DESERT (continued 4)

But Malchus had forgotten the old man. The beating of his heart was stifling him and, flinging out his arms, he rushed past Ammon into the house.

It echoed to his footsteps like an empty tomb as he hastened from chamber to chamber. Each was empty till he came to the small inner chamber which had been Helena's private sitting room. As he entered it, two slaves rose quickly from their watch beside a couch and hurried toward him with hands raised to bar his approach. Malchus could see that on the couch behind them some one lay motionless.

When he did not stop, each of the slaves seized one of his arms and with a strength born of his frenzy he dragged them with him toward the couch.

The face that stared blindly at him from the couch was not the face of Helena. As he staggered back in horror it seemed to him at first that the heavy, leonine mask foully discolored with brown blotches was not a human face at all. Yet the shape of the linen-covered body was human, and he saw, with a shudder, that a naked human arm, horribly thickened and corroded, lay across the breast.

He turned away his face. His eyes met those of Ammon, who had followed him. "Take me to your mistress," he pleaded in a broken voice.

The old man nodded toward the couch.

Malchus covered his face with his hands. "No!" he moaned. "No! Such things are not possible."

Then a harsh, stertorous voice was heard in the room. "Who is it?" the voice asked.

A silence, filled by the thick breathing of the leper, followed the question.

"Ammon," the voice began again, "answer immediately. Who is this stranger?"

Malchus turned and fell on his knees, but with eyes averted from the couch. "It is I, Helena—Malchus. I have come back."

Again there was silence. Then the reply came:

"Go away. I do not know you. Ammon, order the slaves to drive him out with whips."

But Ammon and the slaves stood motionless beside the couch, and Malchus, with a cry like the snapping of a cord, fled from the room and ran stumbling through the garden till he fell headlong in the long grass.

Chapter Seventeen

So Malchus found his cure. When he came to himself the sun was low. A coolness breathed through the trees and the long grass in which he lay. It seemed to him that he had awakened out of a long fever. His mind was clear and cool like the garden about him. A bond within him had snapped, as at birth the bond is severed that binds the child to the mother. The past had broken from him and plunged away like an avalanche into the depths far beneath him, leaving him high and lonely like a single granite rock which has escaped the crash; and as he stood up in the grass he knew that he was cured of the long distemperature of earthly love.

He stood waiting. Soon the sun would set. But as he waited, the light grew and soon the garden was filled with the pure essence of early sunlight. The sunset and the hours of darkness had passed over him as he lay in the grass, and already the new day had risen. Without hesitation he made his way to the garden door and, closing it behind him, turned his steps, as he had done once before, toward Lake Mareotis. Soon he had left the city and threaded the long vineyards, and now he stood on the wharf at the edge of the lake. A ship was waiting and, going on board, he sat down and covered his head with his cloak. It was as if time had rolled back and a part of his life were repeating itself. But this time he followed no one, for he needed no guide or support, being sufficient to himself. Out in the desert his trial awaited him, but now he went forward in confidence, desiring only his cell which faced the east high on its sandy hill, for there, he knew, he would find his salvation.

[Transcriber's note: Odd and unusual spellings are as printed.]