shall I
caress a picture? Shall I rain tears or kisses over the mere semblance of a
life that does not live,--shall I fondle hands that never return my
clasp? Love! Love is in my heart--yes! like a shut-up fire in a
tomb,--but you hold the key, El-Râmi, and the flame dies for
want of air."
He shrugged his shoulders, and putting the pencil aside, wrote no more.
Moving towards the velvet curtain that draped the one side of the room he
made an imperious sign. Zaroba, obeying the gesture mechanically and at
once, drew a small pulley, by means of which the rich soft folds of stuff
parted noiselessly asunder, displaying such a wonderful interior of luxury
and loveliness as seemed for the moment almost unreal. The apartment opened
to view was lofty and perfectly circular in shape, and was hung from top to
bottom with silken hangings of royal purple embroidered all over with
curious arabesque patterns in gold. The same rich material was caught up from the edges of the ceiling to the centre, like the drapery of a pavilion or tent, and was there festooned with golden fringes and tassels. From out the midst of this warm mass of glistening colour, swung a gold lamp which shed its light through amber-hued crystal,--while the floor below was carpeted with the thickest velvet pile, the design being pale purple pansies on a darker ground of the same almost neutral tint. A specimen of everything beautiful, rare and costly seemed to have found its way into this one room, from the exquisitely wrought ivory figure of a Psyche on her pedestal, to the tall vase of Venetian crystal which held lightly up to view, dozens of magnificent roses that seemed born of full midsummer, though as yet in the capricious English climate, it was scarcely spring. And all the beauty, all the grace, all the evidences of perfect taste, art, care and forethought, were gathered together round one centre,--one unseeing, unresponsive centre,--the figure of a sleeping girl. Pillowed on a raised couch such as
might have served a queen for costliness, she lay fast bound in slumber,--a matchless piece of loveliness,--stirless as marble,--wondrous as the ideal of a poet's dream. Her delicate form was draped loosely in a robe of purest white, arranged so as to suggest rather than conceal its exquisite outline,--a silk coverlet was thrown lightly across her feet, and her head rested on cushions of the softest, snowiest satin. Her exceedingly small white hands were crossed upon her breast over a curious jewel,--a sort of giant ruby cut in the shape of a star, which scintillated with a thousand sparkles in the light, and coloured the under-tips of her fingers with a hue like wine, and her hair, which was of extraordinary length and beauty, almost clothed her body down to the knee, as with a mantle of shimmering gold. To say merely that she was lovely would scarcely describe her,--for the loveliness that is generally understood as such, was here so entirely surpassed and intensified that it would be difficult if not impossible to express its charm. Her face had the usual attributes of what might be deemed perfection,--that
is, the lines were purely oval,--the features delicate, the skin most transparently fair, the lips a dewy red, and the fringes of the closed eyes were long, dark and delicately upcurled;--but this was not all. There was something else,--something quite undefinable, that gave a singular glow and radiance to the whole countenance, and suggested the burning of a light through alabaster,--a creeping of some subtle fire through the veins which made the fair body seem the mere reflection of some greater fairness within. If those eyes were to open, one thought, how wonderful their lustre must needs be!--if that perfect figure rose up and moved, what a harmony would walk the world in maiden shape!--and yet,--watching that hushed repose, that scarcely perceptible breathing, it seemed more than certain that she would never rise,--never tread earthly soil in common with earth's creatures,--never be more than what she seemed,--a human flower, gathered and set apart--for whom? For God's love? or Man's pleasure? Either, neither, or both?
El-Râmi entered the rich apartment
followed by Zaroba, and stood by the couch for some minutes in silence. Whatever his thoughts were, his face gave no clue to them,--his features being as impassive as though cast in bronze. Zaroba watched him curiously, her wrinkled visage expressive of some strongly-suppressed passion. The sleeping girl stirred and smiled in her sleep,--a smile that brightened her countenance as much as if a sudden glory had circled it with a halo.
"Ay, she lives for you!" said Zaroba. "And she grows
fairer every day. She is the sun, and you the snow. But the snow is bound
to melt in due season,--and even you, El-Râmi-Zarânos,
will hardly baffle the laws of Nature!"
El-Râmi turned upon her with a fierce mute gesture that had
something of the terrible in it,--she shrank from the cold glance of
his intense eyes, and in obedience to an imperative wave of his hand moved
away to a further corner of the room, where, crouching down upon the floor,
she took up a quaint implement of work, a carved triangular frame of ebony,
with which she
busied herself, drawing glittering threads in and out of it with marvellous speed and dexterity. She made a weird picture there, squatted on the ground in her yellow cotton draperies, her rough gray hair gleaming like spun silk in the light, and the shining threadwork in her withered hands. El-Râmi looked at her sitting thus, and was suddenly moved with compassion--she was old and sad,--poor Zaroba! He went up to her where she crouched, and stood above her, his ardent fiery eyes seeming to gather all their wonderful lustre into one long, earnest and pitiful regard. Her work fell from her hands, and as she met that burning gaze, a vague smile parted her lips,--her frowning features smoothed themselves into an expression of mingled placidity and peace.
"Desolate Zaroba!" said El-Râmi slowly lifting his
hands. "Widowed and solitary soul! Deaf to the outer noises of the
world, let the ears of thy spirit be open to my voice--and hear thou
all the music of the past! Lo, the bygone years return to thee and picture
themselves afresh upon thy tired brain!--again thou dost listen to the
voices
of thy children at play,--the wild Arabian desert spreads out before thee in the sun like a sea of gold,--the tall palms lift themselves against the burning sky--the tent is pitched by the cool spring of fresh water,--and thy savage mate, wearied out with long travel, sleeps, pillowed on thy breast. Thou art young again, Zaroba!--young, fair and beloved!--be happy so! Dream and rest!"
As he spoke he took the aged woman's unresisting hands and laid her
gently, gently, by gradual degrees down in a recumbent posture, and placing
a cushion under her head watched her for a few seconds.
"By Heaven!" he muttered, as he heard her regular breathing
and noted the perfectly composed expression of her face. "Are dreams
after all the only certain joys of life? A poet's fancies,--a
painter's visions--the cloud-castles of a boy's
imaginings--all dreams!--and only such dreamers can be called
happy. Neither Fate nor Fortune can destroy their pleasure,--they make
sport of kings and hold great nations as the merest toys of
thought--oh sublime audacity of Vision! Would I could dream
so!--or
rather, would I could prove my dreams not dreams at all, but the reflections of the absolute Real! 'Hamlet' again!
Imagine it!--to die and dream of Heaven--or Hell,--and all the while if there should be no reality in either!"
"To die--to sleep--
To sleep, perchance to dream--ay! there's the rub!"
With one more glance at the now soundly slumbering Zaroba, he went back
to the couch, and gazed long and earnestly at the exquisite maiden there
reclined,--then bending over her, he took her small fair left hand in
his own, pressing his fingers hard round the delicate wrist.
"Lilith!--Lilith!" he said in low, yet commanding
accents. "Lilith!--Speak to me! I am here!"
"Lilith! Where are you?"
The sweet lips parted, and a voice soft as whispered music
responded--
"I am here!"
"Is all well with you?"
"All is well!"
And a smile irradiated the fair face with such a light as to suggest
that the eyes must have opened,--but no!--they were fast
shut.
El-Râmi resumed his strange interrogation.
"Lilith! What do you see?"
There was a moment's pause,--then came the slow
response--
"Many things,--things beautiful and wonderful. But you are
not among them. I hear your voice and I obey it, but I cannot see
you--I have never seen you."
El-Râmi sighed, and pressed more closely the soft small hand
within his own.
"Where have you been?"
"Where my pleasure led me"--came the answer in a sleepy
yet joyous tone--"My pleasure and--your will."
El-Râmi started, but immediately controlled himself, for Lilith
stirred and threw her other arm indolently behind her head, leaving the
great ruby on her breast flashingly exposed to view.
"Away, away, far, far away!" she said, and her accents
sounded like subdued singing--"Beyond,--in those regions
whither I
was sent--beyond--" her voice stopped and trailed off into drowsy murmurings--"beyond--Sirius--I saw--"
She ceased, and smiled--some happy thought seemed to have rendered
her mute.
El-Râmi waited a moment, then took up her broken speech.
"Far beyond Sirius you saw--what?"
Moving, she pillowed her cheek upon her hand, and turned more fully
round towards him.
"I saw a bright new world"--she said, now speaking
quite clearly and connectedly--"A royal world of worlds; an
undiscovered Star. There were giant oceans in it,--the noise of many
waters was heard throughout the land,--and there were great cities
marvellously built upon the sea. I saw their pinnacles of white and
gold-spires of coral, and gates that were studded with pearl,--flags
waved and music sounded, and two great Suns gave double light from heaven.
I saw many thousands of people--they were beautiful and
happy--they sang and danced and gave thanks in the everlasting
sunshine, and knelt in crowds upon
their wide and fruitful fields to thank the Giver of life immortal."
"Life immortal!" repeated El-Râmi,--"Do not
these people die, even as we?"
A pained look, as of wonder or regret, knitted the girl's fair
brows.
"There is no death--neither here nor there"--she
said steadily--"I have told you this so often, yet you will not
believe. Always you bid me seek for death,--I have looked, but cannot
find it."
She sighed, and El-Râmi echoed the sigh.
"I wish"--and her accents sounded
plaintively--"I wish that I could see you! There is some cloud
between us. I hear your voice and I obey it, but I cannot see who it is
that calls me."
El-Râmi paid no heed to these dove-like
murmurings,--moreover, he seemed to have no eyes for the wondrous
beauty of the creature who lay thus tranced and in his power,--set on
his one object, the attainment of a supernatural knowledge, he looked as
pitiless and impervious to all charm as any Grand Inquisitor of old
Spain.
"Speak of yourself and not of me"--he said
authoritatively,--"How can you say there is no death?"
"I speak truth. There is none."
"Not even here?"
"Not anywhere."
"O daughter of vision, where are the eyes of your spirit!"
demanded El-Râmi angrily--"Search again and see! Why
should all Nature arm itself against Death if there be no death?"
"You are harsh,"--said Lilith sorrowfully
--"Should I tell you what is not true? If I would, I cannot.
There is no death--there is only change. Beyond Sirius, they
sleep."
El-Râmi waited; but she had paused again.
"Go on"--he said--"They sleep--why and
when?"
"When they are weary"--responded Lilith. "When
all is done that they can do, and when they need rest, they sleep, and in
their sleep they change;--the change is--
She ceased.
"The change is death,"--said El-Râmi
positively,--"for death is everywhere."
"Not so!" replied Lilith quickly, and in a ringing tone of
clarion-like sweetness. "The change is life,--for Life is
everywhere!"
There ensued a silence. The girl turned away, and bringing her hand
slowly down from behind her head, laid it again upon her breast over the
burning ruby gem. El-Râmi bent above her closely.
"You are dreaming, Lilith,"--he said as though he would
force her to own something against her will. "You speak unwisely and
at random."
Still silence.
"Lilith!--Lilith!" he called.
No answer;--only the lovely tints of her complexion, the smile on
her lips and the tranquil heaving of her rounded bosom indicated that she
lived.
"Gone!" and El-Râmi's brow clouded; he laid back
the little hand he held in its former position and looked at the girl long
and steadily--"And so firm in her assertion!--as foolish an
assertion as any of the
fancies of Féraz. No death?--Nay--as well say no life. She has not fathomed the secret of our passing hence; no, not though her flight has outreached the realm of Sirius.
Ay, puzzles the will and confounds it! But must I be baffled then?--or is it my own fault that I cannot believe? Is it truly her spirit that speaks to me?--or is it my own brain acting upon hers in a state of trance? If it be the latter, why should she declare things that I never dream of, and which my reason does not accept as possible? And if it is indeed her Soul, or the ethereal Essence of her that thus soars at periodic intervals of liberty into the Unseen, how is it that she never comprehends Death or Pain? Is her vision limited only to behold harmonious systems moving to a sound of joy?"
"'But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will.'
And seized by a sudden resolution, he caught both the hands of the
tranced girl and held them in his own, the while he fixed his eyes upon her
quiet face with a glance that seemed to shoot forth flame.
"Lilith! Lilith! By the force of my will and mastery over thy
life, I bid thee return to me! O flitting spirit, ever bent on errands of
pleasure, reveal to me the secrets of pain! Come back, Lilith! I call
thee--come!"
A violent shudder shook the beautiful reposeful figure,--the smile
faded from her lips, and she heaved a profound sigh.
"I am here!"
"Listen to my bidding!" said El-Râmi, in measured
accents that sounded almost cruel. "As you have soared to heights
ineffable, even so descend to lowest depths of desolation! Understand and
seek out sorrow,--pierce to the root of suffering,-explain the cause
of unavailing agony! These things exist. Here in this planet of which you
know nothing save my voice,--here, if nowhere else in the wide
Universe, we gain our bread with bitterness and drink our wine with tears.
Solve me the mystery of Pain,--of Injustice,--of an innocent
child's anguish on its death-bed,--ay! though you tell me there
is no death!--of a good man's ruin,--of an evil woman's
triumph,--of
despair--of self-slaughter,--of all the horrors upon horrors piled, which make up this world's present life. Listen, O too ecstatic and believing Spirit!--we have a legend here that a God lives,--a wise all-loving God,--and He, this wise and loving one, has out of His great bounty invented for the torture of his creatures,--HELL! Find out this Hell, Lilith!--Prove it!--bring the plan of its existence back to me. Go,--bring me news of devils,--and suffer, if spirits can suffer, in the unmitigated sufferings of others! Take my command and go hence,--find out God's Hell!--so shall we afterwards know the worth of Heaven!"
He spoke rapidly,--impetuously,--passionately;--and now
he allowed the girl's hands to fall suddenly from his clasp. She
moaned a little,--and instead of folding them one over the other as
before, raised them palm to palm in an attitude of prayer. The colour faded
entirely from her face,--but an expression of the calmest, grandest
wisdom, serenity and compassion came over her features as of a saint
prepared for martyrdom. Her breathing grew fainter and
fainter till it was scarcely perceptible,--and her lips parted in a short sobbing sigh,--then they moved and whispered something. El-Râmi stooped over her more closely.
"What is it?" he asked eagerly--"what did you
say?"
"Nothing ... only ... farewell!" and the faint tone stirred
the silence like the last sad echo of a song--"And yet ... once
more ... farewell!"
He drew back, and observed her intently. She now looked like a recumbent
statue, with those upraised hands of hers so white and small and
delicate,--and El-Râmi remembered that he must keep the machine
of the Body living, if he desired to receive through its medium the
messages of the Spirit. Taking a small phial from his breast, together with
the necessary surgeon's instrument used for such purposes, he pricked
the rounded arm nearest to him, and carefully injected into the veins a
small quantity of a strange sparkling fluid which gave out a curiously
sweet and pungent odour;--as he did this, the lifted hands fell gently
into their original position, crossed over the ruby star.
The breathing grew steadier and lighter,--the lips took fresh colour,--and El-Râmi watched the effect with absorbed interest and attention.
"One might surely preserve her body so for ever," he mused
half aloud. "The tissues renewed,--the blood
re-organized,--the whole system completely nourished with absolute
purity; and not a morsel of what is considered food, which contains so much
organic mischief, allowed to enter that exquisitely beautiful mechanism,
which exhales all waste upon the air through the pores of the skin as
naturally as a flower exhales perfume through its leaves. A wonderful
discovery!--if all men knew it, would not they deem themselves truly
immortal, even here? But the trial is not over yet,--the experiment is
not perfect. Six years has she lived thus, but who can say whether indeed
Death has no power over her? In those six years she has changed,--she
has grown from childhood to womanhood,--does not change imply
age?--and age suggest death, in spite of all science? O inexorable
Death!--I will pluck its secret out if I die in the effort!"
He turned away from the couch,--then seemed struck by a new
idea.
"If I die, did I say? But can I die? Is
her Spirit right? Is my reasoning wrong? Is there no pause
anywhere?--no cessation of thought?--no end to the insatiability
of ambition? Must we plan and work and live--FOR EVER?"
A shudder ran through him,--the notion of his own perpetuity
appalled him. Passing a long mirror framed in antique silver, he caught
sight of himself in it,--his dark handsome face, rendered darker by
the contrasting whiteness of his hair,--his full black eyes,-his fine
but disdainful mouth,--all looked back at him with the scornful reflex
of his own scornful regard.
He laughed a little bitterly.
"There you are, El-Râmi Zarânos!" he murmured
half aloud. "Scoffer and scientist,--master of a few common
magnetic secrets such as the priests of ancient Egypt made sport of, though
in these modern days of 'culture,' they are sufficient to make
most men your tools! What now? Is there no rest for the inner calculations
of your mind?
Plan and work and live for ever? Well, why not? Could I fathom the secrets of a thousand universes, would that suffice me? No! I should seek for the solving of a thousand more!"
He gave a parting glance round the room,--at the fair tranced form
on the couch, at the placid Zaroba slumbering in a corner, at the whole
effect of the sumptuous apartment, with its purple and gold, its roses, its
crystal and ivory adornments,--then he passed out, drawing to the
velvet curtains noiselessly behind him. In the small anteroom, he took up
the slate and wrote upon it--
"I shall not return hither for forty-eight hours. During this interval admit as much full daylight as possible. Observe the strictest silence, and do not touch her.
"EL-RÂMI."
The speaker was a stoutish, able-bodied individual in clerical dress,
with rather a handsome face and an easy agreeable manner. He addressed
himself to El-Râmi, who, seated at his writing-table, observed him
with something of a satirical air.
"You wrote me this letter?" queried El-Râmi, selecting
one from a heap beside him. The clergyman bent forward to look, and
recognising his own handwriting, smiled a bland assent.
"You are the Rev. Francis Anstruther, Vicar of Laneck,--a
great favourite with the Bishop of your diocese, I understand?"
The gentleman bowed blandly again,--
then assumed a meek and chastened expression.
"That is, I was a favourite of the Bishop's at
one time"--he murmured regretfully-"and I suppose I am
now, only I fear that this matter of conscience--"
"Oh, it is a matter of conscience?" said
El-Râmi slowly--"You are sure of that?"
"Quite sure of that!" and the Reverend Francis Anstruther
sighed profoundly.
"'Thus conscience does make cowards of us
all--'"
"I beg your pardon?" and the clergyman opened his eyes a
little.
"Nay, I beg yours!--I was quoting
'Hamlet.'"
"Oh!"
There was a silence. El-Râmi bent his dark flashing eyes on his
visitor, who seemed a little confused by the close scrutiny. It was the
morning after the circumstances narrated in the previous chapter,--the
clock marked ten minutes to noon,--the weather was brilliant and
sunshiny, and the temperature warm for the uncertain English month of May.
El-Râmi rose suddenly and threw
open the window nearest him, as if he found the air oppressive.
"Why did you seek me out?" he demanded, turning towards the
reverend gentleman once more.
"Well, it was really the merest accident--"
"It always is!" said El-Râmi with a slight dubious
smile.
"I was at Lady Melthorpe's the other day, and I told her my
difficulty. She spoke of you, and said she felt certain you would be able
to clear up my doubts--"
"Not at all. I am too busy clearing up my own," said
El-Râmi brusquely.
The clergyman looked surprised.
"Dear me!--I thought, from what her ladyship said, that you
were scientifically certain of--"
"Of what?" interrupted El-Râmi--"Of myself?
Nothing more uncertain in the world than my own humour, I assure you! Of
others? I am not a student of human caprice. Of life?--of death?
Neither. I am simply trying to prove the existence of a 'something
after death'--but I am certain
of nothing, and I believe in nothing, unless proved."
"But," said Mr. Anstruther anxiously--"you will,
I hope, allow me to explain that you leave a very different impression on
the minds of those to whom you speak, than the one you now suggest. Lady
Melthorpe, for instance,--"
"Lady Melthorpe believes what it pleases her to
believe,"--said El-Râmi quietly--"All pretty,
sensitive, imaginative women do. That accounts for the immense success of
Roman Catholicism with women. It is a graceful, pleasing, comforting
religion,--moreover it is really becoming to a woman,--she looks
charming with a rosary in her hand, or a quaint old missal,--and she
knows it. Lady Melthorpe is a believer in ideals,--well, there is no
harm in ideals,--long may she be able to indulge in them."
"But Lady Melthorpe declares that you are able to tell the past
and the future," persisted the clergyman--"And that you
can also read the present;--if that is so, you must surely possess
visionary power?"
El-Râmi looked at him stedfastly.
"I can tell you the past;"--he said--"And I
can read your present;--and from the two portions of your life I can
calculate the last addition, the Future,--but my calculation may be
wrong. I mean wrong as regards coming events;--past and present I can
never be mistaken in, because there exists a natural law, by which you are
bound to reveal yourself to me."
The Reverend Francis Anstruther moved uneasily in his chair, but managed
to convey into his countenance the proper expression of politely
incredulous astonishment.
"This natural law," went on El-Râmi, laying one hand
on the celestial globe as he spoke, "has been in existence ever since
man's formation, but we are only just now beginning to discover it, or
rather re-discover it, since it was tolerably well-known to the priests of
ancient Egypt. You see this sphere;"--and he moved the celestial
globe round slowly--"It represents the pattern of the heavens
according to our solar system. Now a Persian poet of old time, declared in
at few wild verses, that solar systems taken in a mass, could be considered
the brain of
heaven, the stars being the thinking, moving molecules of that brain. A sweeping idea,--what your line-and-pattern critics would call 'far-fetched'--but it will serve me just now for an illustration of my meaning. Taking this 'brain of heaven' by way of simile then, it is evident we--we human pigmies,--are, notwithstanding our ridiculous littleness and inferiority, able to penetrate correctly enough into some of the mysteries of that star-teeming intelligence,--we can even take patterns of its shifting molecules"--and again he touched the globe beside him,--"we can watch its modes of thought--and calculate when certain planets will rise and set,--and when we cannot see its action, we can get its vibrations of light, to the marvellous extent of being able to photograph the moon of Neptune, which remains invisible to the eye even with the assistance of a telescope. You wonder what all this tends to?--well,--I speak of vibrations of light from the brain of heaven,--vibrations which we know are existent; and which we prove by means of photography; and because we see the results in black and white, we believe in them. But
there are other vibrations in the Universe, which cannot be photographed,--the vibrations of the human brain, which like those emanating from the 'brain of heaven' are full of light and fire, and convey distinct impressions or patterns of thought. People speak of 'thought-transference' from one subject to another as if it were a remarkable coincidence,--whereas you cannot put a stop to the transference of thought,--it is in the very air, like the germs of disease or health,--and nothing can do away with it."
"I do not exactly understand"--murmured the clergyman
with some bewilderment.
"Ah, you want a practical demonstration of what seems a merely
abstract theory? Nothing easier!"--and moving again to the table
he sat down, fixing his dark eyes keenly on his visitor--"As the
stars pattern heaven in various shapes, like the constellation Lyra, or
Orion, so you have patterned your brain with pictures or photographs of
your past and your present. All your past, every scene of it,
is impressed in the curious little brain-particles that lie in their
various cells,--
you have forgotten some incidents, but they would all come back to you if you were drowning or being hung;--because suffocation or strangulation would force up every infinitesimal atom of brain-matter into extraordinary prominence for the moment. Naturally your present existence is the most vivid picture with you, therefore perhaps you would like me to begin with that?"
"Begin?--how?" asked Mr. Anstruther, still in
amazement.
"Why,--let me take the impression of your brain upon my own.
It is quite simple, and quite scientific. Consider yourself the
photographic negative, and me the sensitive paper to receive the
impression! I may offer you a blurred picture, but I do not think it
likely. Only if you wish to hide anything from me I would advise you not to
try the experiment."
"Really, sir,--this is very extraordinary!--I am at a
loss to comprehend--"
"Oh, I will make it quite plain to you--" said
El-Râmi with a slight smile--"There is no witchcraft in
it--no trickery,--nothing but the commonest A B C science. Will
you try?--or would you prefer to leave the matter alone? My demonstration will not convince you of a 'future state,' which was the subject you first spoke to me about,--it will only prove to you the physiological phenomena surrounding your present constitution and condition."
The Reverend Francis Anstruther hesitated. He was a little startled by
the cold and convincing manner with which El-Râmi spoke,--at the
same time he did not believe in his words, and his own incredulity inclined
him to see the "experiment," whatever it was. It would be all
hocus-pocus, of course,--this Oriental fellow could know nothing about
him,--he had never seen him before, and must therefore be totally
ignorant of his private life and affairs. Considering this for a moment, he
looked up and smiled.
"I shall be most interested and delighted,"--he
said--"to make the trial you suggest. I am really curious. As
for the present picture or photograph on my brain, I think it will only
show you my perplexity as to my position with the Bishop in my wavering
state of mind--"
"Or conscience--" suggested
El-Râmi--"You said it was a matter of
conscience."
"Quite so--quite so! And conscience is the most powerful
motor of a man's actions Mr.--Mr. El-Râmi! It is indeed the
voice of God!"
"That depends on what it says, and how we hear it--"
said El-Râmi rather dryly--"Now if we are to make this
'demonstration,' will you put your left hand here, in my left
hand? So,--your left palm must press closely upon my left
palm,--yes--that will do. Observe the position, please;--you
see that my left fingers rest on your left wrist, and are therefore
directly touching the nerves and arteries running through your heart from
your brain. By this, you are, to use my former simile, pressing me, the
sensitive paper, to your photographic negative--and I make no doubt we
shall get a fair impression. But to prevent any interruption to the
brainwave rushing from you to me, we will add this little trifle,"
and he dexterously slipped a steel band over his hand and that of his
visitor as they rested thus together on the table, and snapt it
to,--"a sort of handcuff,
as you perceive. It has nothing in the world to do with our experiment. It is simply placed there to prevent your moving your hand away from mine, which would be your natural impulse if I should happen to say anything disagreeably true. And to do so, would of course cut the ethereal thread of contact between us. Now, are you ready?"
The clergyman grew a shade paler. El-Râmi seemed so very sure of
the result of this singular trial, that it was a little bit disagreeable.
But having consented to the experiment, he felt he was compelled to go
through with it, so he bowed a nervous assent. Whereupon El-Râmi
closed his brilliant eyes, and sat for one or two minutes silent and
immovable. A curious fidgetiness began to trouble the Reverend Francis
Anstruther,--he tried to think of something ridiculous, something
altogether apart from himself, but in vain,--his own personality, his
own life, his own secret aims seemed all to weigh upon him like a sudden
incubus. Presently tingling sensations pricked his arm as with burning
needles,--the hand that was fettered to that of El-Râmi felt as
hot as
though it were being held to a fire. All at once El-Râmi spoke in a low tone, without opening his eyes--
"The shadow-impression of a woman. Brown-haired,
dark-eyed,--of a full, luscious beauty, and a violent, unbridled,
ill-balanced will. Mindless, but physically attractive. She dominates your
thought."
A quiver ran through the clergyman's frame,--if he could only
have snatched away his hand he would have done it then.
"She is not your wife--" went on
El-Râmi--"she is the wife of your wealthiest neighbour.
You have a wife,--an invalid,--you have also eight
children,--but these are not prominent in the picture at present. The
woman with the dark eyes and hair is the chief figure. Your plans are made
for her--"
He paused, and again the wretched Mr. Anstruther shuddered.
"Wait--wait!" exclaimed El-Râmi suddenly in a
tone of animation--"Now it comes clearly. You have decided to
leave the Church, not because you do not believe in a future
state,--for this you never have
believed at any time--but because you wish to rid yourself of all moral and religious responsibility. Your scheme is perfectly distinct. You will make out a 'case of conscience' to your authorities, and resign your living,--you will then desert your wife and children,--you will leave your country in the company of the woman whose secret lover you are--"
"Stop!" cried the Reverend Mr. Anstruther, savagely
endeavouring to wrench away his hand from the binding fetter which held it
remorselessly to the hand of El-Râmi--"Stop! You are
telling me a pack of lies!"
El-Râmi opened his great flashing orbs and surveyed him first in
surprise, then with a deep unutterable contempt. Unclasping the steel band
that bound their two hands together, he flung it by, and rose to his
feet.
"Lies?" he echoed indignantly. "Your whole life is a
lie, and both Nature and Science are bound to give the reflex of it. What!
would you play a double part with the Eternal Forces and think to succeed
in such desperate fooling? Do you imagine you can deceive supreme
Omniscience, which
holds every star and every infinitesimal atom of life in a network of such instant vibrating consciousness and contact, that in terrible truth there are and can be 'no secrets hid'? You may if you like act out the wretched comedy of feigning to deceive your God--the God of the Churches,--but beware of trifling with the real God,--the absolute EGO SUM of the Universe."
His voice rang out passionately upon the stillness,--the clergyman
had also risen from his chair, and stood, nervously fumbling with his
gloves, not venturing to raise his eyes.
"I have told you the truth of yourself,"--continued
El-Râmi more quietly--"You know I have. Why then do you
accuse me of telling you lies? Why did you seek me out at all if you wished
to conceal yourself and your intentions from me? Can you deny the testimony
of your own brain reflected on mine? Come, confess! be honest for
once,--do you deny it?"
"I deny everything;"--replied the clergyman,--but
his accents were husky and indistinct.
"So be it!"--and El-Râmi gave a short
laugh of scorn. "Your 'case of conscience' is evidently very pressing! Go to your Bishop--and tell him you cannot believe in a future state,--I certainly cannot help you to prove that mystery. Besides, you would rather there were no future state,--a 'something after death' must needs be an unpleasant point of meditation for such as you. Oh yes!--you will get your freedom;--you will get all you are scheming for, and you will be quite a notorious person for awhile on account of the delicacy of your sense of honour and the rectitude of your principles. Exactly!--and then your final coup,--your running away with your neighbour's wife will make you notorious again--in quite another sort of fashion. Ah!--every man is bound to weave the threads of his own destiny, and you are weaving yours;--do not be surprised if you find you have made of them a net wherein to become hopelessly caught, tied and strangled. It is no doubt unpleasant for you to hear these things,--what a pity you came to me!"
The Reverend Francis Anstruther buttoned his glove carefully.
"Oh, I do not regret it," he said. "Any other man
might perhaps feel himself insulted, but--"
"But you are too much of a 'Christian' to take
offence--yes, I dare say!" interposed El-Râmi
satirically,--"I thank you for your amiable forbearance! Allow
me to close this interview"--and he was about to ring the bell,
when his visitor said hastily and with an effort at appearing
unconcerned--
"I suppose I may rely on your secrecy respecting what has
passed?"
"Secrecy?" and El-Râmi raised his black eyebrows
disdainfully--"What you call secrecy I know not. But if you mean
that I shall speak of you and your affairs,--why, make yourself quite
easy on that score. I shall not even think of you after you have left this
room. Do not attach too much importance to yourself, reverend
sir,--true, your name will soon be mentioned in the newspapers, but
this should not excite you to an undue vanity. As for me, I have other
things to occupy me, and clerical 'cases of conscience' such as
yours, fail to attract either my wonder or admiration!" Here he
touched
the bell.--"Féraz!" this, as his young brother instantly appeared--"The door!"
The Reverend Francis Anstruther took up his hat, looked into it, glanced
nervously round at the picturesque form of the silent Féraz, then
with a sudden access of courage, looked at El-Râmi. That handsome
Oriental's fiery eyes were fixed upon him,--the superb head, the
dignified figure, the stately manner, all combined to make him feel
uncomfortable and awkward; but he forced a faint smile--it was evident
he must say something.
"You are a very remarkable man, Mr. ...
El-Râmi"--he stammered.... "It has been a most
interesting ... and ... instructive morning!"
El-Râmi made no response other than a slight frigid bow.
The clergyman again peered into the depths of his hat.
"I will not go so far as to say you were correct in anything you
said"--he went on--"but there was a little truth in
some of your allusions,--they really applied, or might be made to
apply to past events,--by-gone circumstances ... you understand?
.."
El-Râmi took one step towards him.
"No more lies in Heaven's name!" he said in a stern
whisper. "The air is poisoned enough for to-day. Go!"
Such a terrible earnestness marked his face and voice that the Reverend
Francis retreated abruptly in alarm, and stumbling out of the room hastily,
soon found himself in the open street with the great oaken door of
El-Râmi's house shut upon him. He paused a moment, glanced at
the sky, then at the pavement, shook his head, drew a long breath, and
seemed on the verge of hesitation; then he looked at his
watch,--smiled a bland smile, and hailing a cab, was driven to lunch
at the Criterion, where a handsome woman with dark hair and eyes, met him
with mingled flattery and upbraiding, and gave herself pouting and
capricious airs of offence, because he had kept her ten minutes
waiting.
"You are very patient with me, Féraz!" he
said--"And I know I am as sullen as a bear."
"You think too much;"--replied Féraz
gently--"And you work too hard."
"Both thought and labour are necessary," said
El-Râmi--"You would not have me live a life of merely
bovine repose?"
Féraz gave a deprecating gesture.
"Nay--but surely rest is needful. To be happy, God Himself
must sometimes sleep."
"You think so?" and El-Râmi smiled--"Then
it must be during His hours of repose and oblivion that the business of
life goes wrong, and Darkness and the Spirit of Confusion walk abroad. The
Creator should never sleep."
"Why not, if He has dreams?" asked
Féraz--"For if Eternal Thought becomes Substance, so a
God's Dream may become Life."
"Poetic as usual, my Féraz"--replied his
brother--"and yet perhaps you are not so far wrong in your
ideas. That Thought
becomes substance, even with man's limited powers, is true enough;--the thought of a perfect, form grows up embodied in the weight and Substance of marble, with the sculptor,--the vague fancies of a poet, being set in ink on paper, become Substance in book-shape, solid enough to pass from one hand to the other;--even so may a God's mere Thought of a world create a Planet. It is my own impression that thoughts, like atoms, are imperishable, and that even dreams, being forms of thought, never die. But I must not stay here talking,--adieu! Do not sit up for me to-night--I shall not return,--I am going down to the coast."
"To Ilfracombe?" questioned Féraz--"So
long a journey, and all to see that poor mad soul?"
El-Râmi looked at him stedfastly.
"No more 'mad,' Féraz, than you are with your
notions about your native star! Why should a scientist who amuses himself
with the reflections on a Disc of magnetic crystal be deemed
'mad'? Fifty years ago the electric inventions of Edison would
have been called 'impossible,'--and he, the
in-
ventor, considered hopelessly insane. But now we know these seeming 'miracles' are facts, we cease to wonder at them. And my poor friend with his Disc is a harmless creature;--his 'craze,' if it be a craze, is as innocent as yours."
"But I have no craze"--said Féraz
composedly,--"all that I know and see, lives in my brain like
music,--and though I remember it perfectly, I trouble no one with the
story of my past."
"And he troubles no one with what he deems may be the story of the
future"--said El-Râmi--"Call no one
'mad' because he happens to have a new idea--for time may
prove such 'madness' a merely perfected method of reason. I
must hasten, or I shall lose my train."
"If it is the 2.40 from Waterloo, you have time," said
Féraz--"It is not yet two o'clock. Do you leave any
message for Zaroba?"
"None. She has my orders."
Féraz looked full at his brother, and a warm flush coloured his
handsome face.
"Shall I never be worthy of your
con-
fidence?" he asked in a low voice--"Can you never trust me with your great secret, as well as Zaroba?"
El-Râmi frowned darkly.
"Again, this vulgar vice of curiosity? I thought you were exempt
from it by this time."
"Nay, but hear me, El-Râmi"--said Féraz
eagerly, distressed at the anger in his brother's eyes--"It
is not curiosity,--it is something else,--something that I can
hardly explain, except.... Oh, you will only laugh at me if I tell you ...
but yet--"
"But what?" demanded El-Râmi sternly.
"It is as if a voice called me,"--answered Féraz
dreamily--"a voice from those upper chambers, which you keep
closed, and of which only Zaroba has the care--a voice that asks for
freedom and for peace. It is such a sorrowful voice,--but
sweet,--more sweet than any singing. True, I hear it but
seldom,--only when I do, it haunts me for hours and hours. I know you
are at some great work up there,--but can you make such voices ring
from a merely scientific laboratory? Now you are angered!"
His large soft brilliant eyes rested appealingly upon his brother, whose
features had grown pale and rigid.
"Angered!" he echoed, speaking as it seemed with some
effort,--"Am I ever angered at your--your fancies? For
fancies they are, Féraz,--the voice you hear is like the
imagined home in that distant star you speak of,--an image and an echo
on your brain--no more. My 'great work,' as you call it,
would have no interest for you;--it is nothing but a test-experiment,
which, if it fails, then I fail with it, and am no more
El-Râmi-Zarânos, but the merest fool that ever clamoured for
the moon." He said this more to himself than to his brother, and
seemed for the moment to have forgotten where he was,--till suddenly
rousing himself with a start, he forced a smile.
"Farewell for the present, gentle visionary!" he said
kindly,--"You are happier with your dreams than I with my
facts,--do not seek out sorrow for yourself by rash and idle
questioning."
With a parting nod he went out, and Féraz, closing the door after
him, remained
in the hall for a few moments in a sort of vague reverie. How silent the house seemed, he thought with a half-sigh. The very atmosphere of it was depressing, and even his favourite occupation, music, had just now no attraction for him. He turned listlessly into his brother's study,--he determined to read for an hour or so, and looked about in search of some entertaining volume. On the table he found a book open,--a manuscript, written on vellum in Arabic, with curious uncanny figures and allegorical designs on the headings and margins. El-Râmi had left it there by mistake,--it was a particularly valuable treasure which he generally kept under lock and key. Féraz sat down in front of it, and resting his head on his two hands, began to read at the page where it lay open. Arabic was his native tongue,--yet he had some difficulty in making out this especial specimen of the language, because the writing was anything but distinct, and some of the letters had a very odd way of vanishing before his eyes, just as he had fixed them on at word. This was puzzling as well as irritating,--he must have something the matter with
his sight or his brain, he concluded, as these vanishing letters always came into position again after a little. Worried by the phenomenon, he seized the book and carried it to the full light of the open window, and there succeeded in making out the meaning of one passage which was quite sufficient to set him thinking. It ran as follows:
* "Wherefore, touching
illusions and impressions, as also strong emotions of love, hatred,
jealousy or revenge, these nerve and brain sensations are easily conveyed
from one human subject to another by Suggestion. The first process is to
numb the optic nerve. This is done in two ways--I. By causing the
subject to fix his eyes steadily on a round shining case containing a
magnet, while you shall count two hundred beats of time. II. By wilfully
making your own eyes the magnet, and fixing your subject thereto. Either of
these operations will temporarily paralyze the optic nerves, and arrest the
motion of the blood in the vessels pertaining. Thus the brain becomes
insensible to
___________________* From "The Natural Law
of Miracles," written in Arabic 400 B.C.
Page 95
external impressions, and is only awake to internal suggestions, which you may make as many and as devious as you please. Your subject will see exactly what you choose him to see, hear what you wish him to hear, do what you bid him do, so long as you hold him by your power, which if you understand the laws of light, sound, and air-vibrations, you may be able to retain for an indefinite period. The same force applies to the magnetising of a multitude as of a single individual."
Féraz read this over and over again,--then returning to the
table, laid the book upon it with a deeply engrossed air. It had given him
unpleasant matter for reflection.
"A dreamer--a visionary, he calls me--" he mused,
his thoughts reverting to his absent brother--"Full of fancies
poetic and musical,--now can it be that I owe my very dreams to his
dominance? Does he make me subservient to him, as I am, or is
my submission to his will, my own desire? Is my
'madness' or 'craze,' or whatever he calls it, of
his working? and should I be more like other men if I were
separated
from him? And yet what has he ever done to me, save make me happy? Has he placed me under the influence of any magnet such as this book describes? Certainly not that I am aware of. He has made my inward spirit clearer of comprehension, so that I hear him call me even by a thought,--I see and know beautiful things of which grosser souls have no perception,--and am I not content?--Yes, surely I am!--surely I should be,--though at times there seems a something missing,--a something to which I cannot give a name."
He sighed,--and again buried his head between his hands,--he
was conscious of a dreary sensation, unusual to his bright and fervid
nature,--the very sunshine streaming through the window seemed to lack
true brilliancy. Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder,--he
started and rose to his feet with a bewildered air,--then smiled, as
he saw that the intruder was only Zaroba.
"El-Râmi has gone?" she asked.
Féraz nodded. He generally made her understand him either by
signs, or the use of the finger-alphabet, at which he was very
dexterous.
"On what quest?" she demanded.
Féraz explained rapidly and mutely that he had gone to visit a
friend residing at a distance from town.
"Then he will not return to-night;"--muttered Zaroba
thoughtfully--"He will not return to-night."
She sat down, and clasping her hands across her knees, rocked herself to
and fro for some minutes in silence. Then she spoke, more to herself than
to her listener.
"He is an angel or a fiend," she said in low meditative
accents. "Or maybe he is both in one. He saved me from death
once--I shall never forget that. And by his power he sent me back to
my native land last night--I bound my black tresses with pearl and
gold, and laughed and sang,--I was young again!"--and with
a sudden cry she raised her hands above her head and clapped them fiercely
together, so that the silver bangles on her arms jangled like
bells;--"As God liveth, I was young! You know what
it is to be young"--and she turned her dark orbs half enviously
upon Féraz, who, leaning against his brother's
writing-table, regarded her with interest and something of awe--"or you should know it! To feel the blood leap in the veins, while the happy heart keeps time like the beat of a joyous cymbal,--to catch the breath and tremble with ecstasy as the eyes one loves best in the world flash lightning-passion into your own,--to make companions of the roses, and feel the pulses quicken at the songs of birds,--to tread the ground so lightly as to scarcely know whether it is earth or air--this is to be young!--young!--and I was young last night. My love was with me,--my love, my more than lover--'Zaroba, beautiful Zaroba!' he said, and his kisses were as honey on my lips--'Zaroba, pearl of passion! fountain of sweetness in a desert land!--thine eyes are fire in which I burn my soul,--thy round arms the prison in which I lock my heart! Zaroba, beautiful Zaroba!'--Beautiful! Ay!--through the power of El-Râmi I was fair to see--last night! ... only last night!"
Her voice sank down into a feeble wailing, and Féraz gazed at her
compassionately and in a little wonder,--he was accustomed to
see her in various strange and incomprehensible moods, but she was seldom so excited as now.
"Why do you not laugh?" she asked suddenly and with a touch
of defiance--"Why do you not laugh at me?--at me, the
wretched Zaroba,--old and unsightly--bent and
wrinkled!--that I should dare to say I was once beautiful!--It is
a thing to make sport of--an old forsaken woman's dream of her
dead youth."
With an impulsive movement that was as graceful as it was becoming,
Féraz, for sole reply, dropped on one knee beside her, and taking
her wrinkled hand, touched it lightly but reverently with his lips. She
trembled, and great tears rose in her eyes.
"Poor boy!" she muttered--"Poor child!--a
child to me, and yet a man! As God liveth, a man!" She looked at him
with a curious stedfastness. "Good Féraz, forgive me--I
did you wrong--I know you would not mock the aged, or make wanton
sport of their incurable woes,--you are too gentle. I would in truth
you were less mild of spirit--less womanish of heart!"
"Womanish!" and Féraz leaped up, stung by the word,
he knew not why. His heart beat strangely--his blood tingled,--it
seemed to him that if he had possessed a weapon, his instinct would have
been to draw it then. Never had he looked so handsome; and Zaroba, watching
his expression, clapped her withered hands in a sort of witch-like
triumph.
"Ha!"--she cried--"The man's mettle
speaks! There is something more than the dreamer in you
then--something that will help you to explain the mystery of your
existence--something that says--'Féraz, you are the
slave of destiny--up! be its master! Féraz, you
sleep--awake!'" and Zaroba stood up tall and imposing,
with the air of an inspired sorceress delivering a
prophecy--"Féraz, you have manhood--prove it!
Féraz, you have missed the one joy of life--LOVE!--Win
it!"
Féraz stared at her amazed. Her words were such as she had never
addressed to him before, and yet they moved him with a singular uneasiness.
Love? Surely he knew the meaning of love? It was an ideal passion, like the
lifting-up of life in prayer. Had not
his brother told him that perfect love was unattainable on this planet?--and was it not a word the very suggestions of which could only be expressed in music? These thoughts ran through his mind while he stood inert and wondering,--then rousing himself a little from the effects of Zaroba's outburst, he sat down at the table, and taking up a pencil, wrote as follows--
"You talk wildly, Zaroba--you cannot be well. Let me hear no
more--you disturb my peace. I know what love is--I know what life
is. But the best part of my life and love is not here,--but
elsewhere."
Zaroba took the paper from his hand, read it, and tore it to bits in a
rage.
"O foolish youth!" she exclaimed--"Your love is
the love of a Dream,--your life is the life of a Dream! You see with
another's eyes--you think through another's brain. You are a
mere machine, played upon by another's will! But not forever shall you
be deceived--not forever,--" here she gave a slight start
and looked around her nervously as though she expected someone to enter the
room suddenly--"Listen! Come to me
to-
night,--to-night when all is dark and silent,--when every sound in the outside street is stilled,--come to me--and I will show you a marvel of the world!--one who, like you, is the victim of a Dream!" She broke off abruptly and glanced from right to left in evident alarm,--then with a fresh impetus of courage, she bent towards her companion again and whispered in his ear--"Come!"
"But where?" asked Féraz in the language of
signs.
"Up yonder!" said Zaroba firmly, regardless of the utter
amazement with which Féraz greeted this answer--"Up,
where El-Râmi hides his great secret. Yes--I know he has
forbidden you to venture there,--even so has he forbidden me to speak
of what he cherishes so closely,--but are we slaves, you and I? Do you
purpose always to obey him? So be it, an you will!
But if I were you,--a man--I would defy both gods
and fiends if they opposed my liberty of action. Do as it pleases
you,--I, Zaroba, have given, you the choice,--stay and dream of
life--or come and live it! Till to-night--farewell!"
She had reached the door and vanished
through it, before Féraz could demand more of her meaning,--and he was left alone, a prey to the most torturing emotions. "The vulgar vice of curiosity!" That was the phrase his brother had used to him scarcely an hour agone,--and yet, here he was, yielding to a fresh fit of the intolerable desire that had possessed him for years to know El-Râmi's great secret. He dropped wearily into a chair and thought all the circumstances over. They were as follows,--
In the first place he had never known any other protector or friend than
his brother, who, being several years older than himself, had taken sole
charge of him after the almost simultaneous death of their father and
mother, an event which he knew had occurred somewhere in the East, but how
or when, he could not exactly remember, nor had he ever been told much
about it. He had always been very happy in El-Râmi's
companionship, and had travelled with him nearly all over the
world,--and though they had never been rich, they had always had
sufficient wherewith to live comfortably, though how even this small
competence was gained, Féraz
never knew. There had been no particular mystery about his brother's life, however, till on one occasion, when they were travelling together across the Syrian desert, where they had come upon a caravan of half-starved Arab wanderers in dire distress from want and sickness. Among them was an elderly woman at the extreme point of death, and an orphan child named Lilith, who was also dying. El-Râmi had suddenly, for no special reason, save kindness of heart and compassion, offered his services as physician to the stricken little party, and had restored the elderly woman, a widow, almost miraculously to health and strength in a day or two. This woman was no other than Zaroba. The sick child however, a girl of about twelve years old, died. And here began the puzzle. On the day of this girl's death, El-Râmi, with sudden and inexplicable haste, had sent his young brother on to Alexandria, bidding him there take ship immediately for the Island of Cyprus, and carry to a certain monastery some miles from Famagousta, a packet of documents, which he stated were of the most extraordinary value and importance. Féraz
had obeyed, and according to further instructions, had remained as a visitor in that Cyprian religious retreat, among monks unlike any other monks he had ever seen or heard of, till he was sent for, whereupon, according to command, he rejoined El-Râmi in London. He found him, somewhat to his surprise, installed in the small house where they now were,--with the woman Zaroba, whose presence was another cause of blank astonishment, especially as she seemed to have nothing to do but keep certain rooms upstairs in order. But all the questions Féraz poured out respecting her, and everything that had happened since their parting in the Syrian desert, were met by equivocal replies or absolute silence on his brother's part, and by-and-bye the young man grew accustomed to his position. Day by day he became more and more subservient to El-Râmi's will, though he could never quite comprehend why he was so willingly submissive. Of course he knew that his brother was gifted with certain powers of physical magnetism,--because he had allowed himself to be practised upon, and he took a certain
interest in the scientific development of those powers, this being, as he quite comprehended, one of the branches of study on which El-Râmi was engaged. He knew that his brother could compel response to thought from a distance,--but, as there were others of his race who could do the same thing, and as that sort of mild hypnotism was largely practised in the East, where he was born, he attached no special importance to it. Endowed with various gifts of genius such as music and poetry, and a quick perception of everything beautiful and artistic, Féraz lived in a tranquil little Eden of his own,--and the only serpent in it that now and then lifted its head to hiss doubt and perplexity was the inexplicable mystery of those upstair rooms over which Zaroba had guardianship. The merest allusion to the subject excited El-Râmi's displeasure; and during the whole time they had lived together in that house, now nearly six years, he had not dared to speak of it more than a very few times, while Zaroba, on her part, had faithfully preserved the utmost secrecy. Now, she seemed disposed to break the long-kept
rules,--and Féraz knew not what to think of it.
"Is everything destiny, as El-Râmi says?" he
mused--"Or shall I follow my own desires in the face of destiny?
Shall I yield to temptation--or shall I overcome it? Shall I break his
command,--lose his affection and be a free man,--or shall I obey
him still, and be his slave? And what should I do with my liberty if I had
it, I wonder? Womanish! What a word! Am I womanish?" He
paced up and down the room in sudden irritation and haughtiness;--the
piano stood open, but its ivory keys failed to attract him,--his brain
was full of other suggestions than the making of sweet harmony.
"Do not seek out sorrow for yourself by rash and idle
questioning."
So his brother had said at parting. And the words rang in his ears as he
walked to and fro restlessly, thinking, wondering, and worrying his mind
with vague wishes and foreboding anxieties, till the shining afternoon wore
away and darkness fell.
globe beneath one's feet, and the perpetual movement of the planet-studded heavens. High above the shore, on a bare jutting promontory, a solitary house faced seaward;--it was squarely built and surmounted with a tower, wherein one light burned fitfully, its pale sparkle seeming to quiver with fear as the wild wind fled past joyously, with a swirl and cry like some huge sea-bird on the wing. It looked a dismal residence at its best, even when the sun was shining,--but at night its aspect was infinitely more dreary. It was an old house, and it enjoyed the reputation of being haunted,--a circumstance which had enabled its present owner to purchase the lease of it for a very moderate sum. He it was who had built the tower, and whether because of this piece of extravagance or for other unexplained reasons, he had won for himself personally, almost as uncanny a reputation as the house had possessed before he occupied it. A man who lived the life of a recluse,--who seemed to have no relations with the outside world at all,--who had only one servant, (a young German whom the shrewder gossips declared was his
"keeper")--who lived on such simple fare as certainly would never have contented a modern Hodge earning twelve shillings a week, and who seemed to purchase nothing but strange astronomical and geometrical instruments,--surely such a queer personage must either be mad, or in league with some evil "secret society,"--the more especially that he had had that tower erected, into which, after it was finished, no one but himself ever entered so far as the people of the neighbourhood could tell. Under all these suspicious circumstances, it was natural he should be avoided; and avoided he was by the good folk of Ilfracombe, in that pleasantly diverting fashion which causes provincial respectability to shudder away from the merest suggestion of superior intelligence.
And yet poor old Dr. Kremlin was a being not altogether to be despised.
His appearance was perhaps against him, inasmuch as his clothes were
shabby, and his eyes rather wild,--but the expression of his meagre
face was kind and gentle, and a perpetual compassion for everything and
everybody, seemed to vibrate in his voice and reflect itself in his
melancholy smile. He was deeply occupied--so he told a few friends in Russia, where he was born,--in serious scientific investigations,--but the "friends," deeming him mad, held aloof till those investigations should become results. If the results proved disappointing, there would be no need to notice him any more,--if successful, why then, by a mystic process known only to themselves, the "friends" would so increase and multiply that he would be quite inconveniently surrounded by them. In the meantime, nobody wrote to him, or came to see him, except El-Râmi; and it was El-Râmi now, who, towards ten o'clock in the evening, knocked at the door of his lonely habitation and was at once admitted with every sign of deference and pleasure by the servant Karl.
"I'm glad you've come, sir,"--said this
individual cheerfully,--"The Herr Doctor has not been out all
day, and he eats less than ever. It will do him good to see you."
"He is in the tower as usual, at work?" enquired
El-Râmi, throwing off his coat.
Karl assented, with rather a doleful look,--
and opening the door of a small dining-room, showed the supper-table laid for two.
El-Râmi smiled.
"It's no good, Karl!" he said
kindly--"It's very well meant on your part, but it's
no good at all. You will never persuade your master to eat at this time of
night, or me either. Clear all these things away,--and make your mind
easy,--go to bed and sleep. To-morrow morning prepare as excellent a
breakfast as you please--I promise you we'll do justice to it!
Don't look so discontented--don't you know that over-feeding
kills the working capacity?"
"And over-starving kills the man,--working-capacity and
all"--responded Karl lugubriously--"However, I
suppose you know best, sir!"
"In this case I do"--replied
El-Râmi--"Your master expects me?"
Karl nodded,--and El-Râmi, with a brief
"good-night," ascended the staircase rapidly and soon
disappeared. A door banged aloft--then all was still. Karl sighed
profoundly, and slowly cleared away the useless supper.
"Well! How wise men can bear to
starve themselves just for the sake of teaching fools, is more than I shall ever understand!" he said half aloud--"But then I shall never be wise--I am an ass and always was. A good dinner and a glass of good wine have always seemed to me better than all the science going,--there's a shameful confession of ignorance and brutality together, if you like. 'Where do you think you will go to when you die, Karl?' says the poor old Herr Doctor. And what do I say? I say--'I don't know, mein Herr--and I don't care. This world is good enough for me so long as I live in it.' 'But afterwards Karl,--afterwards!' he says, with his gray head shaking. And what do I say? Why, I say--'I can't tell, mein Herr! but whoever sent me Here will surely have sense enough to look after me There!' And he laughs, and his head shakes worse than ever. Ah! Nothing can ever make me clever, and I'm very glad of it!"
He whistled a lively tune softly, as he went to bed in his little
side-room off the passage, and wondered again, as he had wondered hundreds
of times before, what
caused that solemn low humming noise that throbbed so incessantly through the house, and seemed so loud when everything else was still. It was a grave sound,--suggestive of a long-sustained organ-note held by the pedal-bass;--the murmuring of seas and rivers seemed in it, as well as the rush of the wind. Karl had grown accustomed to it, though he did not know what it meant,--and he listened to it, till drowsiness made him fancy it was the hum of his mother's spinning wheel, at home in his native German village among the pine-forests, and so he fell happily asleep.
Meanwhile El-Râmi, ascending to the tower, knocked sharply at a
small nail-studded door in the wall. The mysterious murmuring noise was now
louder than ever,--and the knock had to be repeated three or four
times before it was attended to. Then the door was cautiously opened, and
the "Herr Doctor" himself looked out, his wizened, aged,
meditative face illumined like a Rembrandt picture by the small hand-lamp
he held in his hand.
"Ah!--El-Râmi!" he said in slow yet
pleased tones--"I thought it might be you. And like 'Bernardo'--you 'come most carefully upon your hour.'"
He smiled, as one well satisfied to have made an apt quotation, and
opened the door more widely to admit his visitor.
"Come in quickly,"--he said--"The great
window is open to the skies, and the wind is high,--I fear some damage
from the draught,--come in--come in!"
His voice became suddenly testy and querulous,--and El-Râmi
stepped in at once without reply. Dr. Kremlin shut to the door carefully
and bolted it--then he turned the light of the lamp he carried, full
on the dark handsome face and dignified figure of his companion.
"You are looking well--well,"--he
muttered--"Not a shade older--always sound and strong! Just
Heavens!--if I had your physique, I think with Archimedes, that I
could lift the world! But I am getting very old,--the life in me is
ebbing fast,--and I have not done my work--.... God! ... God! I
have not done my work!"
He clenched his hands, and his voice
quavered down into a sound that was almost a groan. EI-Râmi's black beaming eyes rested on him compassionately.
"You are worn out, my dear Kremlin,"--he said
gently--"worn out and exhausted with long toil. You shall sleep
to-night. I have come according to my promise, and I will do what I can for
you. Trust me--you shall not lose the reward of your life's work
by want of time. You shall have time,-even leisure to complete your
labours,--I will give you 'length of days'!"
The elder man sank into a chair trembling, and rested his head wearily
on one hand.
"You cannot;"--he said faintly-"you cannot stop
the advance of death, my friend! You are a very clever man--you have a
far-reaching subtlety of brain,--but your learning and wisdom must
pause there--there at the boundary-line of the grave. You
cannot overstep it or penetrate beyond it--you cannot slacken the pace
of the on-rushing years;--no, no! I shall be forced to depart with
half my discovery uncompleted."
El-Râmi smiled,--a slightly derisive smile.
"You, who have faith in so much that
cannot be proved, are singularly incredulous of a fact that can be proved;"--he said--"Anyway, whatever you choose to think, here I am in answer to your rather sudden summons--and here is your saving remedy;--" and he placed a gold-stoppered flask on the table near which they sat--"It is, or might be called, a veritable distilled essence of time,--for it will do what they say God cannot do, make the days spin backward!"
Dr. Kremlin took up the flask curiously.
"You are so positive of its action?"
"Positive. I have kept one human creature alive and in perfect
health for six years on that vital fluid alone."
"Wonderful!--wonderful!"--and the old scientist
held it close to the light, where it seemed to flash like a
diamond,--then he smiled dubiously--"Am I the new Faust,
and you Mephisto?"
"Bah!" and El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders
carelessly--"An old nurse's tale!--yet, like all old
nurses' tales and legends of every sort under the sun, it is not
without its grain of truth. As I have often told you, there is really
nothing imagined by
the human brain that is not possible of realization, either here or hereafter. It would be a false note and a useless calculation to allow thought to dwell on what cannot be,--hence our airiest visions are bound to become facts in time. All the same, I am not of such superhuman ability that I can make you change your skin like a serpent, and blossom into youth and the common vulgar lusts of life, which to the thinker must be valueless. No. What you hold there, will simply renew the tissues, and gradually enrich the blood with fresh globules--nothing more,--but that is all you need. Plainly and practically speaking, as long as the tissues and the blood continue to renew themselves, you cannot die except by violence."
"Cannot die!" echoed Kremlin, in stupefied
wonder--"Cannot die?"
"Except by violence--" repeated El-Râmi with
emphasis--"Well!--and what now? There is nothing really
astonishing in the statement. Death by violence is the only death possible
to anyone familiar with the secrets of Nature, and there is more than
one lesson to be learned from the old story of Cain and Abel. The first death in the world, according to that legend, was death by violence. Without violence, life should be immortal, or at least renewable at pleasure."
"Immortal!" muttered Dr. Kremlin--"Immortal!
Renewable at pleasure! My God!--then I have time before
me--plenty of time!"
"You have, if you care for it--" said El-Râmi
with a tinge of melancholy in his accents--"and if you continue
to care for it. Few do, nowadays."
But his companion scarcely heard him. He was balancing the little flask
in his hand in wonderment and awe.
"Death by violence?"--he repeated slowly. "But,
my friend, may not God Himself use violence towards us? May He not snatch
the unwilling soul from its earthly tenement at an unexpected
moment,--and so, all the scheming and labour and patient calculation
of years be ended in one flash of time?"
"God--if there be a God, which some are fain to believe there
is,--uses no violence--"
replied El-Râmi--"Deaths by violence are due to the ignorance, or brutality, or long-inherited fool-hardiness and interference of man alone."
"What of
shipwreck?--storm?--lightning?"--queried Dr. Kremlin,
still playing with the flask he held.
"You are not going to sea, are you?" asked El-Râmi,
smiling--"And surely you, of all men, should know that even
shipwrecks are clue to a lack of mathematical balance in ship-building. One
little trifle of exactitude, which is always missing,
unfortunately,--one little delicate scientific adjustment, and the
fiercest storm and wind could not prevail against the properly poised
vessel. As for lightning--of course people are killed by it if they
persist in maintaining an erect position like a lightning-rod or conductor,
while the electrical currents are in full play. If they were to lie flat
down, as savages do, they could not attract the descending force. But who,
among arrogant stupid men, cares to adopt such simple precautions? Any way,
I do not see that you need fear any of these disasters."
"No no,"--said the old man meditatively, "I need
not fear,--no, no! I have nothing to fear."
His voice sank into silence. He and El-Râmi were sitting in a
small square chamber of the tower,--very narrow, with only space
enough for the one tiny table and two chairs which furnished it,--the
walls were covered with very curious maps, composed of lines and curves and
zig-zag patterns, meaningless to all except Kremlin himself, whose dreamy
gaze wandered to them between-whiles with an ardent yearning and anxiety.
And ever that strange deep, monotonous humming noise surged through the
tower as of a mighty wheel at work, the vibration of the sound seeming
almost to shake the solid masonry, while mingling with it now and again
came the wild sea-bird cry of the wind. El-Râmi listened.
"And still it moves?" he queried softly, using almost the
words of Galileo,--"e pur, si
muove."
Dr. Kremlin looked up, his pale eyes full of a sudden fire and
animation.
"Ay!--still it moves!" he responded with
a touch of eager triumph in his tone--"Still it moves--and still it sounds! The music of the Earth, my friend!--the dominant note of all Nature's melody! Hear it!--round, full, grand and perfect!--one tone in the ascending scale of the planets,--the song of one Star,--our Star--as it rolls on its predestined way! Come!--come with me!" and he sprang up excitedly--"It is a night for work;--the heavens are clear as a mirror,--come and see my Dial of the Fates,--you have seen it before, I know, but there are new reflexes upon it now,--new lines of light and colour,--ah, my good El-Râmi, if you could solve my Problem, you would be soon wiser than you are! Your gift of long life would be almost valueless compared to my proof of what is beyond life--"
"Yes--if the proof could be obtained--"
interposed El-Râmi.
"It shall be obtained!" cried Kremlin wildly--"It
shall! I will not die till the secret is won. I will wrench it out from the
Holy of Holies--I will pluck it from the very thoughts of
God!"
He trembled with the violence of his own
emotions,--then passing his hand across his forehead, he relapsed into sudden calm, and smiling gently, said again--
"Come!"
El-Râmi rose at once in obedience to this request,--and the
old man preceded him to a high narrow door which looked like a slit in the
wall, and which he unbarred and opened with an almost jealous care. A brisk
puff of wind blew in their faces through the aperture, but this subsided
into mere cool freshness of air, as they entered and stood together within
the great central chamber of the tower,--a lofty apartment, where the
strange work of Kremlin's life was displayed in all its marvellous
complexity,--a work such as no human being had ever attempted before,
or would be likely to attempt again.
measured motion, and a sustained solemn buzzing sound. Here was the explanation of the mysterious noise that vibrated throughout the house,--it was simply the movement of this round shield-like mass among its wonderful network of rods and wires. Dr. Kremlin called it his "crystal" Disc,--but it was utterly unlike ordinary crystal, for it not only shone with a transparent watery clearness, but possessed the scintillating lustre of a fine diamond cut into numerous prisms, so that El-Râmi shaded his eyes from the flash of it as he stood contemplating it in silence. It swirled round and round steadily; facing it, a large casement window, about the size of half the wall, was thrown open to the night, and through this could be seen a myriad sparkling stars. The wind blew in, but not fiercely now, for part of the wrath of the gale was past,--and the wash of the sea on the beach below had exactly the same tone in it as the monotonous hum of the Disc as it moved. At one side of the open window a fine telescope mounted on a high stand, pointed out towards the heavens,--there were numerous other scientific implements
in the room, but it was impossible to take much notice of anything but the Disc itself, with its majestic motion and the solemn sound to which it swung. Dr. Kremlin seemed to have almost forgotten El-Râmi's presence,--going up to the window, he sat down on a low bench in the corner, and folding his arms across his breast gazed at his strange invention with a fixed, wondering, and appealing stare.
"How to unravel the meaning--how to decipher the
message!" he muttered--"Sphinx of my brain, tell me, is
there No answer? Shall the actual offspring of my thought refuse to clear
up the riddle I propound? Nay, is it possible the creature should baffle
the creator? See! the lines change again--the vibrations are
altered,--the circle is ever the circle, but the reflexes
differ,--how can one separate or classify them--how?"
Thus far his half-whispered words were audible,--when El-Râmi
came and stood beside him. Then he seemed to suddenly recollect himself,
and looking up, he rose to his feet and spoke in a perfectly calm and
collected manner.
"You see"--he said, pointing to the Disc with the air
of a lecturer illustrating his discourse--"To begin with, there
is the fine hair's-breadth balance of matter which gives perpetual
motion. Nothing can stop that movement save the destruction of the whole
piece of mechanism. By some such subtly delicate balance as that, the
Universe moves,--and nothing can stop it save the destruction of the
Universe. Is not that fairly reasoned?"
"Perfectly," replied El-Râmi, who was listening with
profound attention.
"Surely that of itself,--the secret of perpetual
motion,--is a great discovery, is it not?" questioned Kremlin
eagerly.
El-Râmi hesitated.
"It is," he said at last. "Forgive me if I paused a
moment before replying,--the reason of my doing so was this. You
cannot claim to yourself any actual discovery of perpetual motion, because
that is Nature's own particular mystery. Perhaps I do not explain
myself with sufficient clearness,--well, what I mean to imply is
this--namely, that your wonderful dial there would not revolve as it
does, if the Earth on which we stand were not also revolving. If we could imagine our planet stopping suddenly in its course, your Disc would stop also,--is not that correct?"
"Why, naturally!" assented Kremlin impatiently. "Its
movement is mathematically calculated to follow, in a slower degree, but
with rhythmical exactitude, the Earth's own movement, and is so
balanced as to be absolutely accurate to the very half-quarter of a
hair's-breadth."
"Yes,--and there is the chief wonder of your
invention," said El-Râmi quietly. "It is that peculiarly
precise calculation of yours that is so marvellous, in that it enables you
to follow the course of perpetual motion. With perpetual
motion itself you have nothing to do,--you cannot find its why or its
when or its how,--it is eternal as Eternity. Things must
move,--and we all move with them--your Disc included."
"But the moving things are balanced--so!" said Kremlin,
pointing triumphantly to his work--"On one point--one
pivot!"
"And that point--?" queried El-Râmi
dubiously.
"Is a Central Universe"--responded
Kremlin--"where God abides."
El-Râmi looked at him with dark, dilating, burning eyes.
"Suppose," he said suddenly--"suppose--for
the sake of argument--that this Central Universe you imagine exists,
were but the outer covering or shell of another Central Universe, and so on
through innumerable Central Universes for ever and ever and ever, and no
point or pivot reachable!"
Kremlin uttered a cry, and clasped his hands with a gesture of
terror.
"Stop--stop!" he gasped--"Such an idea is
frightful!--horrible! Would you drive me mad?--mad, I tell you?
No human brain could steadily contemplate the thought of such pitiless
infinity!"
He sank back on the seat and rocked himself to and fro like a person in
physical pain, the while he stared at El-Râmi's majestic figure
and dark meditative face as though he saw some demon in a dream.
El-Râmi met his gaze with a compassionate glance in his own eyes.
"You are narrow, my friend,"--he observed
--"as narrow of outward and onward conception as most scientists are. I grant you the human brain has limits; but the human Soul has none! There is no 'pitiless infinity' to the Soul's aspirations,--it is never contented,--but eternally ambitious, eternally enquiring, eternally young, it is ready to scale heights and depths without end, unconscious of fatigue or satiety. What of a million million Universes? I--even I--can contemplate them without dismay,--the brain may totter and reel at the multiplicity of them,--but the SOUL would absorb them all and yet seek space for more!"
His rich, deep tranquil voice had the effect of calming Kremlin's
excited nerves. He paused in his uneasy rocking to and fro, and listened as
though he heard music.
"You are a bold man, El-Râmi," he said
slowly--"I have always said it,--bold even to rashness. Yet
with all your large ideas I find you inconsistent; for example, you talk of
the Soul now, as if you believed in it,--but there are times when you
declare yourself doubtful of its existence."
"It is necessary to split hairs of argument
with you, I see"--returned El-Râmi with a slight smile,--"Can you not understand that I may believe in the Soul without being sure of it? It is the natural instinct of every man to credit himself with immortality, because this life is so short and unsatisfactory,--the notion may be a fault of heritage perhaps, still it is implanted in us all the same. And I do believe in the Soul,--but I require certainty to make my mere belief an undeniable Fact. And the whole business of my life is to establish that fact provably, and beyond any sort of doubt whatever,--what inconsistency do you find there?"
"None--none--" said Kremlin
hastily--"But you will not succeed,--yours is too daring an
attempt,--too arrogant and audacious a demand upon the Unknown
Forces."
"And what of the daring and arrogance displayed here?" asked
El-Râmi, with a wave of his hand towards the glittering Disc in front
of them.
Kremlin jumped up excitedly.
"No, no!--you cannot call the mere
scien-
tific investigation of natural objects arrogant," he said--"Besides, the whole thing is so very simple after all. It is well known that every star in the heavens sends forth perpetual radiations of light; which radiations in a given number of minutes, days, months or years, reach our Earth. It depends of course on the distance between the particular star and our planet, as to how long these light-vibrations take to arrive here. One ray from some stars will occupy thousands of years in its course,--in fact, the original planet from which it fell, may be swept out of existence before it has time to penetrate our atmosphere. All this is in the lesson-books of children, and is familiar to every beginner in the rudiments of astronomy. But apart from time and distance, there is no cessation to these light-beats or vibrations; they keep on arriving for ever, without an instant's pause. Now, my great idea, was, as you know, to catch these reflexes on a mirror or dial of magnetic spar,--and you see for yourself that this thing, which seemed impossible, is to a certain extent done. Magnetic spar is not a new substance to you,
any more than it was to the Egyptian priests of old--and the quality it has, of attracting light in its exact lines wherever light falls, is no surprise to you, though it might seem a marvel to the ignorant. Every little zigzag or circular flash on that Disc, is a vibration of light from some star,--but what puzzles and confounds my skill is this;--That there is a Meaning in those lines--a distinct Meaning which asks to be interpreted,--a picture which is ever on the point of declaring itself, and is never declared. Mine is the torture of a Tantalus watching night after night that mystic Dial!"
He went close up to the Disc, and pointed out one particular spot on its
surface where at that moment there was a glittering tangle of little
prismatic tints.
"Observe this with me--" he said, and El-Râmi
approached him--"Here is a perfect cluster of
light-vibrations,--in two minutes by my watch they will be here no
longer,--and a year or more may pass before they appear again. From
what stars they fall, and why they have deeper colours than most of the
reflexes, I cannot tell. There--
see!" and he looked round with an air of melancholy triumph mingled with wonder, as the little spot of brilliant colour suddenly disappeared like the moisture of breath from a mirror--"They are gone! I have seen them four times only since the Disc was balanced twelve years ago,--and I have tried in every way to trace their origin--in vain--all, all in vain! If I could only decipher the Meaning!--for as sure as God lives there is a Meaning there."
El-Râmi was silent, and Dr. Kremlin went on.
"The air is a conveyer of Sound--" he said
meditatively--"The light is a conveyer of Scenes. Mark that
well. The light may be said to create landscape and generate Colour.
Reflexes of light make pictures,--witness the instantaneous flash,
which with the aid of chemistry, will give you a photograph in a second. I
firmly believe that all reflexes of light are so many letters of a
marvellous alphabet, which if we could only read it, would enable us to
grasp the highest secrets of creation. The seven tones of music, for
example, are in Nature;--in any
ordinary storm, where there is wind and rain and the rustle of leaves, you can hear the complete scale on which every atom of musical composition has ever been written. Yet what ages it took us to reduce that scale to a visible tangible form,--and even now we have not mastered the quarter-tones heard in the songs of birds. And just as the whole realm of music is in seven tones of natural Sound, so the whole realm of light is in a pictured Language of Design, Colour, and Method, with an intention and a message, which we--we human beings--are intended to discover. Yet with all these great mysteries waiting to be solved, the most of us are content to eat and drink and sleep and breed and die, like the lowest cattle, in brutish ignorance of more than half our intellectual privileges. I tell you, El-Râmi, if I could only find out and place correctly one of those light-vibrations, the rest might be easy."
He heaved a profound sigh,--and the great Disc, circling steadily
with its grave monotonous hum, might have passed for the wheel of Fate
which he, poor mortal, was powerless to stop though it should grind him to
atoms.
El-Râmi watched him with interest and something of compassion for
a minute or two,--then he touched his arm gently.
"Kremlin, is it not time for you to rest?" he asked
kindly--"You have not slept well for many nights,--you are
tired out,--why not sleep now, and gather strength for future
labours?"
The old man started, and a slight shiver ran through him.
"You mean--?" he began.
"I mean to do for you what I promised--" replied
El-Râmi--"You asked me for this--" and he held
up the gold-stoppered flask he had brought in with him from the next
room--"It is all ready prepared for you--drink it, and
to-morrow you will find yourself a new man."
Dr. Kremlin looked at him suspiciously--and then began to laugh
with a sort of hysterical nervousness.
"I believe--" he murmured indistinctly and with
affected jocularity--"I believe that you want to poison me!
Yes--yes!--to poison me and take all my discoveries for yourself!
You want to solve the great Star-
problem and take all the glory and rob me--yes, rob me of my hard-earned fame!--yes--it is poison--poison!"
And he chuckled feebly, and hid his face between his hands.
El-Râmi heard him with an expression of pain and pity in his fine
eyes.
"My poor old friend--" he said gently--"You
are wearied to death--so I pardon you your sudden distrust of me. As
for poison--see!" and he lifted the flask he held to his lips
and drank a few drops--"Have no fear! Your Star-problem is your
own,--and I desire that you should live long enough to read its great
mystery. As for me, I have other labours;--to me stars, solar systems,
aye! whole Universes are nothing,--my business is with the Spirit that
dominates Matter--not with Matter itself. Enough; will you live or
will you die? It rests with yourself to choose--for you are ill,
Kremlin--very ill,--your brain is fagged and weak--you
cannot go on much longer like this. Why did you send for me if you do not
believe in me?"
The old Doctor tottered to the window-
bench and sat down,--then looking up, he forced a smile.
"Don't you see for yourself what a coward I have
become?" he said--"I tell you I am afraid of
everything;--of you--of myself--and worst of all, of
that--" and he pointed to the
Disc--"which lately seems to have grown stronger than I
am." He paused a moment--then went on with an
effort--"I had a strange idea the other night,--I thought,
suppose God, in the beginning, created the Universe simply to divert
Himself--just as I created my Dial there;--and suppose it had
happened that instead of being His servant as He originally intended, it
had become His master?--that He actually had no more power over it?
Suppose He were dead? We see that the works of men live ages
after their death,--why not the works of God? Horrible--horrible!
Death is horrible! I do not want to die, El-Râmi!" and his
faint voice rose to a querulous wail--"Not yet--not yet! I
cannot!--I must finish my work--I must know--I must
live--"
"You shall live," interrupted El-Râmi. "Trust
me--there is no death in this!"
He held up the mysterious flask again. Kremlin stared at it, shaking all
over with nervousness--then on a sudden impulse clutched it.
"Am I to drink it all?" he asked faintly.
El-Râmi bent his head in assent.
Kremlin hesitated a moment longer--then with the air of one who
takes a sudden desperate resolve, he gave one eager yearning look at the
huge revolving Disc, and putting the flask to his lips, drained its
contents. He had scarcely swallowed the last drop, when he sprang to his
feet, uttered a smothered cry, staggered, and fell on the floor motionless.
El-Râmi caught him up at once, and lifted him easily in his strong
arms on to the window-seat, where he laid him down gently, placing
coverings over him and a pillow under his head. The old man's face was
white and rigid as the face of a corpse, but he breathed easily and
quietly, and El-Râmi, knowing the action of the draught he had
administered, saw there was no cause for anxiety in his condition. He
himself leaned on the sill of the
great open window and looked out at the starlit sky for some minutes, and listened to the sonorous plashing of the waves on the shore below. Now and then he glanced back over his shoulder at the great Dial and its shining star-patterns.
"Only Lilith could decipher the meaning of it all," he
mused. "Perhaps,--some day--it might be possible to ask
her. But then, do I in truth believe what she tells me?-would
he believe? The transcendentally uplifted soul of a
woman!--ought we to credit the message obtained through so ethereal a
means? I doubt it. We men are composed of such stuff that we must convince
ourselves of a fact by every known test before we finally accept
it,--like St. Thomas, unless we put our rough hand into the wounded
side of Christ, and thrust our fingers into the nail-prints, we will not
believe. And I shall never resolve myself as to which is the wisest
course,--to accept everything with the faith of a child, or dispute
everything with the arguments of a controversialist. The child is happiest;
but then the question arises--Were we meant to
be happy? I think not,--since there is nothing that can make us so for long."
His brow clouded and he stood absorbed, looking at the stars, yet
scarcely conscious of beholding them. Happiness! It had a sweet
sound,--an exquisite suggestion; and his thoughts clung round it
persistently as bees round honey. Happiness!--What could engender it?
The answer came unbidden to his brain--"Love!" He gave an
involuntary gesture of irritation, as though someone had spoken the word in
his ear.
"Love!" he exclaimed half aloud. "There is no such
thing--not on earth. There is Desire,--the animal attraction of
one body for another, which ends in disgust and satiety. Love should have
no touch of coarseness in it,--and can anything be coarser than the
marriage-tie?--the bond which compels a man and woman to live together
in daily partnership of bed and board, and reproduce their kind like pigs,
or other common cattle. To call that love is a sacrilege to
the very name,--for Love is a divine emotion, and demands divinest
comprehension."
He went up to where Kremlin lay reclined,
--the old man slept profoundly and peacefully,--his face had gained colour and seemed less pinched and meagre in outline. EI-Râmi felt his pulse,--it beat regularly and calmly. Satisfied with his examination, he wheeled away the great telescope into a corner, and shut the window against the night air,--then he lay down himself on the floor, with his coat rolled under him for a pillow, and composed himself to sleep till morning.
"If anybody can do the Herr Doctor good, he can--" he
thought, as he laid the breakfast-table in the little dining-room whose
French windows opened out to a tiny green lawn fronting the
sea,--"Certainly one can never cure old age,--that is an
ailment for which there is no remedy; but however old we are bound to get,
I don't see why we should not be merry over it and enjoy our meals to
the last. Now let me see--what have I to get ready--" and
he enumerated on his
fingers--"Coffee--toast--rolls,--butter--eggs--fish,--I
think that will do;--and if I just put these few roses
in the middle of the table to tempt the eye a bit,"--and he
suited the action to the word--"There now!--if the Herr
Doctor can be pleased at all--"
"Breakfast, Karl! breakfast!" interrupted a clear cheerful
voice, the sound of which made Karl start with nervous astonishment.
"Make haste, my good fellow! My friend here has to catch an early
train."
Karl turned round, stared, and stood motionless, open-mouthed, and
struck dumb with sheer surprise. Could it be the old
Doctor who spoke? Was it his master at all,--this hale, upright, fresh-faced individual who stood before him, smiling pleasantly and giving his orders with such a brisk air of authority? Bewildered and half afraid, he cast a desperate glance at El-Râmi, who had also entered the room, and who, seeing his confusion, made him a quick secret sign.
"Yes--be as quick as you can, Karl," he said.
"Your master has had a good night, and is much better, as you see. We
shall be glad of our breakfast; I told you we should, last night.
Don't keep us waiting!"
"Yes, sir--no, sir!" stammered Karl, trying to collect
his scattered senses and staring again at Dr. Kremlin,--then, scarcely
knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, he scrambled out of the
room into the passage, where he stood for a minute stupefied and inert.
"It must be devil's work!" he ejaculated amazedly.
"Who but the devil could make a man look twenty years younger in a
single night? Yes--twenty years younger,--he looks that, if he
looks a day. God have mercy on us!--what will happen next--what
sort of a service have I got into?--Oh, my poor mother!"
This last was Karl's supremest adjuration,--when he could find
nothing else to say, the phrase "Oh, my poor mother!" came as
naturally to his lips as the familiar "D--n it!" from the
mouth of an old swaggerer in the army or navy. He meant nothing by it,
except perhaps a vague allusion to the innocent days of his childhood, when
he was ignorant of the wicked ways of the wicked world, and when "Oh,
my poor mother!" had not the most distant idea as to what was going
to become of her hopeful first-born.
Meantime, while he went down into the kitchen and bustled about there,
getting the coffee, frying the fish, boiling the eggs, and cogitating with
his own surprised and half-terrified self, Dr. Kremlin and his guest had
stepped out into the little garden together, and they now stood there on
the grass-plot surveying the glittering wide expanse of ocean before them.
They spoke not a word for some minutes,--then, all at once, Kremlin
turned round and caught both El-Râmi's
hands in his own and pressed them fervently--there were tears in his eyes.
"What can I say to you?" he murmured in a voice broken by
strong emotion--"How can I thank you? You have been as a god to
me;--I live again,--I breathe again,--this morning the world
seems new to my eyes,--as new as though I had never seen it before. I
have left a whole cycle of years, with all their suffering and bitterness,
behind me, and I am ready now to commence life afresh."
"That is well!" said El-Râmi gently, cordially
returning the pressure of his hands. "That is as it should be. To see
your strength and vitality thus renewed, is more than enough reward for
me."
"And do I really look younger?--am I actually
changed in appearance?" asked Kremlin eagerly.
El-Râmi smiled. "Well, you saw poor Karl's
amazement"--he replied. "He was afraid of you, I
think--and also of me. Yes, you are changed, though not miraculously
so. Your hair is as gray as ever,--the same furrows of thought are on
your face;--all that has occurred is the simple renewal of
the tissues, and revivifying of the blood,--and this gives you the look of vigour and heartiness you have this morning."
"But will it last?--will it last?" queried Kremlin
anxiously.
"If you follow my instructions, of course it will--"
returned El-Râmi--"I will see to that. I have left with
you a certain quantity of the vital fluid,--all you have to do is to
take ten drops every third night, or inject it into your veins if you
prefer that method;--then,--as I told you,--you cannot die,
except by violence."
"And no violence comes here"--said Kremlin with a
smile, glancing round at the barren yet picturesque scene--"I am
as lonely as an unmated eagle on a rock,--and the greater my solitude
the happier I am. The world is very beautiful--that I grant,--but
the beings that inhabit it spoil it for me, albeit I am one of them. And so
I cannot die, except by violence? Almost I touch immortality! Marvellous
El-Râmi! You should be a king of nations!"
"Too low a destiny!" replied El-Râmi--"I
had rather be a ruler of planets."
"Ah, there is your stumbling-block!" said Kremlin, with
sudden seriousness,--"You soar too high--you are never
contented."
"Content is impossible to the Soul," returned
El-Râmi,--"Nothing is too high or too low for its
investigation. And whatever can be done, should
be done, in order that the whole gamut of life may be properly understood
by those who are forced to live it."
"And do not you understand it?"
"In part--yes. But not wholly. It is not sufficient to have
traced the ripple of a brain-wave through the air and followed its action
and result with exactitude,--nor is it entirely satisfactory to have
all the secrets of physical and mental magnetism, and attraction between
bodies and minds, made clear and easy without knowing the
reason of these things. It is like the light-vibrations on
your Disc,--they come--and go; but one needs to know why and
whence they come and go. I know much--but I would fain know
more."
"But is not the pursuit of knowledge infinite?"
"It may be--if infinity exists. Infinity is
possible--and I believe in it,--all the same I must prove
it."
"You will need a thousand life-times to fulfil such works as you
attempt!" exclaimed Kremlin.
"And I will live them all;"--responded El-Râmi
composedly--"I have sworn to let nothing baffle me, and nothing
shall!"
Dr. Kremlin looked at him in vague awe,--the dark haughty handsome
face spoke more resolvedly than words.
"Pardon me, El-Râmi"--he said with a little
diffidence--"It seems a very personal question to put, and
possibly you may resent it, still I have often thought of asking it. You
are a very handsome and very fascinating man--you would be a fool if
you were not perfectly aware of your own attractiveness,--well, now
tell me--have you never loved anybody?--any woman?"
The sleepy brilliancy of El-Râmi's fine eyes lightened with
sudden laughter.
"Loved a woman?--I?" he
exclaimed--"The Fates forbid! What should I do with the gazelles
and kittens and toys of life, such
as women are? Of all animals on earth, they have the least attraction for me. I would rather stroke a bird's wings than a woman's hair, and the fragrance of a rose pressed against my lips is sweeter and more sincere than any woman's kisses. As the females of the race, women are useful in their way, but not interesting at any time--at least, not to me."
"Do you not believe in love then?" asked Kremlin.
"No. Do you?"
"Yes,"--and Kremlin's voice was very tender and
impressive--"I believe it is the only thing of God in an almost
godless world."
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders.
"You talk like a poet. I, who am not poetical, cannot so idealize
the physical attraction between male and female, which is nothing but a law
of nature, and is shared by us in common with the beasts of the
field."
"I think your wisdom is in error there"--said Kremlin
slowly--"Physical attraction there is, no doubt--but there
is something
else--something more subtle and delicate, which escapes the analysis of both philosopher and scientist. Moreover it is an imperative spiritual sense, as well as a material craving,--the soul can no more be satisfied without love than the body."
"That is your opinion--" and El-Râmi smiled
again,--"But you see a contradiction of it in me. I
am satisfied to be without love,--and certainly I never look upon the
ordinary woman of the day, without the disagreeable consciousness that I am
beholding the living essence of sensualism and folly."
"You are very bitter," said Kremlin
wonderingly--"Of course no 'ordinary' woman could
impress you,--but there are remarkable women,--women of power and
genius and lofty ambition."
"Les femmes incomprises--oh yes, I know!" laughed
El-Râmi--"Troublesome creatures all, both to themselves
and others. Why do you talk on these subjects, my dear Kremlin?--Is it
the effect of your rejuvenated condition? I am sure there are many more
interesting matters worthy of discussion. I shall never love--not in
this planet; in some
other state of existence I may experience the 'divine' emotion. But the meannesses, vanities, contemptible jealousies, and low spites of women such as inhabit this earth fill me with disgust and repulsion,--besides, women are treacherous,--and I loathe treachery."
At that moment Karl appeared at the dining-room window as a sign that
breakfast was served, and they turned to go indoors.
"All the same, El-Râmi--" persisted Kremlin,
laying one hand on his friend's arm--"Do not count on being
able to escape the fate to which all humanity must
succumb--"
"Death?" interposed El-Râmi lightly--"I
have almost conquered that!"
"Aye, but you cannot conquer Love!" said Kremlin
impressively--"Love is stronger than Death."
El-Râmi made no answer,--and they went in to breakfast. They
did full justice to the meal, much to Karl's satisfaction, though he
could not help stealing covert glances at his master's changed
countenance, which had become so much fresher and younger since
the previous day. How such a change had been effected he could not imagine, but on the whole he was disposed to be content with the evident improvement.
"Even if he is the devil himself--" he considered, his
thoughts reverting to El-Râmi--"I am bound to say that the
devil is a kind-hearted fellow. There's no doubt about that. I suppose
I am an abandoned sinner only fit for the burning--but if God insists
on making us old and sick and miserable, and the devil is able to make us
young and strong and jolly, why let us be friends with the devil, say I! Oh
my poor mother!"
With such curious emotions as these in his mind, it was rather difficult
to maintain a composed face, and wait upon the two gentlemen with that
grave deportment which it is the duty of every well-trained attendant to
assume,--however, he managed fairly well, and got accustomed at last
to hand his master a cup of coffee without staring at him till his eyes
almost projected out of his head.
El-Râmi took his departure soon after breakfast, with a few
recommendations to his
friend not to work too hard on the problems suggested by the Disc.
"Ah, but I have now found a new clue;" said Kremlin
triumphantly--"I found it in sleep. I shall work it out in the
course of a few weeks, I dare say--and I will let you know if the
result is successful. You see, thanks to you, my friend, I have time
now,--there is no need to toil with feverish haste and
anxiety--death that seemed so near, is thrust back in the
distance--"
"Even so!" said El-Râmi with a strange
smile--"In the far, far distance,--baffled and kept at bay.
Oddly enough, there are some who say there is no death--"
"But there is--there must be!--" exclaimed Kremlin
quickly.
El-Râmi raised his hand with a slight commanding gesture.
"It is not a certainty--" he said--"inasmuch
as there is NO certainty. And there is no
'Must-Be,'--there is only the Soul's
'Shall-Be'!"
And with these somewhat enigmatical words, he bade his friend farewell,
and went his way.
Presently he realized that Féraz had evidently yielded to some overwhelming suggestion of personal vanity, which had induced him to put on more brilliant attire. He had changed his plain white linen garb for one of richer material, composed in the same Eastern fashion,--he wore a finely-chased gold belt, from which a gold-sheathed dagger depended,--and a few gold ornaments gleamed here and there among the drawn silken folds of his upper vest. He looked handsome enough for a new Agathon as he sat there apparently absorbed in study,--the big volume he perused resting partly on his knee,--but El-Râmi's brow contracted with sudden anger as he observed him from the half-open doorway where he stood, himself unseen,--and his dark face grew very pale. He threw the door back on its hinges with a clattering sound and entered the room.
"Féraz!"
Féraz looked up, lifting his eyelids indifferently and smiling
coldly.
"What, El-Râmi! Back so early? I did not expect you till
nightfall."
"Did you not?" said his brother, advancing
slowly--"Pray how was that? You know I generally return after a night's absence early in the next day. Where is your usual word of welcome? What ails you? You seem in a very odd humour!"
"Do I?"--and Féraz stretched himself a
little,--rose, yawning, and laid down the volume he held on the
table--"I am not aware of it myself, I assure you. How did you
find your old madman? And did you tell him you were nearly as mad as
he?"
El-Râmi's eyes flashed indignant amazement and wrath.
"Féraz!--What do you mean?"
With a fierce impulsive movement Féraz turned and fully faced
him,--all his forced and feigned calmness gone to the winds,--a
glowing picture of youth and beauty and rage commingled.
"What do I mean?" he cried--"I mean this! That I
am tired of being your slave-your 'subject' for conjurer's
tricks of mesmerism,--that from henceforth I resist your
power,--that I will not serve you--will not obey you--will
not yield--no!--not an inch of my liberty--to your
influence,--that I am
a free man, as you are, and that I will have the full rights of both my freedom and manhood. You shall play no more with me; I refuse to be your dupe as I have been. This is what I mean!--and as I will have no deception or subterfuge between us,--for I scorn a lie,--hear the truth from me at once;--I know your secret--I have seen Her!"
El-Râmi stood erect,--immovable;--he was very pale; his
breath came and went quickly--once his hand clenched, but he said
nothing.
"I have seen Her!" cried Féraz again, flinging up his
arms with an ecstatic wild gesture--"A creature fairer than any
vision!--and you--you have the heart to bind her fast in darkness
and in nothingness,--you it is who have shut her sight to the
world,--you have made for her, through your horrible skill, a living
death in which she knows nothing, feels nothing, sees nothing, loves
nothing! I tell you it is a cursed deed you are doing,--a deed worse
than murder--I would not have believed it of you! I thought your
experiments were all for good,--I never would have deemed you capable
of cruelty
to a helpless woman! But I will release her from your spells,--she is too beautiful to be made her own living monument,--Zaroba is right--she needs life--joy--love!--she shall have them all;--through me!"
He paused, out of breath with the heat and violence of his own
emotions;--El-Râmi stood, still immovably regarding him.
"You may be as angered as you please"--went on
Féraz with sullen passion--"I care nothing now. It was
Zaroba who bade me go up yonder and see her where she slept; ... it was
Zaroba--"
"'The woman tempted me and I did eat--'"
quoted El-Râmi coldly,--"Of course it was Zaroba. No other
than a woman could thus break a sworn word. Naturally it was
Zaroba,--the paid and kept slave of my service, who owes to me her
very existence,--who persuaded my brother to dishonour."
"Dishonour!" and Féraz laid his hand with a quick,
almost savage gesture on the hilt of the dagger at his belt.
El-Râmi's dark eyes blazed upon him scornfully.
"So soon a braggart of the knife?" he
said. "What theatrical show is this? You--you--the poet, the dreamer, the musician--the gentle lad whose life was one of peaceful and innocent reverie--are you so soon changed to the mere swaggering puppy of manhood who pranks himself out in gaudy clothing, and thinks by vulgar threatening to overawe his betters? If so, 'tis a pity--but I shall not waste time in deploring it. Hear me, Féraz--I said 'dishonour,'--swallow the word as best you may, it is the only one that fits the act of prying into secrets not your own. But I am not angered,--the mischief wrought is not beyond remedy, and if it were there would be still less use in bewailing it. What is done cannot be undone. Now tell me,--you say you have seen Her. Whom have you seen?"
Féraz regarded him amazedly.
"Whom have I seen?" he echoed--"Whom should I
see, if not the girl you keep locked in those upper rooms,--a
beautiful maiden, sleeping her life away, in cruel darkness and ignorance
of all things true and fair!"
"An enchanted princess, to your fancy--"
said El-Râmi derisively. "Well, if you thought so, and if you believed yourself to be a new sort of Prince Charming, why, if she were only sleeping, did you not wake her?"
"Wake her?" exclaimed Féraz
excitedly,--"Oh, I would have given my life to see those fringed
lids uplift and show the wonders of the eyes beneath! I called her by every
endearing name--I took her hands and warmed them in my own--I
would have kissed her lips--"
"You dared not!" cried El-Râmi, fired beyond his own
control, and making a fierce bound towards him--"You dared not
pollute her by your touch!"
Féraz recoiled,--a sudden chill ran through his blood. His
brother was transformed with the passion that surged through him,--his
eyes flashed--his lips quivered--his very form seemed to tower up
and tremble and dilate with rage.
"El-Râmi!" he stammered nervously, feeling all his
newly-born defiance and bravado oozing away under the terrible magnetism of
this man, whose fury was
nearly as electric as that of a sudden thunderstorm,--"El-Râmi, I did no harm,--Zaroba was there beside me--"
"Zaroba!" echoed El-Râmi furiously--"Zaroba
would stand by and see an angel violated, and think it the greatest
happiness that could befall her sanctity! To be of common clay, with
household joys and kitchen griefs, is Zaroba's idea of noble living.
Oh rash unhappy Féraz! you say you know my secret--you do not
know it--you cannot guess it! Foolish, ignorant boy!--did you
think yourself a new Christ with power to raise the Dead?"
"The dead?" muttered Féraz, with white
lips--"The dead? She--the girl I saw--lives and
breathes..."
"By my will alone!" said
El-Râmi--"By my force--by my knowledge--by my
constant watchful care,--by my control over the subtle threads that
connect Spirit with Matter. Otherwise, according to all the laws of
ordinary nature, that girl is dead--she died in the
Syrian desert six years ago!"
"I will not have it;"--he muttered
faintly--"You shall not force my thoughts,--I will believe
nothing against my own will. You shall no longer delude my eyes and
ears--I have read--I know,--I know how such trickery is
done!"
El-Râmi uttered an impatient exclamation, and paced once or twice
up and down the room.
"See here, Féraz;"--he said, suddenly stopping
before the chair in which his brother sat,-"I swear to you that I am
not exercising one iota of my influence upon you. When I do, I will tell
you, that you may be prepared to resist me if you choose. I am using no
power of any kind upon you--be satisfied of that. But, as you have
forced your way into the difficult labyrinth of my life's work, it is
as well that you should have an explanation of what seems to you full of
mysterious evil and black magic. You accuse me of wickedness,--you
tell me I am guilty of a deed worse than murder. Now this is mere rant and
nonsense,--you speak in such utter ignorance of the facts, that I
forgive you, as one is bound to forgive all faults committed through sheer
want of instruction. I do not think I am a wicked man"--he
paused, with an earnest, almost pathetic expression on his
face--"at least I strive not to be. I am ambitious and
sceptical--and I am not altogether convinced of there
being any real intention of ultimate good in the arrangements of this world as they at present exist,--but I work without any malicious intention; and without undue boasting I believe I am as honest and conscientious as the best of my kind. But that is neither here nor there,--as I said before, you have broken into a secret not intended for your knowledge--and that you may not misunderstand me yet more thoroughly than you seem to do, I will tell you what I never wished to bother your brains with. For you have been very happy till now, Féraz--happy in the beautiful simplicity of the life you led--the life of a poet and dreamer,--the happiest life in the world!"
He broke off, with a short sigh of mingled vexation and
regret--then he seated himself immediately opposite his brother and
went on--
"You were too young to understand the loss it was to us both when
our parents died,--or to know the immense reputation our father Nadir
Zarânos had won throughout the East for his marvellous skill in
natural science and medicine. He died in the prime
of his life,--our mother followed him within a month,--and you were left to my charge,--you a child then, and I almost a man. Our father's small but rare library came into my possession, together with his own manuscripts treating of the scientific and spiritual organization of Nature in all its branches,--and these opened such extraordinary vistas of possibility to me as to what might be done if such and such theories could be practically carried out and acted upon, that I became fired with the ardour of discovery. The more I studied, the more convinced and eager I became in the pursuit of such knowledge as is generally deemed supernatural, and beyond the reach of all human inquiry. One or two delicate experiments in chemistry of a rare and subtle nature were entirely successful,--and by-and-bye I began to look about for a subject on whom I could practise the power I had attained. There was no one whom I could personally watch and surround with my hourly influence except yourself,--therefore I made my first great trial upon you."
Féraz moved uneasily in his chair,--his
face wore a doubtful, half-sullen expression, but he listened to El-Râmi's every word with vivid and almost painful interest.
"At that time you were a mere boy--" pursued
El-Râmi--"but strong and vigorous, and full of the
mischievous pranks and sports customary to healthy boyhood. I began by slow
degrees to educate you--not with the aid of schools or
tutors--but simply by my Will. You had a singularly unretentive
brain,--you were never fond of music--you would never
read,--you had no taste for study. Your delight was to ride--to
swim like a fish,--to handle a gun--to race, to leap,--to
play practical jokes on other boys of your own age and fight them if they
resented it;--all very amusing performances no doubt, but totally
devoid of intelligence. Judging you dispassionately, I found that you were
a very charming gamesome animal,--physically perfect--with a Mind
somewhere if one could only discover it, and a Soul or Spirit behind the
Mind--if one could only discover that also. I set myself the task of
finding out both these hidden portions of your composition--and of not
only finding them, but
moulding and influencing them according to my desire and plan."
A faint tremor shook the younger man's frame--but he said
nothing.
"You are attending to me closely, I hope?" said
El-Râmi pointedly--"because you must distinctly understand
that this conversation is the first and last we shall have on the matter.
After to-day, the subject must drop between us forever, and I shall refuse
to answer any more questions. You hear?"
Féraz bent his head.
"I hear--" he answered with an effort--"And
what I hear seems strange and terrible!"
"Strange and terrible?" echoed El-Râmi. "How so?
What is there strange or terrible in the pursuit of Wisdom?
Yet--perhaps you are right, and the blank ignorance of a young child
is best,--for there is something appalling in the
infinitude of knowledge--an infinitude which must remain infinite, if
it be true that there is a God who is forever thinking, and whose thoughts
become realities."
He paused, with a rapt look,--then resumed in the same even
tone,--
"When I had made up my mind to experimentalize upon you, I lost no
time in commencing my work. One of my chief desires was to avoid the least
risk of endangering your health--your physical condition was
admirable, and I resolved to keep it so. In this I succeeded. I made life a
joy to you--the mere act of breathing a pleasure--you grew up
before my eyes like the vigorous sapling of an oak that rejoices in the
mere expansion of its leaves to the fresh air. The other and more subtle
task was harder,--it needed all my patience--all my skill,-but I
was at last rewarded. Through my concentrated influence, which surrounded
you as with an atmosphere in which you moved, and slept, and woke again,
and which forced every fibre of your brain to respond to mine, the animal
faculties which were strongest in you, became subdued and tamed,--and
the mental slowly asserted themselves. I resolved you should be a poet and
musician--you became both;--you developed an ardent love of
study, and every few months that passed gave richer promise of your
ripening intelligence. Moreover, you were happy,--
happy in everything--happiest perhaps in your music, which became your leading passion. Having thus, unconsciously to yourself, fostered your mind by the silent workings of my own, and trained it to grow up like a flower to the light, I thought I might make my next attempt, which was to probe for that subtle essence we call the Soul--the large wings that are hidden in the moth's chrysalis;--and influence that too;--but there--there by some inexplicable opposition of forces, I was baffled."
Féraz raised himself half out of his chair, his lips parted in
breathless eagerness--his eyes dilated and sparkling.
"Baffled?" he repeated hurriedly--"How do you
mean?--in what way?"
"Oh, in various ways--" replied El-Râmi, looking
at him with a somewhat melancholy expression--"Ways that I
myself am not able to comprehend. I found I could influence your Inner Self
to obey me,--but only to a very limited extent, and in mere
trifles,--for example, as you yourself know, I could compel you to
come to me from a certain distance in response to my thought,
--but in higher things you escaped me. You became subject to long trances,--this I was prepared for, as it was partially my work,--and during these times of physical unconsciousness, it was evident that your Soul enjoyed a life and liberty superior to anything these earth-regions can offer. But you could never remember all you saw in these absences,--indeed, the only suggestions you seem to have brought away from that other state of existence are the strange melodies you play sometimes, and that idea you have about your native Star."
A curious expression flitted across Féraz's face as he
heard--and his lips parted in a slight smile, but he said nothing.
"Therefore,"--pursued his brother
meditatively--"as I could get no clear exposition of other
worlds from you, as I had hoped to do, I knew I had failed to command you
in a spiritual sense. But my dominance over your Mind continued; it
continues still,--nay, my good Féraz!"--this, as
Féraz seemed about to utter some impetuous word--"Pray
that you may never be able to shake off my force entirely,--for if you
do, you will lose what
the people of a grander and poetic day called Genius--and what the miserable Dry-as-Dusts of our modern era call Madness--the only gift of the gods that has ever served to enlighten and purify the world. But your genius, Féraz, belongs to me;--I gave it to you, and I can take it back again if I so choose;--and leave you as you originally were--a handsome animal with no more true conception of art or beauty than my Lord Melthorpe, or his spendthrift young cousin Vaughan."
Féraz had listened thus far in silence,--but now he sprang
out of his chair with a reckless gesture.
"I cannot bear it!" he said--"I cannot bear it!
El-Râmi, I cannot--I will not!"
"Cannot bear what?" inquired his brother with a touch of
satire in his tone--"Pray be calm!--there is no necessity
for such melodramatic excitement. Cannot bear what?"
"I will not owe everything to you!" went on Féraz,
passionately--"How can I endure to know that my very thoughts
are not my own, but emanate from you?--that my music has been
instilled into me by you?--that you
possess me by your power, body and brain,--great Heaven! it is awful--intolerable--impossible!"
El-Râmi rose and laid one hand gently on his shoulder--he
recoiled shudderingly--and the elder man sighed heavily.
"You tremble at my touch,--" he said
sadly--"the touch of a hand that has never wilfully wrought you
harm, but has always striven to make life beautiful to you? Well!--be
it so!--you have only to say the word, Féraz, and you shall owe
me nothing. I will undo all I have done,--and you shall reassume the
existence for which Nature originally made you--an idle voluptuous
wasting of time in sensualism and folly. And even that form of
life you must owe to Someone,--even that you must account for--to
God!"
The young man's head drooped,--a faint sense of shame stirred
in him, but he was still resentful and sullen.
"What have I done to you," went on El-Râmi,
"that you should turn from me thus, all because you have seen a dead
woman's face for an hour? I have made your thoughts
harmonious--I have given you pleasure such as the world's ways cannot give--your mind has been as a clear mirror in which only the fairest visions of life were reflected. You would alter this?--then do so, if you decide thereon,--but weigh the matter well and long, before you shake off my touch, my tenderness, my care."
His voice faltered a little--but he quickly controlled his emotion,
and continued--
"I must ask you to sit down again and hear me out patiently to the
end of my story. At present I have only told you what concerns
yourself--and how the failure of my experiment upon the spiritual part
of your nature, obliged me to seek for another subject on whom to continue
my investigations. As far as you are personally concerned, no failure is
apparent--for your spirit is allowed frequent intervals of
supernatural freedom, in which you have experiences that give you peculiar
pleasure, though you are unable to impart them to me with positive
lucidity. You visit a Star--so you say--with which you really
seem to have some home connection--but you never get beyond this, so
that it would
appear that any higher insight is denied you. Now what I needed to obtain, was not only a higher insight, but the highest knowledge that could possibly be procured through a mingled combination of material and spiritual essences, and it was many a long and weary day before I found what I sought. At last my hour came--as it comes to all who have the patience and fortitude to wait for it."
He paused a moment--then went on more quickly--
"You remember of course that occasion of which we chanced upon a
party of Arab wanderers who were journeying across the Syrian
desert?--all poor and ailing, and almost destitute of food or
water?"
"I remember it perfectly!" and Féraz, seating himself
opposite his brother again, listened with renewed interest and
attention.
"They had two dying persons with them," continued
El-Râmi--"An elderly woman--a widow, known as
Zaroba,--the other an orphan girl of about twelve years of age named
Lilith. Both were perishing of fever and famine. I came to the rescue. I
saved Zaroba,--and she, with the passionate
im-
pulsiveness of her race, threw herself in gratitude at my feet, and swore by all her most sacred beliefs that she would be my slave from henceforth as long as she lived. All her people were dead, she told me--she was alone in the world--she prayed me to let her be my faithful servant. And truly, her fidelity has never failed--till now. But of that hereafter. The child Lilith, more fragile of frame and weakened to the last extremity of exhaustion--in spite of my unremitting care--died. Do you thoroughly understand me--she died."
"She died!" repeated Féraz
slowly--"Well--what then?"
"I was supporting her in my arms"--said El-Râmi,
the ardour of his description growing upon him, and his black eyes dilating
and burning like great jewels under the darkness of his
brows--"when she drew her last breath and sank back--a
corpse. But before her flesh had time to stiffen,--before the warmth
had gone out of her blood,--an idea, wild and daring, flashed across
my mind. 'If this child has a Soul,' I said to
myself--'I will stay it in its flight from hence! It
shall become the new Ariel of my wish and will--and not till it has performed my bidding to the utmost extent will I, like another Prospero, give it its true liberty. And I will preserve the body, its mortal shell, by artificial means, that through its medium I may receive the messages of the Spirit in mortal language such as I am able to understand.' No sooner had I conceived my bold project than I proceeded to carry it into execution. I injected into the still warm veins of the dead girl a certain fluid whose properties I alone know the working of--and then I sought and readily obtained permission from the Arabs to bury her in the desert, while they went on their way. They were in haste to continue their journey, and were grateful to me for taking this office off their hands. That very day--the day the girl died--I sent you from me, as you know, bidding you make all possible speed, on an errand which I easily invented, to the Brethren of the Cross in the Island of Cyprus,--you went obediently enough,--surprised perhaps, but suspecting nothing. That same evening when the heats abated and the moon rose, the caravan re-
sumed its pilgrimage, leaving Lilith's dead body with me, and also the woman Zaroba, who volunteered to remain and serve me in my tent, an offer which I accepted, seeing that it was her own desire, and that she would be useful to me. She, poor silly soul, took me then for a sort of god, because she was unable to understand the miracle of her own recovery from imminent death, and I felt certain I could rely upon her fidelity. Part of my plan I told her,--she heard with mingled fear and reverence,--the magic of the East was in her blood, however, and she had a superstitious belief that a truly 'wise man' could do anything. So, for several days we stayed encamped in the desert--I passing all my hours beside the dead Lilith,--dead, but to a certain extent living through artificial means. As soon as I received proof positive that my experiment was likely to be successful, I procured means to continue my journey on to Alexandria, and thence to England. To all enquirers I said the girl was a patient of mine who was suffering from epileptic trances, and the presence of Zaroba, who filled her post
admirably as nurse and attendant, was sufficient to stop the mouths of would-be scandal-mongers. I chose my residence in London, because it is the largest city in the world, and the one most suited to pursue a course of study in, without one's motives becoming generally known. One can be more alone in London than in a desert if one chooses. Now, you know all. You have seen the dead Lilith,--the human chrysalis of the moth,--but there is a living Lilith too--the Soul of Lilith, which is partly free and partly captive, but in both conditions is always the servant of my Will!"
Féraz looked at him in mingled awe and fear.
"El-Râmi,"--he said tremulously--"What
you tell me is wonderful--terrible--almost beyond
belief,--but, I know something of your power and I must believe you.
Only--surely you are in error when you say that Lilith is dead? How
can she be dead, if you have given her life?"
"Can you call that life which sleeps perpetually and will not
wake?" demanded El-Râmi.
"Would you have her wake?" asked Féraz, his heart
beating quickly.
El-Râmi bent his burning gaze upon him.
"Not so,--for if she wakes, in the usual sense of
waking--she dies a second death from which there can be no recall.
There is the terror of the thing. Zaroba's foolish teaching, and your
misguided yielding to her temptation, might have resulted in the fatal end
to my life's best and grandest work. But--I forgive
you;--you did not know,--and she--she did not
wake."
"She did not wake," echoed Féraz softly.
"No--but--she smiled!"
El-Râmi still kept his eyes fixed upon him,--there was an odd
sense of irritation in his usually calm and coldly balanced
organization--a feeling he strove in vain to subdue. She
smiled!--the exquisite Lilith--the life-in-death Lilith smiled,
because Féraz had called her by some endearing name! Surely it could
not be!--and smothering his annoyance, he turned towards the
writing-table and feigned to arrange some books and papers there.
"El-Râmi--" murmured Féraz again, but
timidly--"If she was a child when she died as you say--how is it she has grown to womanhood?"
"By artificial vitality,"--said
El-Râmi--"As a flower is forced under a
hot-house,--and with no more trouble, and less consciousness of effort
than a rose under a glass dome."
"Then she lives,--" declared Féraz impetuously.
"She lives,--artificial or natural, she has
vitality. Through your power she exists, and if you chose, oh, if you
chose, El-Râmi, you could wake her to the fullest life--to
perfect consciousness,--to joy--to love!--Oh, she is in a
blessed trance--you cannot call her dead!"
El-Râmi turned upon him abruptly.
"Be silent!" he said sternly--"I read your
thoughts,--control them, if you are wise! You echo Zaroba's
prating--Zaroba's teaching. Lilith is dead, I tell
you,--dead to you,--and, in the sense you
mean--dead to me."
friend,--Zaroba would let him gaze his fill on that exquisite form--would let him touch that little, ethereally delicate hand, as soft as velvet and as white as snow! Absorbed in these reflections, he scarcely noticed that El-Râmi had moved away from him to the writing-table, and that he now sat there in his ebony chair, turning over the leaves of the curious Arabic volume which Féraz had had such trouble in deciphering on the previous day. The silence in the room continued; outside there was the perpetual sullen roar of raging restless London,--now and again the sharp chirruping of contentious sparrows, arguing over a crumb of food as parliamentary agitators chatter over a crumb of difference, stirred the quiet air. Féraz stretched himself and yawned,--he was getting sleepy, and as he realized this fact, he nervously attributed it to his brother's influence, and sprang up abruptly, rubbing his eyes and pushing his thick hair from his brows. At his hasty movement, El-Râmi turned slowly towards him with a grave yet kindly smile.
"Well, Féraz"--he said--"Do you still
think me 'wicked' now you know all? Speak frankly--do not be afraid."
Féraz paused, irresolute.
"I do not know what to think--" he answered
hesitatingly,--"Your experiment is of course
wonderful,--but--as I said before--to me, it seems
terrible."
"Life is terrible--" said
El-Râmi--"Death is terrible,--Love is
terrible,--God is terrible. All Nature's pulses beat to the note
of Terror,--terror of the Unknown that May Be,--terror of the
Known that Is!"
His deep voice rang with impressive solemnity through the
room,--his eyes were full of that strange lurid gleam which gave them
the appearance of having a flame behind them.
"Come here, Féraz," he continued--"Why do
you stand at so cautious a distance from me? With that brave show-dagger at
your belt, are you a coward? Silly lad!--I swear to you my influence
shall not touch you unless I warn you of it beforehand. Come!"
Féraz obeyed, but slowly and with an uncertain step. His brother
looked at him
attentively as he came,--then, with a gesture indicating the volume before him, he said--"You found this book on my table yesterday and tried to read it,--is it not so?"
"I did."
"Well, and have you learnt anything from it?" pursued
El-Râmi with a strange smile.
"Yes. I learnt how the senses may be deceived by
trickery--" retorted Féraz with some heat and
quickness--"and how a clever magnetizer--like
yourself--may fool the eye and delude the ear with sights and sounds
that have no existence."
"Precisely. Listen to this passage;"--and El-Râmi
read aloud--"'The King when he had any affair, assembled
the Priests without the City Memphis, and the People met together in the
streets of the said City. Then they (the Priests) made their entrance one
after another in order, the drum beating before them to bring the people
together; and every-one made some miraculous discovery of his Magick and
Wisdom. One had, to their thinking who looked on him, his face
surrounded with a light like that of the Sun, so that none could look
earnestly upon
him. Another seemed clad with a Robe beset with precious stones of divers
colours, green, red, or yellow, or wrought with gold. Another came mounted
on a Lion compassed with Serpents like Girdles. Another came in covered
with a canopy or pavilion of Light. Another appeared surrounded with Fire
turning about him, so as that nobody durst come near him. Another was seen
with dreadful birds perching about his head and shaking their wings like
black eagles and vultures. In fine, everyone did what was taught
him;--yet all was but Apparition and Illusion without any
reality, insomuch that when they came up to the King they spake thus
to him:--You imagined that it was so-and-so,--but the truth
is that it was such or such a
thing.'* The A B C of
magnetism is contained in the last words--" continued
El-Râmi lifting his eyes from the book,--"The merest tyro
in the science
___________________* This remarkable passage on
the admitted effects of hypnotism as practised by the priests of ancient
Egypt, will be found in an old history of the building of the Pyramids
entitled--"The Egyptian Account of the
Pyramids"--Written in the Arabic by Murtadi the son of
Gaphiphus--date about 1400.
Page 189
knows that; and also realizes that the Imagination is the centre of both physical and bodily health or disease. And did you learn nothing more?"
Féraz made a half-angry gesture in the negative.
"What a pity!"--and his brother surveyed him with
good-humoured compassion--"To know how a 'miracle'
is done is one thing--but to do it is quite another matter. Now let me
recall to your mind what I previously told you--that from this day
henceforth, I forbid you to make any allusion to the subject of my work. I
forbid you to mention the name of Lilith,--and I forbid you to
approach or to enter the room where her body lies. You understand
me?--I forbid you!"
Féraz's eyes flashed angry opposition, and he drew himself
up with a haughty self-assertiveness.
"You forbid me!" he echoed proudly--"What right
have you to forbid me anything? And how if I refuse to obey?"
El-Râmi rose and confronted him, one hand resting on the big
Arabic volume.
"You will not refuse--" he said--"because I
will take no refusal. You will obey, because I exact your obedience.
Moreover, you will swear by the Most Holy Name of God, that you will never,
either to me, or to any other living soul, speak a syllable concerning my
life's greatest experiment,--you will swear that the name of
Lilith shall never pass your lips--"
But here Féraz interrupted him.
"El-Râmi, I will not swear!" he cried
desperately--"The name of Lilith is sweet to me!--why
should I not utter it,--why should I not sing of it--why should I
not even remember it in my prayers?"
A terrible look darkened El-Râmi's countenance; his brows
contracted darkly, and his lips drew together in a close resolute line.
"There are a thousand reasons why--" he said in low
fierce accents,--"One is, that the soul of Lilith and the body
of Lilith are mine, and that you have no share in their
possession. She does not need your songs--still less has she need of
your prayers. Rash fool!--you shall forget the name of
Lilith--and you shall swear, as I command you. Resist my will if you can,--now!--I warn you in time!"
He seemed to grow in height as he spoke,--his eyes blazed
ominously, and Féraz, meeting that lightning-like glance, knew how
hopeless it would be for him to attempt to oppose such an intense force as
was contained in this man's mysterious organization. He tried his
best,--but in vain,--with every second he felt his strength
oozing out of him--his power of resistance growing less and less.
"Swear!" said El-Râmi imperatively--"Swear
in God's Name to keep my secret--swear by Christ's
Death!--swear on this!"
And he held out a small golden crucifix.
Mechanically, but still devoutly, Féraz instantly dropped on one
knee, and kissed the holy emblem.
"I swear!" he said--but as he spoke, the rising tears
were in his throat, and he murmured--"Forget the name of
Lilith!--never!"
"In God's Name!" said El-Râmi.
"In God's Name!"
"By Christ's Death!"
Féraz trembled. In the particular form of religion professed by
himself and his brother, this was the most solemn and binding vow that
could be taken. And his voice was faint and unsteady as he repeated
it--
"By Christ's Death!"
El-Râmi put aside the crucifix.
"That is well;--" he said, in mild accents which
contrasted agreeably with his previous angry tone--"Such oaths
are chronicled in heaven, remember,--and whoever breaks his sworn word
is accursed of the gods. But you,--you will keep your vow,
Féraz,--and ... you will also forget the name of
Lilith,--if I choose!"
Féraz stood mute and motionless,--he would have said
something, but somehow words failed him to express what was in his mind. He
was angry, he said to himself,--he had sworn a foolish oath against
his will, and he had every right to be angry--very angry, but with
whom? Surely not with his brother--his friend,--his protector for
so many years? As he thought of this, shame and penitence and old affection
grew stronger
and welled up in his heart, and he moved slowly towards El-Râmi, with hands outstretched.
"Forgive me;"--he said humbly. "I have offended
you--I am sorry. I will show my repentance in whatever way you
please,--but do not, El-Râmi--do not ask me, do not force
me to forget the name of Lilith,--it is like a note in music, and it
cannot do you harm that I should think of it sometimes. For the rest I will
obey you faithfully,--and for what is past, I ask your
pardon."
El-Râmi took his hands and pressed them affectionately in his
own.
"No sooner asked than granted--" he
said--"You are young, Féraz,--and I am not so harsh
as you perhaps imagine. The impulsiveness of youth should always be quickly
pardoned--seeing how gracious a thing youth is, and how short a time
it lasts. Keep your poetic dreams and fancies--take the sweetness of
thought without its bitterness,--and if you are content to have it so,
let me still help to guide your fate. If not, why, nothing is easier than
to part company,
part as good friends and brethren always,--you on your chosen road and I on mine,--who knows but that after all you might not be happier so?"
Féraz lifted his dark eyes, heavy with unshed tears.
"Would you send me from you?" he asked falteringly.
"Not I! I would not send you,--but you might wish to
go."
"Never!" said Féraz resolutely--"I feel
that I must stay with you--till the end."
He uttered the last words with a sigh, and El-Râmi looked at him
curiously.
"Till the end?"--he repeated--"What
end?"
"Oh, the end of life or death or anything;" replied
Féraz with forced lightness--"There must surely be an end
somewhere, as there was a beginning."
"That is rather a doubtful problem!" said
El-Râmi--"The great question is, was there ever a
Beginning? and will there ever be an End?"
Féraz gave a languid gesture.
"You inquire too far,"--he said wearily--
"I always think you inquire too far. I cannot follow you--I am tired. Do you want anything?--can I do anything? or may I go to my room? I want to be alone for a little while, just to consider quietly what my life is, and what I can make of it."
"A truly wise and philosophical subject of meditation!"
observed El-Râmi, and he smiled kindly and held out his hand.
Féraz laid his own slender fingers somewhat listlessly in that firm
warm palm;--then--with a sudden start, looked eagerly around him.
The air seemed to have grown denser,--there was a delicious scent of
roses in the room, and hush! ... What entrancing voices were those that
sang in the distance? He listened absorbed;--the harmonies were very
sweet and perfect--almost he thought he could distinguish words.
Loosening his hand from his brother's clasp, the melody seemed to grow
fainter and fainter,--recognising this, he roused himself with a quick
movement, his eyes flashing with a sudden gleam of defiance.
"More magic music!" he said--"I hear the sound of
singing, and you know that I
hear it! I understand!--it is imagined music--your work, El-Râmi,--your skill. It is wonderful, beautiful,--and you are the most marvellous man on earth!--you should have been a priest of old Egypt! Yes--I am tired--I will rest;--I will accept the dreams you offer me for what they are worth,--but I must remember that there are realities as well as dreams,--and I shall not forget the name of--Lilith!"
He smiled audaciously, looking as graceful as a pictured Adonis in the
careless yet proud attitude he had unconsciously assumed,--then with a
playful yet affectionate salutation he moved to the doorway.
"Call me if you want me," he said.
"I shall not want you;"--replied his brother, regarding
him steadily.
The door opened and closed again,--Féraz was gone.
Shutting up the great volume in front of him, El-Râmi rested his
arms upon it, and stared into vacancy with darkly-knitted brows.
"What premonition of evil is there in the air?" he
muttered--"What restless emotion
is at work within me? Are the Fates turning against me?--and am I after all nothing but the merest composition of vulgar matter--a weak human wretch capable of being swayed by changeful passions? What is it? What am I that I should vex my spirit thus--all because Lilith smiled at the sound of a voice that was not mine!"
"Let me come in--" she said in her strong
harsh voice--"I make no doubt but that the poor lad Féraz has told you his story--now, as God liveth, you must hear mine."
El-Râmi turned upon his heel with a contemptuous movement, and
went back to his own chair by the writing-table. Zaroba, paying no heed to
the wrath conveyed by this mute action, stalked in also, and shutting the
door after her, came and stood close beside him.
"Write down what you think of me--" she said, pointing
with her yellow forefinger at the pens and paper--"Write the
worst. I have betrayed my trust. That is true. I have disobeyed your
commands after keeping them for six long years. True again. What
else?"
El-Râmi fixed his eyes upon her, a world of indignation and
reproach in their brilliant depths, and snatching up a pencil he wrote on a
slip of paper rapidly--
"Nothing else--nothing more than treachery! You are unworthy
of your sacred task you are false to your sworn fidelity."
Zaroba read the lines as quickly as he wrote them, but when she came to
the last
words she made a swift gesture of denial and drew herself up haughtily.
"No--not false!" she said passionately--"Not
false to you, El-Râmi, I swear! I would slay myself
rather than do you wrong. You saved my life, though my life was not worth
saving, and for that gentle deed I would pour out every drop of my blood to
requite you. No, no! Zaroba is not false--she is true!"
She tossed up her arms wildly,--then suddenly folding them tight
across her chest, she dropped her voice to a gentler and more appealing
tone.
"Hear me, El-Râmi!--Hear me, wise man and Master of the
magic of the East!--I have done well for you;--well! I have
disobeyed you for your own sake,--I have betrayed my trust that you
may discover how and where you may find your best reward. I have sinned
with the resolved intent to make you happy,--as God liveth, I speak
truth from my heart and soul!"
El-Râmi turned towards her, his face expressing curiosity in spite
of himself. He was very pale, and outwardly he was calm
enough--but his nerves were on the rack of suspense--he wondered what sudden frenzied idea had possessed this woman that she should comport herself as though she held some strange secret of which the very utterance might move heaven and earth to wonderment. Controlling his feelings with an effort, he wrote again--
"There exists no reason for disloyalty. Your excuses avail
nothing--let me hear no more of them. Tell me of Lilith--what
news?"
"News!" repeated Zaroba scornfully--"What news
should there be? She breathes and sleeps as she has breathed and slept
always--she has not stirred. There is no harm done by my bidding
Féraz look on her,--no change is wrought except in
you, El-Râmi!--except in you!"
Half springing from his chair he confronted her--then recollecting
her deafness, he bit his lips angrily and sank back again with an assumed
air of indifference.
"You have heard Féraz--" pursued Zaroba, with
that indescribable triumph of hers lighting up her strong old
face--"You must now
hear me. I thank the gods that my ears are closed to the sound of human voices, and that neither reproach nor curse can move me to dismay. And I am ignorant of your magic, El-Râmi,--the magic that chills the blood and sends the spirit flitting through the land of dreams,--the only magic I know is the magic of the heart--of the passions,--a natural witchcraft that conquers the world!"
She waved her arms to and fro--then crossing them on her bosom, she
made a profound half-mocking salutation.
"Wise El-Râmi Zarânos!" she said. "Proud
ruler of the arts and sciences that govern Nature,--have you ever,
with all your learning, taken the measure of your own passions, and slain
them so utterly that they shall never rise up again? They sleep at times,
like the serpents of the desert, coiled up in many a secret
place,--but at the touch of some unwary heel, some casual falling
pebble, they unwind their lengths-they raise their glittering heads, and
sting! I, Zaroba, have felt them here"--and she pressed her
hands more closely on her breast--"I have felt their poison in
my
blood--sweet poison, sweeter than life!--their stings have given me all the joy my days have ever known. But it is not of myself that I should speak--it is of you--of you, whose life is lonely, and for whom the coming years hold forth no prospect of delight. When I lay dying in the desert and you restored me to strength again, I swore to serve you with fidelity. As God liveth, El-Râmi, I have kept my vow,--and in return for the life you gave me I bid you take what is yours to claim--the love of Lilith!"
El-Râmi rose out of his chair, white to the lips, and his hand
shook. If he could have concentrated his inward forces at that moment, he
would have struck Zaroba dumb by one effort of his will, and so put an end
to her undesired eloquence,--but something, he knew not what,
disturbed the centre of his self-control, and his thoughts were in a whirl.
He despised himself for the unusual emotion which seized him--inwardly
he was furious with the garrulous old woman,--but outwardly he could
only make her an angry imperative sign to be silent.
"Nay, I will not cease from speaking--" said Zaroba
imperturbably--"for all has to be said now, or never. The love
of Lilith! imagine it, El-Râmi!--the clinging of her young white
arms--the kisses of her sweet red mouth,--the open glances of her
innocent eyes--all this is yours, if you but say the word. Listen! For
six and more long years I have watched her,--and I have watched
you. She has slept the sleep of death-in-life, for you have
willed it so,--and in that sleep, she has imperceptibly passed from
childhood to womanhood. You--cold as a man of bronze or
marble,--have made of her nothing but a 'subject' for your
science,--and never a breath of love or longing on your part, or even
admiration for her beauty, has stirred the virgin-trance in which she lies.
And I have marvelled at it--I have thought--and I have
prayed;--the gods have answered me, and now I know!"
She clapped her hands ecstatically, and then went on.
"The child Lilith died,--but you, El-Râmi, you caused
her to live again. And
she lives still--yes, though it may suit your fancy to declare her dead. She is a woman--you are a man;--you dare not keep her longer in that living death--you dare not doom her to perpetual darkness!--the gods would curse you for such cruelty, and who may abide their curse? I, Zaroba, have sworn it--Lilith shall know the joys of love!--and you, El-Râmi Zarânos, shall be her lover!--and for this holy end I have employed the talisman which alone sets fire to the sleeping passions..." and she craned her neck forward and almost hissed the word in his ear--'Jealousy!'"
El-Râmi smiled--a cold derisive smile, which implied the most
utter contempt for the whole of Zaroba's wild harangue. She, however,
went on undismayed, and with increasing excitement--
"Jealousy!" she cried--"The little asp is in your
soul already, proud El-Râmi Zarânos, and why? Because
another's eyes have looked on Lilith! This was my work! It was I who
led Féraz into her chamber,--it was I who bade him kneel beside
her as she slept,--it was I who let him touch her hand,
--and though I could not hear his voice I know he called upon her to awaken. In vain!--he might as well have called the dead--I knew she would not stir for him--her very breath belongs to you. But I--I let him gaze upon her beauty and worship it,--all his young soul was in his eyes--he looked and looked again and loved what he beheld! And mark me yet further, El-Râmi,--I saw her smile when Féraz took her hand,--so, though she did not move, she felt; she felt a touch that was not yours,--not yours, El-Râmi!--as God liveth, she is not quite so much your own as once she was!"
As she said this and laughed in that triumphant way, El-Râmi
advanced one step towards her with a fierce movement as though he would
have thrust her from the room,--checking himself, however, he seized
the pencil again and wrote--
"I have listened to you with more patience than you deserve. You
are an ignorant woman and foolish--your fancies have no foundation
whatever in fact. Your disobedience might have ruined my life's
work,--as it is, I dare say some mischief has been
done. Return to your duties, and take heed how you trespass against my command in future. If you dare to speak to me on this subject again I will have you shipped back to your own land and left there, as friendless and as unprovided for as you were when I saved you from death by famine. Go--and let me hear no more foolishness."
Zaroba read, and her face darkened and grew weary--but the pride
and obstinacy of her own convictions remained written on every line of her
features. She bowed her head resignedly, however, and said in slow even
tones--
"El-Râmi Zarânos is wise,--El-Râmi
Zarânos is master. But let him remember the words of Zaroba. Zaroba
is also skilled in the ways and the arts of the East,--and the voice
of Fate speaks sometimes to the lowest as well as to the highest. There are
the laws of Life and the laws of Death--but there are also the laws of
Love. Without the laws of Love, the Universe would cease to be,--it is
for El-Râmi Zarânos to prove himself stronger than the
Universe,--if he can!"
She made the usual obsequious "salaam" common to Eastern
races, and then with a swift, silent movement left the room, closing the
door noiselessly behind her. El-Râmi stood where she had left him,
idly tearing up the scraps of paper on which he had written his part of the
conversation,--he was hardly conscious of thought, so great were his
emotions of surprise and self-contempt.
"'O what a rogue and peasant-slave am I!'" he
muttered, quoting his favourite "Hamlet"--"Why did I
not paralyze her tongue before she spoke? Where had fled my
force,--what became of my skill? Surely I could have struck her down
before me with the speed of a lightning-flash--only-she is a
woman--and old. Strange how these feminine animals always harp on the
subject of love, as though it were the Be-all and End-all of everything.
The love of Lilith! Oh fool! The love of a corpse kept breathing by
artificial means! And what of the Soul of Lilith? Can It love? Can It hate?
Can It even feel? Surely not. It is an ethereal transparency,--a
delicate film which takes upon itself the reflex of all existing things
without experiencing personal emotion. Such is the Soul, as I believe in it--an immortal Essence, in itself formless, yet capable of taking all forms,--ignorant of the joys or pains of feeling, yet reflecting all shades of sensation as a crystal reflects all colours in the prism. This, and no more."
He paced up and down the room--and a deep involuntary sigh escaped
him.
"No--" he murmured, as though answering some inward
query--"No, I will not go to her now--not till the
appointed time. I resolved on an absence of forty-eight hours, and
forty-eight hours it shall be. Then I will go,--and she will tell me
all--I shall know the full extent of the mischief done. And so
Féraz 'looked and looked again, and loved what he
beheld!' Love! The very word seems like a desecrating blot on the
virgin soul of Lilith!"
the study, and there he found his brother conversing with a gentleman,--no other than Lord Melthorpe, who was talking in a loud cheerful voice, which contrasted oddly with El-Râmi's slow musical accents, that ever had a note of sadness in them. When Féraz made his hurried entrance, his eyes humid with sleep, yet dewily brilliant,--his thick dark hair tangled in rough curls above his brows, Lord Melthorpe stared at him in honestly undisguised admiration, and then glanced at El-Râmi inquiringly.
"My brother, Féraz Zarânos--" said
El-Râmi, readily performing the ceremony of
introduction--"Féraz, this is Lord Melthorpe,--you
have heard me speak of him."
Féraz bowed with his usual perfect grace, and Lord Melthorpe
shook hands with him.
"Upon my word!", he said good-humouredly, "this young
gentleman reminds one of the 'Arabian Nights,' El-Râmi!
He looks like one of those amazing fellows who always had remarkable
adventures; Prince Ahmed, or the son of a king, or
something--don't you know?"
El-Râmi smiled gravely.
"The Eastern dress is responsible for that idea in your mind, no
doubt--" he replied--"Féraz wears it in the
house, because he moves more easily and is more comfortable in it than in
the regulation British attire, which really is the most hideous mode of
garb in the world. Englishmen are among the finest types of the human race,
but their dress does them scant justice."
"You are right--we're all on the same tailor's
pattern--and a frightful pattern it is!" and his lordship put up
his eyeglass to survey Féraz once more, the while he
thought--"Devilish handsome fellow!--would make quite a
sensation in the room--new sort of craze for my lady." Aloud he
said--"Pray bring your brother with you on Tuesday
evening--my wife will be charmed."
"Féraz never goes into society--" replied
El-Râmi--"But of course, if you insist--"
"Oh, I never insist--" declared Lord Melthorpe,
laughing--"You are the man for insisting, not I.
But I shall take it as a favour if he will accompany you."
"You hear, Féraz--" and El-Râmi looked at
his brother inquiringly--"Lord Melthorpe
invites you to a great reception next Tuesday evening. Would you like to go?"
Féraz glanced from one to the other half smilingly, half
doubtfully.
"Yes, I should like it," he said at last.
"Then we shall expect you,--" and Lord Melthorpe rose
to take his leave,--"It's a sort of diplomatic and official
affair--fellows will look in either before or after the Foreign Office
crush, which is on the same evening, and orders and decorations will be in
full force, I believe. Oh, by the way, Lady Melthorpe begged me to ask you
most particularly to wear Oriental dress."
"I shall obey her ladyship;"--and El-Râmi smiled
a little satirically--the character of the lady in question was one
that always vaguely amused him.
"And your brother will do the same, I hope?"
"Assuredly!" and El-Râmi shook hands with his visitor,
bidding Féraz escort him to the door. When he had gone, Féraz
sprang into the study again with all the eager impetuosity of a boy.
"What is it like--a reception in England?"
he asked--"And why does Lord Melthorpe ask me?"
"I cannot imagine!" returned his brother
dryly--"Why do you want to go?"
"I should like to see life;"--said Féraz.
"See life!" echoed El-Râmi somewhat
disdainfully--"What do you mean? Don't you 'see
life' as it is?"
"No!" answered Féraz quickly--"I see men
and women--but I don't know how they live, and I don't know
what they do."
"They live in a perpetual effort to outreach and injure one
another"--said El-Râmi, "and all their forces are
concentrated on bringing themselves into notice. That is how they
live,--that is what they do. It is not a dignified or noble way of
living, but it is all they care about. You will see illustrations of this
at Lord Melthorpe's reception. You will find the woman with the most
diamonds giving herself peacock-like airs over the woman who has
fewest,--you will see the snob-millionaire treated with greater
consideration by everyone than the born gentleman who happens to have
little of this world's wealth. You will find that no one
thinks of putting himself out to give personal pleasure to another,--you will hear the same commonplace observations from every mouth,--you will discover a lack of wit, a dearth of kindness, a scarcity of cheerfulness, and a most desperate want of tact in every member of the whole fashionable assemblage. And so you shall 'see life'--if you think you can discern it there. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!--meanwhile let us have supper,--time flies, and I have work to do to-night that must be done."
Féraz busied himself nimbly about his usual duties--the
frugal meal was soon prepared and soon dispensed with, and at its close,
the brothers sat in silence, El-Râmi watching Féraz with a
curious intentness, because he felt for the first time in his life that he
was not quite master of the young man's thoughts. Did he still
remember the name of Lilith? El-Râmi had willed that every trace of
it should vanish from his memory during that long afternoon sleep in which
the lad had indulged himself unresistingly,--but the question was
now--Had that force of will gained the victory? He, El-Râmi,
could not tell--not yet--but he turned the problem over and over in his mind with sombre irritation and restlessness. Presently Féraz broke the silence. Drawing from his vest-pocket a small manuscript book, and raising his eyes, he said--
"Do you mind hearing something I wrote last night? I don't
quite know how it came to me--I think I must have been
dreaming--"
"Read on;"--said El-Râmi--"If it be
poesy, then its origin cannot be explained. Were you able to explain it, it
would become prose."
"I dare say the lines are not very good,"--went on
Féraz diffidently--"yet they are the true expression of a
thought that is in me. And whether I owe it to you, or to my own
temperament, I have visions now and then--visions not only of love,
but of fame--strange glories that I almost realize, yet cannot grasp.
And there is a sadness and futility in it all that grieves me ...
everything is so vague and swift and fleeting. Yet if love, as you say, be
a mere chimera,--surely there is such a thing as Fame?"
"There is--" and El-Râmi's eyes flashed,
then darkened again--"There is the applause of this world, which
may mean the derision of the next. Read on!"
Féraz obeyed. "I call it for the present 'The Star of
Destiny'"--he said; and then his mellifluous voice, rich
and well modulated, gave flowing musical enunciation to the following
lines:
The soft low plash of waves upon the shore,
Mariners' voices singing out at sea,
The sighing of the wind that evermore
Chants to my spirit mystic melody,--
These are the mingling sounds I vaguely hear
As o'er the darkening misty main I gaze,
Where one fair planet, warmly bright and clear
Pours from its heart a rain of silver rays.
O patient Star of Love! in yon pale sky
What absolute serenity is thine!
Beneath thy stedfast, half-reproachful eye
Large Ocean chafes,--and white with bitter brine,
Heaves restlessly, and ripples from the light
To darker shadows,--ev'n as noble thought
Recoils from human passion, to a night
Of splendid gloom by its own mystery wrought.
"What made you think of the sea?" interrupted
El-Râmi.
Féraz looked up dreamily.
"I don't know,"--he said.
"Well!--go on!"
Féraz continued,--
O searching Star, I bring my grief to thee,--
Regard it, Thou, as pitying angels may
Regard a tortured saint,--and, down to me
Send one bright glance, one heart-assuring ray
From that high throne where thou in sheeny state
Dost hang, thought-pensive, 'twixt the heaven and earth;
Thou, sure, dost know the secret of my Fate,
For thou did'st shine upon my hour of birth.
O Star, from whom the clouds asunder roll,
Tell this poor spirit pent in dying flesh,
This fighting, working, praying, prisoned soul.
Why it is trapped and strangled in the mesh
Of foolish Life and Time? Its wild young voice
Calls for release, unanswered and unstilled,
It sought not out this world,--it had no choice
Of other worlds where glory is fulfilled.
How hard to live at all, if living be
The thing it seems to us!--the few brief years
Made up of toil and sorrow, where we see
No joy without companionship of tears,--
What is the artist's fame?--the golden chords
Of rapt musician? or the poet's themes?
All incomplete!--the nailed down coffin boards
Are mocking sequels to the grandest dreams.
"That is not your creed,"--said El-Râmi with a
searching look.
Féraz sighed. "No--it is not my actual creed--but
it is my frequent thought."
"A thought unworthy of you,"--said his
brother--"There is nothing left 'incomplete' in the
whole Universe--and there is no sequel possible to
Creation."
"Perhaps not,--but again perhaps there may be a sequel beyond
all imagination or comprehension. And surely you must admit that some
things are left distressingly incomplete. Shelley's
'Fragments' for instance, Keats's
'Hyperion'--Schubert's 'Unfinished'
Symphony--"
"Incomplete here--yes--;" agreed
El-Râmi--"But--finished elsewhere, as surely as day
is day, and night is night. There is nothing lost,--no, not so much as
the lightest flicker of a thought in a man's brain,--nothing
wasted or forgotten,--not even so much as an idle word.
We forget--but the forces of Nature are non-oblivious.
All is chronicled and registered--all is scientifically set down in
plain figures that no mistake may be made in the final
reckoning."
"You really think that?--you really believe that?"
asked Féraz, his eyes dilating eagerly.
"I do, most positively;"--said
El-Râmi--"It is a Fact which Nature most potently
sets forth, and insists upon. But is there no more of your verse?"
"Yes--" and Féraz read on--
O, we are sorrowful, my Soul and I:
We war together fondly--yet we pray
For separate roads,--the Body fain would die
And sleep i' the ground, low-hidden from the day--
The Soul erect, its large wings cramped for room,
Doth pantingly and passionately rebel,
Against this strange, uncomprehended doom
Called Life, where nothing is, or shall be well.
"Good!"--murmured El-Râmi
softly--"Good--and true!"
Hear me, my Star!--star of my natal hour,
Thou calm unmoved one amid all clouds!
Give me my birth-right,--the imperial sway
Of Thought supreme above the common crowds,--
O let me feel thy swift compelling beam
Drawing me upwards to a goal divine;
Fulfil thy promise, O thou glittering Dream,
And let one crown of victory be mine;
Let me behold this world recede and pass
Like shifting mist upon a stormy coast
Or vision in a necromancer's glass;--
For I, 'mid perishable earth can boast
Of proven Immortality,--can reach
Glories ungrasped by minds of lower tone;--
Thus, in a silence vaster than all speech,
I follow thee, my Star of Love, alone!
now lifted his eyes and looked at his young brother with an expression of mingled curiosity and compassion.
"The verses are good;"--he said at
last--"good and perfectly rhythmical, but surely they have a
touch of arrogance?--
What do you mean by 'proven' Immortality? Where are your proofs?"
"I 'mid perishable earth can boast
Of proven Immortality."
"I have them in my inner consciousness;" replied
Féraz slowly--"But to put them into the limited language
spoken by mortals is impossible. There are existing emotions--existing
facts, which can never be rendered into common speech. God is a
Fact--but He cannot be explained or described."
El-Râmi was silent,--a slight frown contracted his dark even
brows.
"You are beginning to think too much"--he observed,
rising from his chair as he spoke--"Do not analyse yourself,
Féraz, ... self-analysis is the temper of the age, but it engenders
distrust and sorrow. Your poem is excellent, but it breathes of
sadness,--I prefer your 'star' songs which are so
full of joy. To be wise is to be happy,--to be happy is to be wise--"
A loud rat-tat at the street-door interrupted him. Féraz sprang
up to answer the imperative summons, and returned with a telegram.
El-Râmi opened and read it with astonished eyes, his face growing
suddenly pale.
"He will be here to-morrow night!" he ejaculated in a
whisper--"To-morrow night! He, the saint--the
king--here to-morrow night! Why should he come?--What would he
have with me?"
His expression was one of dazed bewilderment, and Féraz looked at
him inquiringly.
"Any bad news?" he asked--"Who is it that is
coming?"
El-Râmi recollected himself, and folding up the telegram, thrust
it in his breast-pocket.
"A poor monk who is travelling hither on a secret mission solicits
my hospitality for the night"--he replied
hurriedly--"That is all. He will be here to-morrow."
Féraz stood silent, an incredulous smile in his fine eyes.
"Why should you stoop to deceive me, El-Râmi my
brother?" he said gently at last--"Surely it is not one of
your ways to perfection? Why try to disguise the truth from me?--I am
not of a treacherous nature. If I guess rightly, this 'poor
monk' is the Supreme Head of the Brethren of the Cross, from whose
mystic band you were dismissed for a breach of discipline. What harm is
there in my knowing of this?"
El-Râmi's hand clenched, and his eyes had that dark and
terrible look in them that Féraz had learned to fear, but his voice
was very calm.
"Who told you?" he asked.
"One of the monks at Cyprus long ago, when I went on your
errand"--replied Féraz; "He spoke of your wisdom,
your power, your brilliant faculties, in genuine regret that all for some
slight matter in which you would not bend your pride, you had lost touch
with their various centres of action in all parts of the globe. He said no
more than this,--and no more than this I know."
"You know quite enough,"--said El-Râmi
quietly--"If I have lost touch with their
modes of work, I have gained insight beyond their reach. And,--I am sorry I did not at once say the truth to you--it is their chief leader who comes here to-morrow. No doubt,"--and he smiled with a sense of triumph--"no doubt he seeks for fresh knowledge, such as I alone can give him."
"I thought," said Féraz in a low half-awed
tone--"that he was one of those who are wise with the wisdom of
the angels?"
"If there are angels!" said El-Râmi with
a touch of scorn--"He is wise in faith alone--he believes
and he imagines,--and there is no question as to the strange power he
has obtained through the simplest means,--but I--I have no
faith!--I seek to prove--I work to
know,--and my power is as great as his, though it is won
in a different way."
Féraz said nothing, but sat down to the piano, allowing his hands
to wander over the keys in a dreamy fashion that sounded like the far-off
echo of a rippling mountain stream. El-Râmi waited a moment,
listening,--then glanced at his watch--it was growing late.
"Good-night, Féraz;"--he said in gentle
accents--"I shall want nothing more this evening. I am going to my work."
"Good-night,"--answered Féraz with equal
gentleness, as he went on playing. His brother opened and closed the door
softly;--he was gone.
As soon as he found himself alone, Féraz pressed the pedal of his
instrument so that the music pealed through the room in rich salvos of
sound--chord after chord rolled grandly forth, and sweet ringing notes
came throbbing from under his agile finger-tips, the while he said aloud,
with a mingling of triumph and tenderness--
"Forget! I shall never forget! Does one forget the flowers, the
birds, the moonlight, the sound of a sweet song? Is the world so fair, that
I should blot from my mind the fairest thing in it? Not so! My memory may
fail me in a thousand things--but let me be tortured, harassed,
perplexed with dreams, persuaded by fantasies, I shall never forget the
name of--"
He stopped abruptly--a look of pain and terror and effort flashed
into his eyes,--his hands fell on the keys of the piano with a
discordant jangle,--he stared about him, wondering and afraid.
"The name--the name!" he muttered
hoarsely--"A flower's name--an angel's
name--the sweetest name I ever heard! How is this?--Am I mad that
my lips refuse to utter it? The name--the name of ... My God! my God!
I have forgotten it!"
And springing from his chair he stood for one instant in mute wrath,
incredulity and bewilderment,--then throwing himself down again, he
buried his face in his hands, his whole frame trembling with mingled terror
and awe at the mystic power of El-Râmi's indomitable Will, which
had, he knew, forced him to forget what most he desired to remember.
stars could be seen dimly sparkling in the skies. A white moth, attracted by the light, had flown in by way of this aperture, and was now fluttering heedlessly and aimlessly round the lamp,--but by-and-bye it took a lower and less hazardous course, and finally settled on a shining corner of the cushion that supported Lilith's head. There the fragile insect rested,--now expanding its velvety white wings, now folding them close and extending its delicate feelers to touch and test the glittering fabric on which it found itself at ease,--but never moving from the spot it had evidently chosen for its night's repose. Suddenly, and without sound, El-Râmi entered. He advanced close up to the couch, and looked upon the sleeping girl with an eager, almost passionate intentness. His heart beat quickly;--a singular excitement possessed him, and for once he was unable to analyze his own sensations. Closer and closer he bent over Lilith's exquisite form,--doubtfully and with a certain scorn of himself, he took up a shining tress of her glorious hair and looked at it curiously as though it were something new, strange or
unnatural. The little moth, disturbed, flew off the pillow and fluttered about his head in wild alarm, and El-Râmi watched its reckless flight as it made off towards the fatally-attractive lamp again, with meditative eyes, still mechanically stroking that soft lock of Lilith's hair which he held between his fingers.
"Into the light!" he murmured--"Into the very
heart of the light!--into the very core of the Fire! That is the end
of all ambition--to take wings and plunge so--into the glowing,
burning molten Creative Centre--and die for our foolhardiness? Is that
all?--or is there more behind? It is a question,--who may answer
it?"
He sighed heavily, and leaned more closely over the couch, till the soft
scarcely perceptible breath from Lilith's lips touched his cheek
warmly like a caress. Observantly, as one might study the parts of a bird
or a flower, he noted those lips, how delicately curved, how coral-red they
were,--and what a soft rose-tint, like the flush of a pink sunrise on
white flowers, was the hue which spread itself waveringly over her
cheeks,--till there,--there where the long eyelashes curled
up-
wards, there were fine shadows,--shadows which suggested light,--such light as must be burning in those sweetly-closed eyes. Then there was the pure, smooth brow, over which little vine-like tendrils of hair caught and clung amorously,--and then--that wondrous wealth of the hair itself which like twin showers of gold, shed light on either side. It was all beautiful,--a wonderful gem of Nature's handiwork,--a masterpiece of form and colour which, but for him, El-Râmi, would long ere this have mouldered away to unsightly ash and bone, in a lonely grave dug hurriedly among the sands of the Syrian desert. He was almost, if not quite, the author of that warm if unnatural vitality that flowed through those azure veins and branching arteries,--he, like the Christ of Galilee, had raised the dead to life,--aye, if he chose, he could say as the Master said to the daughter of Jairus, "Maiden, arise!" and she would obey him--would rise and walk, and smile and speak, and look upon the world,--if he chose! The arrogance of Will burned in his brain;--the pride of power, the majesty of conscious strength made his
pulses beat high with triumph beyond that of any king or emperor,--and he gazed down upon the tranced fair form, himself entranced, and all unconscious that Zaroba had come out of her corner, and that she now stood beside him, watching his face with passionate and inquisitive eagerness. Just as he reluctantly lifted himself up from his leaning position he saw her staring at him, and a frown darkened his brows. He made his usual imperative sign to her to leave the room,--a sign she was accustomed to understand and to obey--but this time she remained motionless, fixing her eyes steadily upon him.
"The conqueror shall be conquered, El-Râmi
Zarânos--" she said slowly, pointing to the sleeping
Lilith--"The victorious master over the forces unutterable,
shall yet be overthrown! The work has begun,--the small seed has been
sown--the great harvest shall be reaped. For in the history of Heaven
itself, certain proud angels rose up and fought for the possession of
supreme majesty and power--and they fell,--down-beaten to the
darkness,--unforgiven; and
are they not in darkness still? Even so must the haughty spirit fall that contends against God and the Universal Law."
She spoke impressively, and with a certain dignity of manner that gave
an added force to her words,--but El-Râmi's impassive
countenance showed no sign of having either heard or understood her. He
merely repeated his gesture of dismissal, and this time Zaroba obeyed it.
Wrapping her flowing robe closely about her, she withdrew, but with evident
reluctance, letting the velvet portière fall only by slow degrees
behind her, and to the last keeping her dark deep-set eyes fixed on
El-Râmi's face. As soon as she had disappeared, he sprang to
where the dividing-curtain hid a massive door between the one room and the
antechamber,--this door he shut and locked,--then he returned to
the couch, and proceeded according to his usual method, to will the
wandering spirit of his "subject" into speech.
"Lilith! Lilith!"
As before, he had to wait ere any reply was vouchsafed to him.
Impatiently he glanced at the clock, and counted slowly a hundred
beats.
"Lilith!"
She turned round towards him, smiled, and murmured something--her
lips moved, but whatever they uttered did not reach his ear.
"Lilith! Where are you?"
This time, her voice, though soft, was perfectly distinct.
"Here. Close to you, with your hand on mine."
El-Râmi was puzzled. True, he held her left hand in his own, but
she had never described any actual sensation of human touch before.
"Then,--can you see me?" he asked somewhat
anxiously.
The answer came sadly.
"No. Bright air surrounds me, and the colours of the
air--nothing more."
"You are alone, Lilith?"
Oh, what a sigh came heaving from her breast!
"I am always alone!"
Half remorseful, he heard her. She had complained of solitude
before,--and it was a thought he did not wish her to dwell upon. He
made haste to speak again.
"Tell me,"--he said--"Where have you been
Lilith, and what have you seen?"
There was silence for a minute or two, and she moved restlessly.
"You bade me seek out Hell for you"--she murmured at
last--"I have searched but I cannot find it."
Another pause, and she went on.
"You spoke of a strange thing," she said--"A
place of punishment, of torture, of darkness, of horror and
despair,--there is no such dreary blot on all God's fair
Creation. In all the golden spaces of the furthest stars I find no
punishment, no pain, no darkness. I can discover nothing save beauty,
light, and--Love!"
The last word was uttered softly, and sounded like a note of music,
sweet but distant.
El-Râmi listened, bewildered, and in a manner disappointed.
"O Lilith, take heed what you say!" he exclaimed with some
passion--"No pain?--no punishment? no darkness? Then this
world is Hell and you know naught of it!"
As he said this, she moved uneasily
among her pillows,--then, to his amazement, she suddenly sat up of her own accord, and went on speaking, enunciating her words with singular clearness and emphasis, always keeping her eyes closed and allowing her left hand to remain in his.
"I am bound to tell you what I know;"--she
said--"But I am unable to tell you what is not true. In
God's design I find no evil--no punishment, no death. If there
are such things, they must be in your world alone,--they must be
Man's work and Man's imaginng."
"Man's work--Man's imagining?" repeated
El-Râmi--"And what is Man?"
"God's angel," replied Lilith quickly--"With
God's own attribute of Free-Will. He, like his Maker, doth
create,--he also doth destroy,--what he elects to do, God will
not prevent. Therefore if Man makes Evil, Evil must exist till Man himself
destroys it."
This was a deep and strange saying, and El-Râmi pondered over it
without speaking.
"In the spaces where I roam," went on
Lilith softly--"there is no evil. Those who are the Makers of Life in yonder fair regions, seek only what is pure. Why should pain exist, or sin be known? I do not understand."
"No"--said El-Râmi bitterly--"You do
not understand, because you are yourself too happy,--happiness sees no
fault in anything. Oh, you have wandered too far from earth and you forget!
The tie that binds you to this planet is over-fragile,--you have lost
touch with pain. I would that I could make you feel my thoughts!--for,
Lilith, God is cruel, not kind, ... upon God, and God alone, rests the
weight of woe that burdens the universe, and for the eternal sorrow of
things there is neither reason nor remedy."
Lilith sank back again in a recumbent posture, a smile upon her
lips.
"O poor blind eyes!" she murmured--"Sad eyes that
are so tired--too tired to bear the light!"
Her voice was so exquisitely pathetic that he was startled by its very
gentleness,--his heart gave one fierce bound against his side, and
then seemed almost to stand still.
"You pity me?" he asked tremulously.
She sighed. "I pity you"--she answered--"I
pity myself."
Almost breathlessly he asked "Why?"
"Because I cannot see you--because you cannot see me. If I
could see you--if you could see me as I am, you would know
all--you would understand all."
"I do see you, Lilith" he said--"I hold your
hand."
"No--not my real hand"--she said--"Only
its shadow."
Instinctively he looked at the delicate fingers that lay in his
palm--so rosy-tipped and warm. Only the "shadow" of a
hand! Then where was its substance?
"It will pass away"--went on Lilith-"like all
shadows--but I shall remain--not here, not
here,--but elsewhere. When will you let me go?"
"Where do you wish to go?" he asked.
"To my friends," she answered swiftly and with
eagerness--"They call me often--I hear their voices singing
'Lilith! Lilith!' and sometimes I see them beckoning
me--but I cannot reach them. It is cruel, for
they love me and you do not,--why will you keep me here unloved so long?"
He trembled and hesitated, fixing his dark eyes on the fair face, which,
in spite of its beauty, was to him but as the image of a Sphinx that
forever refused to give up its riddle.
"Is love your craving, Lilith?" he asked
slowly--"And what is your thought--or dream--of
love?"
"Love is no dream;"--she responded--"Love is
reality--Love is Life. I am not fully living yet--I hover in the
Realms Between, where spirits wait in silence and alone."
He sighed. "Then you are sad, Lilith?"
"No. I am never sad. There is light within my solitude, and the
glory of God's beauty everywhere."
El-Râmi gazed down upon her, an expression very like despair
shadowing his own features.
"Too far, too far she wends her flight;"--he muttered
to himself wearily. "How can I argue on these vague and sublimated
utterances! I cannot understand her joy--she
cannot understand my pain. Evidently Heaven's language is incomprehensible to mortal ears. And yet;--Lilith!" he called again almost imperiously. "You talk of God as if you knew Him. But I--I know Him not--I have not proved Him,--tell me of His Shape, His Seeming,--if indeed you have the power."
She was silent. He studied her tranquil face intently,--the smile
upon it was in very truth divine.
"No answer!" he said with some derision. "Of
course,--what answer should there be! What Shape or Seeming should
there be to a mere huge blind Force that creates without reason, and
destroys without necessity!"
As he thus soliloquized, Lilith stirred, and flung her white arms upward
as though in ecstasy, letting them fall slowly afterwards in a folded
position behind her head.
"To the Seven declared tones of Music, add seventy million
more,"--she said--"and let them ring their sweetest
cadence, they shall make but a feeble echo of the music of God's
voice. To all the shades of radiant
colour, to all the lines of noblest form, add the splendour of eternal youth, eternal goodness, eternal joy, eternal power, and yet we shall not render into speech or song the beauty of our God! From His glance flows Light--from His presence rushes Harmony,--as He moves through Space great worlds are born; and at His bidding planets grow within the air like flowers. Oh to see Him passing 'mid the stars!--"
She broke off suddenly and drew a long deep breath, as of sheer
delight,--but the shadow on El-Râmi's features darkened
wearily.
"You teach me nothing, Lilith"--he said sadly and
somewhat sternly--"You speak of what you see--or what you
think you see--but you cannot convince me of its truth."
Her face grew paler,--the smile vanished from her lips, and all her
delicate beauty seemed to freeze into a cold and grave rigidity.
"Love begets faith;"--she said--"Where we do
not love, we doubt. Doubt breeds Evil, and Evil knows not God."
"Platitudes, upon my life!--mere
plati-
tudes!" exclaimed El-Râmi bitterly--"If this half-released spirit can do no more than prate of the same old laws and duties our preachers teach us, then indeed my service is vain. But she shall not baffle me thus;"--and bending over Lilith's figure, he unwound her arms from the indolent position in which they were folded, took her hands roughly in his own, and sitting on the edge of her couch, fixed his burning eyes upon her as though he sought to pierce her to the heart's core with their ardent, almost cruel lustre.
"Lilith!" he commanded--"Speak plainly, that I
may fully understand your words. You say there is no hell?"
The answer came steadily.
"None."
"Then must evil go unpunished?"
"Evil wreaks punishment upon itself. Evil destroys itself. That is
the Law."
"And the Prophets!" muttered El-Râmi
scornfully--"Well! Go on, strange sprite! Why--for such
things are known--why does goodness suffer for being good?"
"That never is. That is impossible."
"Impossible?" queried El-Râmi incredulously.
"Impossible,"--repeated the soft voice firmly.
"Goodness seems to suffer, but it does not. Evil
seems to prosper, but it does not."
"And God exists?"
"God exists."
"And what of Heaven?"
"Which heaven?" asked Lilith--"There are a
million million heavens."
El-Râmi stopped--thinking,--then finally said--
"God's Heaven."
"You would say God's World;"--returned Lilith
tranquilly--"Nay, you will not let me reach that centre. I see
it; I feel it afar off--but your will binds me--you will not let
me go."
"If I were to let you go what would you do?" asked
El-Râmi--"Would you return to me?"
"Never! Those who enter the Perfect Glory, return no more to an
imperfect light."
El-Râmi paused--he was arranging other
questions to ask, when her next words startled him--
"Someone called me by my name,"--she
said--"Tenderly and softly, as though it were a name beloved. I
heard the voice--I could not answer--but I heard it--and I
know that someone loves me. The sense of love is sweet, and makes your
dreary world seem fair!"
El-Râmi's heart began to beat violently--the voice of
Féraz had reached her in her trance then after all! And she
remembered it!--more than this--it had carried a vague emotion of
love to that vagrant and ethereal essence which he called her
"soul" but which he had his doubts of all the while. For he was
unable to convince himself positively of any such thing as
"Soul;"--all emotions, even of the most divinely
transcendent nature, he was disposed to set down to the action of brain
merely. But he was scientist enough to know that the brain must gather its
ideas from something,--something either external or
internal,--even such a vague thing as an Idea cannot spring out of
blank Chaos. And this was what especially puzzled him in his
experiment with the girl Lilith--for, ever since he had placed her in the "life-in-death" condition she was, he had been careful to avoid impressing any of his own thoughts or ideas upon her. And, as a matter of fact, all she said about God, or about a present or a future state, was precisely the reverse of what he himself argued;--the question therefore remained--From Where and How did she get her knowledge? She had been a mere pretty, ignorant, half-barbaric Arab child, when she died (according to natural law), and, during the six years she had lived (by scientific law) in her strange trance, her brain had been absolutely unconscious of all external impressions, while of internal she could have none, beyond the memories of her childhood. Yet,--she had grown beautiful beyond the beauty of mortals, and she spoke of things beyond all mortal comprehension. The riddle of her physical and mental development seemed unanswerable,--it was the wonder, the puzzle, the difficulty, the delight of all El-Râmi's hours. But now there was mischief done. She spoke of love,--not divine impersonal love, as was her
wont,--but love that touched her own existence with a vaguely pleasing emotion. A voice had reached her that never should have been allowed to penetrate her spiritual solitude, and realizing this, a sullen anger smouldered in El-Râmi's mind. He strove to consider Zaroba's fault and Féraz's folly with all the leniency, forbearance and forgiveness possible, and yet the strange restlessness within him gave him no peace. What should be done? What could be answered to those wistful words--"The sense of love is sweet, and makes your dreary world seem fair"?
He pondered on the matter, vaguely uneasy and dissatisfied. He, and he
alone, was the master of Lilith,--he commanded and she
obeyed,--but would it be always thus? The doubt turned his blood
cold,--suppose she escaped him now, after all his studies and
calculations! He resolved he would ask her no more questions that night,
and very gently he released the little slender hands he held.
"Go, Lilith!" he said softly--"This world, as you
say, is dreary--I will not keep you longer in its gloom--go hence
and rest."
"Rest?" sighed Lilith
inquiringly--"Where?"
He bent above her, and touched her loose gold locks almost
caressingly.
"Where you choose!"
"Nay, that I may not!" murmured Lilith sadly. "I have
no choice--I must obey the Master's will."
El-Râmi's heart beat high with triumph at these words.
"My will!" he said, more to himself than to
her--"The force of it!--the marvel of it!-my
will!"
Lilith heard,--a strange glory seemed to shine round her, like a
halo round a pictured saint, and the voice that came from her lips rang out
with singularly sweet clearness.
"Your will!" she echoed--"Your will--and
also--God's will!"
He started, amazed and irresolute. The words were not what he expected,
and he would have questioned their meaning, but that he saw on the
girl's lovely features a certain pale composed look which he
recognised as the look that meant silence.
"Lilith!" he whispered.
No answer. He stood looking down upon her, his face seeming sterner and
darker than usual by reason of the intense, passionate anxiety in his
burning eyes.
"God's will!" he echoed with some
disdain--"God's will would have annihilated her very
existence long ago out in the desert;--what should God do with her now
that I have not done?"
His arrogance seemed to him perfectly justifiable; and yet he very well
knew that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as
"annihilation" possible to any atom in the universe. Moreover,
he did not choose to analyze the mystical reasons as to why he
had been permitted by Fate or Chance to obtain such mastery over one human
soul,--he preferred to attribute it all to his own discoveries in
science,--his own patient and untiring skill,--his own studious
comprehension of the forces of Nature,--and he was nearly, if not
quite oblivious of the fact, that there is a Something behind
natural forces, which knows and sees, controls and commands, and against
which, if he places himself in opposition, Man is but the puniest, most
wretched
straw that was ever tossed or split by a whirlwind. As a rule, men of science work not for God so much as against Him, wherefore their most brilliant researches stop short of the goal. Great intellects are seldom devout,--for brilliant culture begets pride--and pride is incompatible with faith or worship. Perfect science, combined with perfect selflessness, would give us what we need,--a purified and reasoning Religion. But El-Râmi's chief characteristic was pride,--and he saw no mischief in it. Strong in his knowledge,--defiant of evil in the consciousness he possessed of his own extraordinary physical and mental endowments, he saw no reason why he should bow down in humiliated abasement before forces, either natural or spiritual, which he deemed himself able to control. And his brow cleared, as he once more bent over his tranced "subject" and with all the methodical precaution of a physician, felt her pulse, took note of her temperature and judged that for the present she needed no more of that strange Elixir which kept her veins aglow with such inexplicably beauteous vitality. Then--his ex-
amination done--he left the room; and as he drew the velvet portière behind him, the little white moth that had flown in for a night's shelter, fluttered down from the golden lamp like a falling leaf, and dropped on the couch of Lilith, shrivelled and dead.
indeed, which when laid to the souls of commonplace egoists, had the effect of making them consider El-Râmi Zarânos a very wonderful person, and themselves more wonderful still. Only the truly great mind is humble enough to appreciate greatness, and of great minds there is a great scarcity. Most of El-Râmi's correspondents were of that lower order of intelligence which blandly accepts every fresh truth discovered as specially intended for themselves, and not at all for the world, as though indeed they were some particular and removed class of superior beings who alone were capable of understanding true wisdom. "Your work has appealed to me"--wrote one, "as it will not appeal to all, because I am able to enter into the divine spirit of things as the vulgar herd cannot do!" This, as if the "vulgar herd" were not also part of the "divine spirit of things"!
"I have delighted in your book"--wrote another,
"because I am a poet, and the world, with its low aims and lower
desires I abhor and despise!"
The absurdity of a man presuming to call
himself a poet, and in the same breath declaring he "despises" the world,--the world which supports his life and provides him with all his needs,--never seems to occur to the minds of these poor boasters of a petty vanity. El-Râmi looked weary enough as he glanced quickly through a heap of such ill-judged and egotistical epistles, and threw them aside to be forever left unanswered. To him there was something truly horrible and discouraging in the contemplation of the hopeless, helpless, absolute stupidity of the majority of mankind. The teachings of Mother Nature being always straight and plain, it is remarkable what devious turnings and dark winding ways we prefer to stumble into rather than take the fair and open course. For example Nature says to us--"My children, Truth is simple,--and I am bound by all my forces to assist its manifestation. A Lie is difficult--I can have none of it--it needs other lies to keep it going,--its ways are full of complexity and puzzle,--why then, O foolish ones, will you choose the Lie and avoid the Truth? For, work as you may, the Truth must out, and
not all the uproar of opposing multitudes can still its thunderous tongue." Thus Nature;--but we heed her not,--we go on lying stedfastly, in a strange delusion that thereby may deceive Eternal Justice. But Eternal Justice never is deceived,--never is obscured even, save for a moment, as a passing cloud obscures the sun.
"How easy after all to avoid mischief of any kind," mused
El-Râmi now, as he put by his papers and drew two or three old
reference volumes towards him--"How easy to live happily, free
from care, free from sickness, free from every external or internal
wretchedness, if we could but practise the one rule--Self-abnegation.
It is all there,--and the ethereal Lilith may be right in her
assurance as to the non-existence of Evil unless we ourselves create it. At
least one half the trouble in the world might be avoided if we chose. Debt,
for example,--that carking trouble always arises from living beyond
one's means,--therefore why live beyond one's
means? What for? Show? Vulgar ostentation? Luxury? Idleness? All these are
things against which Heaven
raises its eternal ban. Then take physical pain and sickness,--here Self is to blame again,--self-indulgence in the pleasures of the table,--sensual craving,--the marriage of weakly or ill-conditioned persons,--all simple causes from which spring incalculable evils. Avoid the causes and we escape the evils. The arrangements of Nature are all so clear and explicit, and yet we are forever going out of our way to find or invent difficulties. The farmer grumbles and writes letters to the newspapers if his turnip-fields are invaded by what he deems a 'destructive pest' in the way of moth or caterpillar, and utterly ignores the fact that these insects always appear for some wise reason or other, which he, absorbed in his own immediate petty interests, fails to appreciate. His turnips are eaten,--that is all he thinks or cares about,--but if he knew that those same turnips contain a particular microbe poisonous to human life, a germ of typhoid, cholera or the like, drawn up from the soil and ready to fructify in the blood of cattle or of men, and that these insects of which he complains are the scavengers sent by
Nature to utterly destroy the Plague in embryo, he might pause in his grumbling to wonder at so much precaution taken by the elements for the preservation of his unworthy and ignorant being. Perplexing and at times maddening is this our curse of Ignorance,--but that the 'sins of the fathers are visited on the children' is a true saying is evident--for the faults of generations are still bred in our blood and bone."
He turned over the first volume before him listlessly,--his mind
was not set upon study, and his attention wandered. He was thinking of
Féraz, with whom he had scarcely exchanged a word all day. He had
lacked nothing in the way of service, for swift and courteous obedience to
his brother's wishes had characterized Féraz in every simple
action, but there was a constraint between the two that had not previously
existed. Féraz bore himself with a stately yet sad hauteur,--he
had the air of a proud prince in chains who, being captive, performed his
prison-work with exactitude and resignation as a matter of discipline and
duty. It was curious that El-Râmi, who had steeled
him-
self as he imagined against every tender sentiment, should now feel the want of the impetuous confidence and grace of manner with which his young brother had formerly treated him.
"Everything changes--" he mused gloomily,
"Everything must change, of course; and nothing is so
fluctuating as the humour of a boy who is not yet a man, but is on the
verge of manhood. And with Féraz my power has reached its
limit,--I know exactly what I can do, and what I can not
do with him,--it is a case of 'Thus far and no further.'
Well,--he must choose his own way of life,--only let him not
presume to set himself in my way, or interfere in
my work! Ye gods!--there is nothing I would not
do--"
He paused, ashamed; the blood flushed his face darkly and his hand
clenched itself involuntarily. Conscious of the thought that had arisen
within him, he felt a moment's shuddering horror of himself. He knew
that in the very depths of his nature there was enough untamed savagery to
make him capable of crushing his young brother's life
out of him, should he dare to obstruct his path or oppose him in his labours. Realizing this, a cold dew broke out on his forehead and he trembled.
"O Soul of Lilith that cannot understand Evil!" he
exclaimed--"Whence came this evil thought in me? Does the evil
in myself engender it?--and does the same bitter gall that stirred the
blood of Cain lurk in the depths of my being, till Opportunity strikes the
wicked hour? Retro me, Sathanas! After all,
there was something in the old beliefs--the pious horror of a
devil,--for a devil there is that walks the world, and his name is
Man!"
He rose and paced the room impatiently,--what a long day it seemed,
and with what dreary persistence the rain washed against the windows! He
looked out into the street,--there was not a passenger to be
seen,--a wet dingy grayness pervaded the atmosphere and made
everything ugly and cheerless. He went back to his books, and presently
began to turn over the pages of the quaint Arabic volume into which
Féraz had unwisely dipped, gathering therefrom a crumb
of knowledge, which, like all scrappy information, had only led him to discontent.
"All these old experiments of the Egyptian priests were simple
enough--" he murmured as he read,--"They had one
substratum of science,--the art of bringing the countless atoms that
fill the air into temporary shape. The trick is so easy and natural, that I
fancy there must have been a certain condition of the atmosphere in earlier
ages which of itself shaped the atoms,--hence the ideas
of nymphs, dryads, fauns and watersprites; these temporary shapes which
dazzled for some fleeting moments the astonished human eye and so gave rise
to all the legends. To shape the atoms as a sculptor shapes clay, is but a
phase of chemistry,--a pretty experiment--yet what a miracle it
would always seem to the uninstructed multitude!"
He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a box full of red
powder, and two small flasks, one containing minute globules of a
glittering green colour like tiny emeralds,--the other full of a pale
amber liquid. He smiled as he looked at these ingredients,--and then
he gave a glance out
through the window at the dark and rainy afternoon.
"To pass the time, why not?" he queried half aloud.
"One needs a little diversion sometimes even in science."
ruscation of atoms" as El-Râmi called it, resembled a maiden in
the bloom of youth,--her flowing hair, her sparkling eyes, her smiling
lips, were all plainly discernible;--but, that she was a mere phantasm
and creature of the cloud was soon made plain, for scarcely had she
declared herself in all her rounded laughing loveliness, than she melted
away and passed into nothingness like a dream. The cloud of smoke grew
thinner and thinner, till it vanished also so completely that there was no
more left of it than a pale blue ring such as might have been puffed from a
stray cigar. El-Râmi, leaning lazily back in his chair, had watched
the whole development and finish of his "experiment" with
indolent interest and amusement.
Memphis, who just for that same graceful piece of chemistry was judged by
the people as divine,--made king,--and loaded with wealth and
honour;--excellent and most cunning Borsa! But we--we do not
judge anyone 'divine' in these days of ours, not even
God,--for He is supposed to be simply the lump of leaven working
through the loaf of matter,--though it will always remain a question
as to why there is any leaven or any loaf at all existing."
contorted positions of a fiddle. Play something,
Féraz"--and he smiled winningly as he gave the mandolin
into his brother's hands--"Here,"--and he
detached the
plectrum from its place under the
strings--"With this little piece of oval tortoiseshell, you can
set the nerves of music quivering,--those silver wires will answer to
your touch like the fibres of the human heart struck by the
tremolo of passion."
escape from his own feelings, he bent over the mandolin and tried its
chords with a trembling hand and downcast eyes.
with fear, because,--because I was alone--and they
were--together!"
hall, but that I knew not whether you were quite alone--" and,
as he spoke, he threw off his cloak, which dripped with rain, and handed it
to Féraz, disclosing himself in the dress of a Carthusian monk, all
save the disfiguring tonsure. "I was not certain," he continued
cheerfully--"whether you might be ready or willing to receive
me."
and eyes of an inspired evangelist, and the splendid lines of thought,
aspiration and endeavour marking the already noble countenance with an
expression seldom seen on features of mortal mould. Féraz now came
forward to proffer wine and sundry other refreshments, all of which were
courteously refused.
he only compared himself to a grain of dust. And the very dust held the
seeds of life!--true!--then, after all, was there anything in the
universe, however small and slight, that could die utterly?
And was Lilith right when she said there was no death? Wearily
and impatiently El-Râmi pondered the question,--and he almost
started with nervous irritation when the slight noise of the door shutting,
told him that Féraz had retired, leaving him and his mysterious
visitant alone together.
hood,--to you, who have employed the most sacred and venerable secrets
of our Order, to wrest from Life and Nature the material for your own
self-interested labours. You think I come for information--you think I
wish to hear from your own lips the results of your scientific scheme of
supernatural ambition,--alas, El-Râmi Zarânos!--how
little you know me! Prayer has taught me more science than Science will
ever grasp,--there is nothing in all the catalogue of your labours
that I do not understand, and you can give me no new message from lands
beyond the sun. I have come to you out of simple pity,--to warn you
and if possible to save."
from other men's lives, hangs dark across your own, and is impervious
to your gaze. You will not grasp the fact that though it may be given to
you to read other men's passions, you cannot read your own. You have
begun at the wrong end of the mystery, El-Râmi,--you should have
mastered yourself first before seeking to master others. And now there is
danger ahead of you--be wise in time,--accept the truth before it
is too late."
Christ, which to me, is the wildest, maddest incongruity. I grant you that
Christ was the holiest man that ever lived on earth,--and if I swear a
thing in His name, I swear an oath that shall not be broken. But in His
Divinity, I cannot, I may not, I dare not believe!--except in so far
that there is divinity in all of us. One man, born of woman, destined to
regenerate the world!--the idea is stupendous,--but impossible to
reason!"
battering against a shut door, and fighting with a Force too strong for
you."
We have to find it out for ourselves. And I maintain that it is wanton
cruelty on the part of the Divine Element to punish us for ignorance which
we cannot help. And so the plan of mutual destructiveness goes on, with the
most admirable persistency; the eater is in turn eaten, and as far as I can
make out, this seems to be the one Everlasting Law. Surely it is an odd and
inconsequential arrangement? As for the business of creation, that is easy,
if once we grant the existence of certain component parts of space. Look at
this, for example"--and he took from a corner a thin steel rod
about the size of an ordinary walking cane--"If I use this
magnet, and these few crystals"--and he opened a box on the
table, containing some sparkling powder like diamond dust, a pinch of which
he threw up into the air--"and play with them thus, you see what
happens!"
gradually there grew into shape out of the seeming nothingness, a round
large brilliant globe of prismatic tints, like an enormously magnified
soap-bubble, which followed the movement of the steel magnet rapidly and
accurately. The monk lifted himself a little in his chair and watched the
operation with interest and curiosity--till presently El-Râmi
dropped the steel rod from sheer fatigue of arm. But the globe went on
revolving steadily by itself for a time, and El-Râmi pointed to it
with a smile--
every direction. Take the doctrine of original sin for example--what
is original sin, and why should it exist?"
know, the results. If we choose to make evil, it exists till we destroy
it--good we cannot make, because it is the very breath of
the Universe, but we can choose to breathe in it and
with it. I have so often gone over this ground with you, that
it seems mere waste of words to go over it again,--and if you cannot,
will not see that you are creating your own destiny and shaping it to your
own will, apart from anything that human or divine experience can teach
you, then you are blind indeed. But time wears on apace,--and I must
speak of other things;--one message I have for you that will doubtless
cause you pain." He waited a moment-then went on slowly and
sadly--"Yes,--the pain will be bitter and the suffering
long,--but the fiat has gone forth, and ere long, you will be called
upon to render up the Soul of Lilith."
toys, the phonograph and the telephone, if they do not teach you the
fundamental and external law by which these adjuncts to civilization are
governed? God--the great, patient loving God--hears the huge
sounding-board of space re-echo again and yet again with rough curses on
His Name,--with groans and wailings; shouts, tears and laughter send
shuddering discord through His Everlasting Vastness, but amid it all there
is a steady strain of music,--full, sweet and pure--the music of
perpetual prayer. No science in prayer! Such science there is, that by its
power the very ether parts asunder as by a lightning-stroke--the
highest golden gateways are unbarred,--and the connecting-link
'twixt God and Man, stretches itself through Space, between and round
all worlds, defying any force to break the current of its
messages."
hand dares attempt, that you will do, unadvisedly, sure of your success
without the help of God or man. Nevertheless--you may not keep the
Soul of Lilith."
My will. Come and see,--then perhaps you will understand how it is
that I--I, and not God any longer,--claim and possess the Soul I
saved!"
Whereupon he placed some of the red powder in a small bronze vessel and
set fire to it. A thick smoke arose at once and filled the room with cloud
that emitted a pungent perfume, and in which his own figure was scarcely
discernible. He cast five or six of the little green globules into this
smoke; they dissolved in their course and melted within it,--and
finally he threw aloft a few drops of the amber liquid. The effect was
extraordinary, and would have seemed incredible to any onlooker, for
through the cloud a roseate Shape made itself slowly visible,--a Shape
that was surrounded with streaks of light and rainbow flame as with a
garland. Vague at first, but soon growing more distinct, it gathered itself
into seeming substance, and floated nearly to the ground,--then rising
again, balanced itself lightly like a blown feather sideways upon the dense
mist that filled the air. In form this "
Page 260
"How admirably the lines of beauty are always kept in these
effects,"--he said to himself when it was over,--"and
what a fortune I could make with that one example of the concentration of
atoms if I chose to pass as a Miracle-maker. Moses was an adept at this
kind of thing; so also was a certain Egyptian priest named Borsa of
Page 261
He fell into a train of meditation, which caused him presently to take
up his pen and write busily many pages of close manuscript. Féraz
came in at the usual hour with supper,--and then only he ceased
working, and shared the meal with his young brother, talking cheerfully,
though saying little but commonplaces, and skilfully steering off any
allusion to subjects which might tend to increase Féraz's
evident melancholy. Once he asked him rather abruptly why he had not played
any music that day.
"I do not know"--answered the young man
coldly--"I seem to have forgotten music--with other
things."
Page 262
He spoke meaningly;--El-Râmi laughed; relieved and light at
heart. Those "other things" meant the name of Lilith, which his
will had succeeded in erasing from his brother's memory. His eyes
sparkled, and his voice gathered new richness and warmth of feeling as he
said kindly--
"I think not, Féraz,--I think you cannot have
forgotten music. Surely it is no extraneous thing, but part of you,--a
lovely portion of your life which you would be loth to miss. Here is your
little neglected friend,"--and, rising, he took out of its case
an exquisitely shaped mandolin inlaid with pearl--"The dear old
lute,--for lute it is, though modernized,--the same shaped
instrument on which the rose and fuchsia-crowned youths of old Pompeii
played the accompaniment to their love-songs; the same, the very same on
which the long-haired, dusky-skinned maids of Thebes and Memphis thrummed
their strange uncouth ditties to their black-browed warrior kings. I like
it better than the violin--its form is far more pleasing--we can
see Apollo with a lute, but it is difficult to fancy the Sun-god fitting
his graceful arm to the
Page 263
He paused,--his eyes were full of an ardent light, and Féraz
looked at him wonderingly. What a voice he had!--how eloquently he
spoke!--how noble and thoughtful were his features!--and what an
air of almost pathetic dignity was given to his face by that curiously
snow-white hair of his, which so incongruously suggested age in youth! Poor
Féraz!--his heart swelled within him; love and secret
admiration for his brother contended with a sense of outraged pride in
himself,--and yet--he felt his sullen
amour-propre, his instinct of rebellion, and
his distrustful reserve all oozing away under the spell of
El-Râmi's persuasive tongue and fascinating manner,--and to
Page 264
"You speak of passion," he said in a low
voice--"but you have never known it."
"Oh, have I not!" and El-Râmi laughed lightly as he
resumed his seat--"Nay, if I had not I should be more than man.
The lightning has flashed across my path, Féraz, I assure you, only
it has not killed me; and I have been ready to shed my blood drop by drop,
for so slight and imperfect a production of Nature as--a woman! A
thing of white flesh and soft curves, and long hair and large eyes, and a
laugh like the tinkle of a fountain in our Eastern courts,--a thing
with less mind than a kitten, and less fidelity than a hound. Of course
there are clever women and faithful women,--but then we men seldom
choose these; we are fools, and we pay for our folly. And I also have been
a fool in my time,--why should you imagine I have not? It is
flattering to me, but why?"
Féraz looked at him again, and in spite of himself smiled, though
reluctantly.
Page 265
"You always seem to treat all earthly emotions with
scorn--" he replied evasively, "And once you told me there
was no such thing in the world as love."
"Nor is there--" said El-Râmi
quickly--"Not ideal love--not everlasting love. Love in its
highest, purest sense, belongs to other planets--in this its golden
wings are clipped, and it becomes nothing more than a common and vulgar
physical attraction."
Féraz thrummed his mandolin softly.
"I saw two lovers the other day--" he
said--"They seemed divinely happy."
"Where did you see them?"
"Not here. In the land I know best--my Star."
El-Râmi looked at him curiously, but forbore to speak.
"They were beautiful--" went on Féraz.
"They were resting together on a bank of flowers, in a little nook of
that lovely forest where there are thousands of song-birds sweeter than
nightingales. Music filled the air,--a rosy glory filled the
sky,--their arms were twined around each other,--their lips met,
and then--oh, then their joy smote me
Page 266
His voice trembled. El-Râmi's smile had in it something of
compassion.
"Love in your Star is a dream, Féraz--" he said
gently--"But love here--here in this phase of things we
call Reality,--means,--do you know what it means?"
Féraz shook his head,
"It means Money. It means lands, and houses and a big balance at
the bank. Lovers do not subsist here on flowers and music,--they have
rather more vulgar and substantial appetites. Love here is the disillusion
of Love--there, in the region you speak of, it may perchance be
perfect--"
A sudden rush of rain battering at the windows, accompanied by a gust of
wind, interrupted him.
"What a storm!" exclaimed Féraz, looking
up--"And you are expecting--"
A measured rat-tat-tat at the door came at that moment, and
El-Râmi sprang to his feet. Féraz rose also, and set aside his
mandolin. Another gust of wind whistled by, bringing with it a sweeping
torrent of hail.
Page 267
"Quick!" said El-Râmi, in a somewhat agitated
voice--"It is--you know who it is. Give him reverent
greeting, Féraz--and show him at once in here."
Féraz withdrew,--and when he had disappeared, El-Râmi
looked about him vaguely with the bewildered air of a man who would fain
escape from some difficult position, could he but discover an
egress,--a slight shudder ran through his frame, and he heaved a deep
sigh.
"Why has he come to me!" he muttered, "Why--after
all these years of absolute silence and indifference to my work, does he
seek me now?"
Page 268CHAPTER XIX.
STANDING in an attitude more of resignation than expectancy, he
waited, listening. He heard the street-door open and shut again,--then
came a brief pause, followed by the sound of a firm step in the outer
hall,--and Féraz reappeared, ushering in with grave respect a
man of stately height and majestic demeanour, cloaked in a heavy travelling
ulster, the hood of which was pulled cowl-like over his head and almost
concealed his features.
"Greeting to El-Râmi Zarânos--" said a rich
mellow voice--"And so this is the weather provided by an English
month of May! Well, it might be worse,--certes, also, it might be
better. I should have disburdened myself of these 'lendings' in
the
Page 269
"I am always ready for such a visitor--" said
El-Râmi, advancing hesitatingly, and with a curious diffidence in his
manner--"And more than willing. Your presence honours this poor
house and brings with it a certain benediction."
"Gracefully said, El-Râmi!" exclaimed the monk with a
keen flash of his deep-set blue eyes--"Where did you learn to
make pretty speeches? I remember you of old time as brusque of tongue and
obstinate of humour,--and even now humility sits ill upon
you,--'tis not your favourite practised household
virtue."
El-Râmi flushed, but made no reply. He seemed all at once to have
become even to himself the merest foolish nobody before this his
remarkable-looking visitor with the brow
Page 270
"This lad has grown, El-Râmi--" said the
stranger, surveying Féraz with much interest and
kindliness,--"since he stayed with us in Cyprus and studied our
views of poesy and song. A promising youth he seems,--and still your
slave?"
El-Râmi gave a gesture of deprecation.
"You mistake--" he replied curtly--"He is my
brother and my friend,--as such he cannot be my slave. He is as free
as air."
"Or as an eagle that ever flies back to its eyrie in the rocks out
of sheer habit--" observed the monk with a smile--"In
this case you are the eyrie, and the eagle is never absent long!
Well--what now, pretty lad?" this, as Féraz, moved by a
sudden instinct which he could not explain to himself, dropped reverently
on one knee.
Page 271
"Your blessing--" he murmured timidly. "I have
heard it said that your touch brings peace,--and I--I am not at
peace."
The monk looked at him benignly.
"We live in a world of storm, my boy--" he said
gently--"where there is no peace but the peace of the inner
spirit. That, with your youth and joyous nature, you should surely
possess,--and if you have it not, may God grant it you! 'Tis the
best blessing I can devise."
And he signed the Cross on the young man's forehead with a gentle
lingering touch,--a touch under which Féraz trembled and sighed
for pleasure, conscious of the delicious restfulness and ease that seemed
suddenly to pervade his being.
"What a child he is still, this brother of yours!" then said
the monk, turning abruptly towards El-Râmi--"He craves a
blessing,--while you have progressed beyond all such need!"
El-Râmi raised his dark eyes,--eyes full of a burning pain
and pride,--but made no answer. The monk looked at him
steadily--and heaved a quick sigh.
Page 272
"Vigilate et orate ut non intretis in
tentationem!" he murmured,--"Truly, to forgive
is easy--but to forget is difficult. I have much to say to you,
El-Râmi,--for this is the last time I shall meet you
'before I go hence and be no more seen.'"
Féraz uttered an involuntary exclamation.
"You do not mean," he said almost
breathlessly--"that you are going to die?"
"Assuredly not!" replied the monk with a
smile--"I am going to live. Some people call it dying--but
we know better,--we know we cannot die."
"We are not sure--" began El-Râmi.
"Speak for yourself, my friend!" said the monk
cheerily--"I am sure,--and so are those who
labour with me. I am not made of perishable composition any more than the
dust is perishable. Every grain of dust contains a germ of life--I am
co-equal with the dust, and I contain my germ also, of life that is capable
of infinite reproduction."
El-Râmi looked at him dubiously yet wonderingly. He seemed the
very embodiment of physical strength and vitality, yet
Page 273
Some minutes passed in silence. The monk sat quietly in
El-Râmi's own chair, and El-Râmi himself stood close by,
waiting, as it seemed, for something; with an air of mingled defiance and
appeal. Outside, the rain and wind continued their gusty
altercation;--inside, the lamp burned brightly, shedding warmth and
lustre on the student-like simplicity of the room. It was the monk himself
who at last broke the spell of the absolute stillness.
"You wonder," he said slowly--"at the reason of
my coming here,--to you, who are a recreant from the mystic tie of our
brother-
Page 274
El-Râmi's dark eyes opened wide in astonishment.
"To warn me?" he echoed--"To save? From
what?--Such a mission to me is incomprehensible."
"Incomprehensible to your stubborn spirit,--yes, no doubt it
is--" said the monk, with a touch of stern reproach in his
accents,--"For you will not see that the Veil of the Eternal,
though it may lift itself for you a little
Page 275
El-Râmi listened, impatient and incredulous.
"Accept what truth?" he asked somewhat
bitterly--"Am I not searching for truth everywhere? and seeking
to prove it? Give me any sort of truth to hold, and I will grasp it as a
drowning sailor grasps the rope of rescue!"
The monk's eyes rested on him in mingled compassion and sorrow.
"After all these years--" he said--"are you
still asking Pilate's question?"
"Yes--I am still asking Pilate's question!"
retorted El-Râmi with sudden passion--"See you--I
know who you are,--great and wise, a master of the arts and sciences,
and with all your stores of learning, still a servant of
Page 276
He paced the room impatiently.
"If I could believe it--I say
'if,'"--he continued, "I should still think it
a clumsy scheme. For every human creature living should be a reformer and
regenerator of his race."
"Like yourself?" queried the monk calmly. "What have
you done, for example?"
El-Râmi stopped in his walk to and fro.
"What have I done?" he
repeated--"Why--nothing! You deem me proud and
ambitious,--but I am humble enough to know how little I know. And as
to proofs,--well, it is the same story--I have proved
nothing."
Page 277
"So! Then are your labours wasted?"
"Nothing is wasted,--according to your theories
even. Your theories--many of them--are beautiful and
soul-satisfying, and this one of there being no waste in the economy of the
universe is, I believe, true. But I cannot accept all you teach. I broke my
connection with you because I could not bend my spirit to the level of the
patience you enjoined. It was not rebellion,--no! for I loved and
honoured you--and I still revere you more than any man alive, but I
cannot bow my neck to the yoke you consider so necessary. To begin all work
by first admitting one's weakness!--no!--Power is gained by
never-resting ambition, not by a merely laborious humility."
"Opinions differ on that point"--said the monk
quietly--"I never sought to check your ambition--I simply
said--Take God with you. Do not leave Him out. He IS. Therefore His
existence must be included in everything, even in the scientific
examination of a drop of dew. Without Him you grope in the dark--you
lack the key to the mystery. As an example of this, you are yourself
Page 278
"I must have proofs of God!" said El-Râmi very
deliberately--"Nature proves her existence; let God prove
His!"
"And does He not prove it?" inquired the monk with mingled
passion and solemnity--"Have you to go further than the
commonest flower to find Him?"
El-Râmi shrugged his shoulders with an air of light disdain.
"Nature is Nature,"--he
said--"God--an there be a
God--is God. If God works through Nature He arranges things very
curiously on a system of mutual destruction. You talk of
flowers,--they contain both poisonous and healing
properties,--and the poor human race has to study and toil for years
before finding out which is which. Is that just of Nature--or God?
Children never know at all,--and the poor little wretches die often
through eating poison-berries of whose deadly nature they were not aware.
That is what I complain of--we are not aware of evil, and we are not
made aware.
Page 279
And with a dexterous steady motion, he waved the steel rod rapidly round
and round in the apparently empty space where he had tossed aloft the pinch
of powder, and
Page 280
"If I had the skill to send that bubble-sphere out into space,
solidify it, and keep it perpetually rolling," he said lightly,
"it would in time exhale its own atmosphere and produce life, and I
should be a very passable imitation of the Creator."
At that moment, the globe broke and vanished like a melting snowflake,
leaving no trace of its existence but a little white dust which fell in a
round circle on the carpet. After this display, El-Râmi waited for
his guest to speak, but the monk said nothing.
Page 281
"You see," continued El-Râmi--"it requires
a great deal to satisfy me with proofs. I must have tangible
Fact, not vague Imagining."
The monk raised his eyes,--what searching calm eyes they
were!--and fixed them full on the speaker.
"Your Sphere was a Fact,"--he said
quietly--"Visible to the eye, it glittered and whirled--but
it was not tangible, and it had no life in it. It is a fair example of
other Facts,--so-called. And you could not have created so much as
that perishable bubble, had not God placed the materials in your hands. It
is odd you seem to forget that. No one can work without the materials for
working,--the question remains, from Whence came those
materials?"
El-Râmi smiled with a touch of scorn.
"Rightly are you called Supreme Master!" he
said--"for your faith is marvellous--your ideas of life
both here and hereafter, beautiful. I wish I could accept them. But I
cannot. Your way does not seem to me clear or reasonable,--and I have
thought it out in
Page 282
"It does not exist--" said the monk
quickly--"except in so far that we have created it.
It is we, therefore, who must destroy it."
El-Râmi paused, thinking. This was the same lesson Lilith had
taught.
"If we created it--" he said at last, "and there
is a God who is omnipotent, why were we allowed to create
it?"
The monk turned round in his chair with ever so slight a gesture of
impatience.
"How often have I told you, El-Râmi Zarânos," he
said,--"of the gift and responsibility bestowed on every human
unit--Free-Will. You, who seek for proofs of the Divine, should
realize that this is the only proof we have in ourselves, of our close
relation to 'the image of God.' God's Laws
exist,--and it is our first business in life to know and understand
these--afterwards, our fate is in our own hands,--if we
transgress law, or if we fulfil law, we know, or ought to
Page 283
El-Râmi started violently,--flushed a deep red, and then grew
deadly pale.
"You speak in enigmas--" he said huskily and with an
effort--"What do you know--how have you
heard--"
Page 284
He broke off,--his voice failed him, and the monk looked at him
compassionately.
"Judge not the power of God, El-Râmi Zarânos!"
he said solemnly--"for it seems you cannot even measure the
power of man. What!--did you think your secret experiment safely hid
from all knowledge save your own?--nay! you mistake. I have watched
your progress step by step--your proud march onward through such
mysteries as never mortal mind dared penetrate before,--but even these
wonders have their limits--and those limits are, for you, nearly
reached. You must set your captive free!"
"Never!" exclaimed El-Râmi passionately. "Never,
while I live! I defy the heavens to rob me of her!--by every law in
nature, she is mine!"
"Peace!" said the monk sternly--"Nothing is
yours,--except the fate you have made for yourself. That
is yours; and that must and will be fulfilled. That, in its own appointed
time, will deprive you of Lilith."
El-Râmi's eyes flashed wrath and pain.
Page 285
"What have you to do with my fate?" he
demanded--"How should you know what is in store for me? You are
judged to have a marvellous insight into spiritual things, but it is not
insight after all so much as imagination and instinct. These may lead you
wrong,--you have gained them, as you yourself admit, through nothing
but inward concentration and prayer--my discoveries are
the result of scientific exploration,--there is no science in
prayer!"
"Is there not?"--and the monk, rising from his chair,
confronted El-Râmi with the reproachful majesty of a king who faces
some recreant vassal--"Then with all your wisdom you are
ignorant,--ignorant of the commonest laws of simple Sound. Do you not
yet know--have you not yet learned that Sound vibrates in a million
million tones through every nook and corner of the Universe? Not a whisper,
not a cry from human lips is lost--not even the trill of a bird or the
rustle of a leaf. All is heard,--all is kept,--all is reproduced
at will forever and ever. What is the use of your modern
Page 286
He spoke with fervour and passion,--El-Râmi listened silent
and unconvinced.
"I waste my words, I know--" continued the
monk--"For you, Yourself suffices. What your brain dares
devise,--what your
Page 287
His voice was very solemn yet sweet; El-Râmi, lifting his head,
looked full at him, wonderingly, earnestly, and as one in doubt. Then his
mind seemed to grasp more completely his visitor's splendid
presence,--the noble face, the soft commanding eyes,--and
instinctively he bent his proud head with a sudden reverence.
"Truly you are a god-like man--" he said
slowly--"God-like in strength, and pure-hearted as a child. I
would trust you in many things, if not in all. Therefore,--as by some
strange means you have possessed yourself of my secret,--come with
me,--and I will show you the chiefest marvel of my science--the
life I claim--the spirit I dominate. Your warning I cannot accept,
because you warn me of what is impossible. Impossible--I say,
impossible!--for the human Lilith, God's Lilith,
died--according to God's will; my
Lilith lives, according to
Page 288
With these words, uttered in a thrilling tone of pride and passion, he
opened the study door and with a mute inviting gesture, led the way out. In
silence and with a pensive step, the monk slowly followed.
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS. GUILDFORD. G., C. & Co.