INTRODUCTORY NOTE. (continued 6)

Irene Vassilius smiled.

“According to such a theory, the angels must be very tame and uninteresting individuals,” she said.

El-Râmi’s eyes grew lustrous with the intensity of his thought.

“Ah, Madame, our conception of angels is a very poor and false one, founded on the flabby imaginations of ignorant priests. An Angel, according to my idea, should be wild and bright and restless as lightning, speeding from star to star in search of new lives and new loves, with lips full of music and eyes full of fire, with every fibre of its immortal being palpitating with pure yet passionate desires for everything that can perfect and equalise its existence. The pallid, goose-winged object represented to us as inhabiting a country of No-Where without landscape or colour, playing on an unsatisfactory harp and singing ‘Holy, holy’ for ever and ever, is no Angel, but rather a libel on the whole systematic creative plan of the Universe. Beauty, brilliancy, activity, glory and infinite variety of thought and disposition—if these be not in the composition of an Angel, then the Creator is but poorly served!”

“You speak as if you had seen one of these immortals?” said Irene, surprised.

A shadow darkened his features.

“Not I, Madame—except once—in a dream! You are going!—then farewell! Be happy,—and encourage the angelic qualities in yourself—for, if there be a Paradise anywhere, you are on the path that leads to it.”

“You think so?” and she sighed—“I hope you may be right,—but sometimes I fear, and sometimes I doubt. Thank you for all you have said,—it is the first time I have met with so much gentleness, courtesy and patience from one of your sex. Good-bye!”

She passed out, Féraz escorting her to her carriage, which waited at the door; then he returned to his brother with a slow step and meditative air.

“Do men really wrong women so much as she seems to think?” he asked.

El-Râmi paused a moment,—then answered slowly:

“Yes, Féraz, they do; and, as long as this world wags, they will! Let God look to it!—for the law of feminine oppression is His—not ours!”

XXIX.

That same week was chronicled one of the worst gales that had ever been known to rage on the English coast. From all parts of the country came accounts of the havoc wrought on the budding fruit-trees by the pitiless wind and rain,—harrowing stories of floods and shipwrecks came with every fresh despatch of news,—great Atlantic steamers were reported “missing,” and many a fishing-smack went down in sight of land, with all the shrieking, struggling souls on board. For four days and four nights the terrific hurricane revelled in destruction, its wrath only giving way to occasional pauses of heavy silence more awful than its uproar; and, by the rocky shores of Ilfracombe, the scene of nature’s riot, confusion and terror attained to a height of indescribable grandeur. The sea rose in precipitous mountain-masses, and anon wallowed in black abysmal chasms,—the clouds flew in a fierce rack overhead like the forms of huge witches astride on eagle-shaped monsters,—and with it all there was a close heat in the air, notwithstanding the tearing wind,—a heat and a sulphureous smell, suggestive of some pent-up hellish fire that but waited its opportunity to break forth and consume the land. On the third day of the gale, particularly, this curious sense of suffocation was almost unbearable, and Dr. Kremlin, looking out of his high tower window in the morning at the unquiet sky and savage sea, wondered, as the wind scudded past, why it brought no freshness with it, but only an increased heat, like the “simoom” of the desert.

“It is one of those days on which it would seem that God is really angry,” mused Kremlin—“angry with Himself, and still more angry with His creature.”

The wind whistled and shrieked in his ears as though it strove to utter some wild response to his thought,—the sullen roaring and battling of the waves on the beach below sounded like the clashing armour of contesting foes,—and the great Disc in the tower revolved, or appeared to revolve, more rapidly than its wont, its incessant whirr-whirring being always distinctly heard above the fury of the storm. To this, his great work, the chief labour of his life, Dr. Kremlin’s eyes turned wistfully, as, after a brief observation of the turbulent weather, he shut his window fast against the sheeting rain. Its shining surface, polished as steel, reflected the lights and shadows of the flying storm-clouds, in strange and beautiful groups like moving landscapes—now and then it flashed with a curious lightning glare of brilliancy as it swung round to its appointed measure, even as a planet swings in its orbit. A new feature had been added to the generally weird effect of Kremlin’s strange studio or workshop,—this was a heavy black curtain made of three thicknesses of cloth sewn closely together, and weighted at the end with bullet-shaped balls of lead. It was hung on a thick iron pole, and ran easily on indiarubber rings,—when drawn forward it covered the Disc completely from the light without interfering with any portion of its mechanism. Three days since, Kremlin had received El-Râmi’s letter telling him what the monk from Cyprus had said concerning the “Third Ray” or the messages from Mars, and, eagerly grasping at the smallest chance of any clue to the labyrinth of the Light-vibrations, he had lost no time in making all the preparations necessary for this grand effort, this attempt to follow the track of the flashing signal whose meaning, though apparently unintelligible, might yet with patience be discovered. So, following the suggestions received, he had arranged the sable drapery in such a manner that it could be drawn close across the Disc, or, in a second, be flung back to expose the whole surface of the crystal to the light,—all was ready for the trial, when the great storm came and interfered. Dense clouds covered the firmament,—and not for one single moment since he received the monk’s message had Kremlin seen the stars. However, he was neither discouraged nor impatient,—he had not worked amid perplexities so long to be disheartened now by a mere tempest, which in the ordinary course of nature would wear itself out, and leave the heavens all the clearer both for reflection and observation. Yet he, as a meteorologist, was bound to confess that the fury of the gale was of an exceptional character, and that the height to which the sea lifted itself before stooping savagely towards the land and breaking itself in hissing spouts of spray was stupendous, and in a manner appalling. Karl, his servant, was entirely horrified at the scene,—he hated the noise of the wind and waves, and more than all he hated the incessant melancholy scream of the sea-birds that wheeled in flocks round and round the tower.

“It is for all the world like the shrieks of drowning men”—he said, and shivered, thinking of the pleasantly devious ways of the Rhine and its placid flowing,—placid even in flood, as compared with the howling ocean, all madness and movement and terror. Twice during that turbulent day Karl had asked his master whether the tower “shook.”

“Of course!” answered Dr. Kremlin with a smile in his mild eyes—“Of course it shakes,—it can hardly do otherwise in such a gale. Even a cottage shakes in a fierce wind.”

“Oh yes, a cottage shakes,” said Karl meditatively—“but then if a cottage blows away altogether it doesn’t so much matter. Cottages are frequently blown away in America, so they say, with all the family sitting inside. That’s not a bad way of travelling. But when a tower flies through the air it seldom carries the family with it except in bits.”

Kremlin laughed, but did not pursue the conversation, and Karl went about his duties in a gloomy humour, not common to his cheerful temperament. He really had enough to put him out, all things considered. Soot fell down the kitchen chimney—a huge brick also landed itself with a crash in the fender,—there were crevices in the doors and windows through which the wind played wailing sounds like a “coronach” on the bagpipes;—and then, when he went out into the courtyard to empty the pail of soot he had taken from the grate, he came suddenly face to face with an ugly bird, whose repulsive aspect quite transfixed him for the moment and held him motionless, staring at it. It was a cormorant, and it stood huddled on the pavement, blinking its disagreeable eyes at Karl,—its floppy wings were drenched with the rain, and all over the yard was the wet trail of its feathers and feet.

“Shoo!” cried Karl, waving his arms and the pail of soot all together—“Shoo! Beast!”

But the cormorant appeared not to mind—it merely set about preening its dirty wing.

Karl grew savage, and, running back to the kitchen, brought shovel, tongs and a broom, all of which implements he flung in turn at the horrid-looking creature, which, finally startled, rose in air uttering dismal cries as it circled higher and higher, the while Karl watched its flight,—higher and higher it soared, till at last he ran out of the courtyard to see where it went. Round and round the house it flew, seeming to be literally tossed to and fro by the wind, its unpleasant shriek still echoing distinctly above the deep boom of the sea, till suddenly it made a short sweep downwards, and sat on the top of the tower like a squat black phantom of the storm.

“Nasty brute!” said Karl, shaking his clenched fist at it—“If the Herr Doctor were like any other man, which he is not, he would have a gun in the house, and I’d shoot that vile screamer. Now it will sit cackling and yelling there all day and all night perhaps. Pleasant, certainly!”

And he went indoors, grumbling more than ever. Everything seemed to go wrong that day,—the fire wouldn’t burn,—the kettle wouldn’t boil,—and he felt inwardly vexed that his master was not as morose and irritable as himself. But, as it happened, Dr. Kremlin was in a singularly sweet and placid frame of mind,—the noise of the gale seemed to soothe rather than agitate his nerves. For one thing, he was much better in health, and looked years younger than when El-Râmi visited him, bringing the golden flask whose contents were guaranteed to give him a new lease of life. So far indeed the elixir had done its work,—and to all appearances he might have been a well-preserved man of about fifty, rather than what he actually was, close upon his seventy-fourth year. As he could take no particularly interesting or useful observations from his Disc during the progress of the tempest, he amused himself with the task of perfecting one or two of his “Light-Maps” as he called them, and he kept at this work with the greatest assiduity and devotion all the morning. These maps were wonderfully interesting, if only for the extreme beauty, intricacy and regularity of the patterns,—one set of “vibrations” as copied from the reflections on the Disc formed the exact shape of a branch of coral,—another gave the delicate outline of a frond of fern. All the lines ran in waves,—none of them were straight. Most of them were in small ripples,—others were larger—some again curved broadly, and turned round in a double twist, forming the figure 8 at long intervals of distance, but all resolved themselves into a definite pattern of some sort.

“Pictures in the sky!” he mused, as he patiently measured and re-touched the lines. “And all different!—not two of them alike! What do they all mean?—for they must mean something. Nothing—not the lowest atom that exists is without a meaning and a purpose. Shall I ever discover the solution to the Light-mystery, or is it so much God’s secret that it will never become Man’s?”

So he wondered, puzzling himself, with a good deal of pleasure in the puzzle. He was happy in his work, despite its strange and difficult character,—El-Râmi’s elixir had so calmed and equalised his physical temperament that he was no longer conscious of worry or perplexity. Satisfied that he had years of life before him in which to work, he was content to let things take their course, and he laboured on in the spirit that all labour claims, “without haste, without rest.” Feverish hurry in work,—eagerness to get the rewards of it before conscientiously deserving them,—this disposition is a curse of the age we live in and the ruin of true art,—and it was this delirium of haste that had seized Kremlin when he had summoned El-Râmi to his aid. Now, haste seemed unnecessary;—there was plenty of time, and—possessed of the slight clue to the “Third Ray,”—plenty of hope as well, or so he thought.

In the afternoon the gale gradually abated, and sank to a curiously sudden dead calm. The sea still lifted toppling foam-crowned peaks to the sky, and still uttered shattering roars of indignation,—but there was a break in the clouds and a pale suggestion of sunshine. As the evening closed in, the strange dull quietness of the air deepened,—the black mists on the horizon flashed into stormy red for an instant when the sun set,—and then darkened again into an ominous greenish-gray. Karl, who was busy cooking his master’s dinner, stopped stirring some sauce he was making, to listen, as it were, to the silence,—the only sound to be heard was the long roll and swish of the sea on the beach,—and even the scream of the gulls was stilled. Spoon in hand he went out in the yard to observe the weather; all movement in the heavens seemed to have been suddenly checked, and masses of black cloud rested where they were, apparently motionless. And while he looked up at the sky he could hardly avoid taking the top of the tower also into his view;—there, to his intense disgust, still sate his enemy of the morning, the cormorant. Something that was not quite choice in the way of language escaped his lips as he saw the hateful thing;—its presence was detestable to him and filled his mind with morbid imaginations which no amount of reasoning could chase away.

“And yet what is it but a bird!” he argued with himself angrily, as he went indoors and resumed his cooking operations—“A bird of prey, fond of carrion—nothing more. Why should I bother myself about it? If I told the Herr Doctor that it was there, squatting at ease on his tower, he would very likely open the window, invite the brute in, and offer it food and shelter for the night. For he is one of those kind-hearted people who think that all the animal creation are worthy of consideration and tenderness. Well,—it may be very good and broad philosophy,—all the same, if I caught a rat sitting in my bed, I shouldn’t like it,—nor would I care to share my meals with a lively party of cockroaches. There are limits to Christian feelings. And, as for that beast of a bird outside, why, it’s better outside than in, so I’ll say nothing about it.”

And he devoted himself more intently than ever to the preparation of the dinner,—for his master had now an excellent appetite, and ate good things with appreciation and relish, a circumstance which greatly consoled Karl for many other drawbacks in the service he had undertaken. For he was a perfect cook, and proud of his art, and that night he was particularly conscious of the excellence of the little tasty dishes he had, to use an art-term, “created,” and he watched his master enjoy their flavour, with a proud, keen sense of his own consummate skill.

“When a man relishes his food it is all right with him,” he thought.—“Starving for the sake of science may be all very well, but if it kills the scientist what becomes of the science?”

And he grew quite cheerful in the contemplation of the “Herr Doctor’s” improved appetite, and by degrees almost forgot the uncanny bird that was still sitting on the topmost ledge of the tower.

Among other studious habits engendered by long solitude into which Kremlin had fallen, was the somewhat unhygienic one of reading at meals. Most frequently it was a volume of poems with which he beguiled the loneliness of his dinner, for he was one of those rare few who accept and believe in what may be called the “Prophecies” of Poesy. These are in very truth often miraculous, and it can be safely asserted that if the writers of the Bible had not been poets they would never have been prophets. A poet,—if he indeed be a poet, and not a mere manufacturer of elegant verse,—always raves—raves madly, blindly, incoherently of things he does not really understand. Moreover, it is not himself that raves—but a Something within him,—some demoniac or angelic spirit that clamours its wants in wild music, which by throbbing measure and degree resolves itself, after some throes of pain on the poet’s part, into a peculiar and occasionally vague language. The poet, as man, is no more than man; but that palpitating voice in his mind gives him no rest, tears his thoughts piecemeal, rends his soul, and consumes him with feverish trouble and anxiety not his own, till he has given it some sort of speech, however mystic and strange. If it resolves itself into a statement which appals or amazes, he, the poet, cannot help it; if it enunciates a prophecy he is equally incapable of altering or refuting it. When Shakespeare wrote the three words, “Sermons in stones,” he had no idea that he was briefly expounding with perfect completeness the then to him unknown science of geology. The poet is not born of flesh alone, but of spirit—a spirit which dominates him whether he will or no, from the very first hour in which his childish eyes look inquiringly on leaves and flowers and stars—a spirit which catches him by the hands, kisses him on the lips, whispers mad nothings in his startled ears, flies restlessly round and about him, brushing his every sense with downy, warm, hurrying wings,—snatches him up altogether at times and bids him sing, write, cry out strange oracles, weep forth wild lamentations, and all this without ever condescending to explain to him the reason why. It is left to the world to discover this “Why,” and the discovery is often not made till ages after the poet’s mortal dust has been transformed to flowers in the grass which little children gather and wear unknowingly. The poet whose collected utterances Dr. Kremlin was now reading, as he sipped the one glass of light burgundy which concluded his meal, was Byron; the fiery singer whose exquisite music is pooh-poohed by the insipid critics of the immediate day, who, jealous of his easily-won and world-wide fame, grudge him the laurel, even though it spring from the grave of a hero as well as bard. The book was open at “Manfred,” and the lines on which old Kremlin’s eyes rested were these:

“How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!

But we who name ourselves its sovereigns, we

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make

A conflict of its elements, and breathe

The breath of degradation and of pride,

Contending with low wants and lofty will.

Till our mortality predominates,

And men are,—what they name not to themselves,

And trust not to each other.”

“Now that passage is every whit as fine as anything in Shakespeare,” thought Kremlin—“and the whole secret of human trouble is in it;—it is not the world that is wrong, but we—we ‘who make a conflict of its elements.’ The question is, if we are really ‘unfit to sink or soar’ is it our fault?—and may we not ask without irreverence why we were made so incomplete? Ah, my clever friend El-Râmi Zarânos has set himself a superhuman task on the subject of this ‘Why,’ and I fancy I shall find out the riddle of Mars, and many another planet besides, before he ‘proves,’ as he is trying to do, the conscious and individual existence of the soul.”

He turned over the pages of “Manfred” thoughtfully, and then stopped, his gaze riveted on the splendid lines in which the unhappy hero of the tragedy flings his last defiance to the accusing demons—

“The mind which is immortal makes itself

Requital for its good or evil thoughts—

Is its own origin of ill and end—

And its own place and time—its innate sense,

When stripped of this mortality, derives

No colour from the fleeting things without,

But is absorbed in sufferance or in joy,

Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt;

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey—

But was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter.—Back, ye baffled fiends!

The hand of death is on me,—but not yours!”

“And yet people will say that Byron was an immoral writer!” murmured Kremlin—“In spite of the tremendous lesson conveyed in those lines! There is something positively terrifying in that expression—

‘But was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter.’

What a black vista of possibilities——”

Here he broke off, suddenly startled by a snaky blue glare that flashed into the room like the swift sweep of a sword-blade. Springing up from the table he rubbed his dazzled eyes.

“Why—what was that?” he exclaimed.

“Lightning!” replied Karl, just entering at the moment—“and a very nasty specimen of it. ... I’d better put all the knives and steel things by.”

And he proceeded to do this, while Kremlin still stood in the centre of the room, his sight yet a little confused by the rapidity and brilliancy of that unexpected storm-flash. A long low ominous muttering of thunder, beginning far off and rolling up nearer and nearer till it boomed like a volley of cannon in unison with the roar of the sea, followed,—then came silence. No rain fell, and the wind only blew moderately enough to sway the shrubs in front of the house lightly to and fro.

“It will be a stormy night,” said Dr. Kremlin then, recovering himself and taking up his Byron—“I am sorry for the sailors! You had better see well to all the fastenings of the doors and windows.”

“Trust me!” replied Karl sententiously—“You shall not be carried out to sea against your will if I can help it—nor have I any desire to make such a voyage myself. I hope, Herr Doctor”—he added with a touch of anxiety—“you are not going to spend this evening in the tower?”

“I certainly am!” answered Kremlin, smiling—“I have work up there, and I cannot afford to be idle on account of a thunderstorm. Why do you look so scared? There is no danger.”

“I didn’t say there was”—and Karl fidgeted uneasily—“but—though I’ve never been inside it, I should think the tower was lonesome, and I should fancy there might be too close a view of the lightning to be quite pleasant.”

Kremlin looked amused, and, walking to the window, pushed back one of the curtains.

“I believe it was a false alarm,” he said, gazing at the sea—“That flash and thunder-peal were the parting notes of a storm that has taken place somewhere else. See!—the clouds are clearing.”

So in truth they were; the evening, though very dark, seemed to give promise of a calm. One or two stars twinkled faintly in a blackish-blue breadth of sky, and, perceiving these shining monitors and problems of his life’s labour, Kremlin wasted no more time in words, but abruptly left the room and ascended to his solitary studio. Karl, listening, heard the closing of the heavy door aloft and the grating of the key as it turned in the lock,—and he also heard that strange perpetual whirring noise above, which, though he had in a manner grown accustomed to it, always remained for him a perplexing mystery. Shaking his head dolefully, and with a somewhat troubled countenance, he cleared the dining-table, set the room in order, went down to his kitchen, cleaned, rubbed, and polished everything till his surroundings were as bright as it was possible for them to be, and then, pleasantly fatigued, sat down to indite a letter to his mother in the most elaborate German phraseology he could devise. He was rather proud of his “learning,” and he knew his letters home were read by nearly all the people in his native village as well as by his maternal parent, so that he was particularly careful in his efforts to impress everybody by the exceeding choiceness of his epistolary “style.” Absorbed in his task, he at first scarcely noticed the gradual rising of the wind, which, having rested for a few hours, now seemed to have awakened in redoubled strength and fury. Whistling under the kitchen door it came, with a cold and creepy chill,—it shook the windows angrily, and then, finding the door of the outside pantry open, shut it to with a tremendous bang, like an irate person worsted in an argument. Karl paused, pen in hand; and, as he did so, a dismal cry echoed round the house, the sound seeming to fall from a height and then sweep over the earth with the wind, towards the sea.

“It’s that brute of a bird!” said Karl half aloud—“Nice cheerful voice he has, to be sure!”

At that moment the kitchen was illuminated from end to end by a wide blue glare of lightning, followed, after a heavy pause, by a short loud clap of thunder. The hovering storm had at last gathered together its scattered forces, and, concentrating itself blackly above the clamorous sea, now broke forth in deadly earnest.

XXX.

Kremlin meanwhile had reached his tower in time to secure a glimpse of the clearer portion of the sky before it clouded over again. Opening the great window, he leaned out and anxiously surveyed the heavens. There was a little glitter of star-groups above his head, and immediately opposite an almost stirless heavy fleece of blackness, which he knew by its position hid from his sight the planet Mars, the brilliant world he now sought to make the chief centre of his observations. He saw that heavy clouds were slowly rolling up from the south, and he was quite prepared for a fresh outbreak of storm and rain, but he was determined to take advantage, if possible, of even a few moments of temporary calm. And with this intention he fixed his gaze watchfully on the woolly-looking dark mass of vapour that concealed the desired star from his view, having first carefully covered the steadily revolving Disc with its thick sable curtain. Never surely was there a more weird and solemn-looking place than the tower-room as it now appeared; no light in it at all save a fitful side-gleam from the whirling edge of the Disc,—all darkness and monotonous deep sound, with that patient solitary figure leaning at the sill of the wide-open window, gazing far upward at the pallid gleam of those few distant stars that truly did no more than make “darkness visible.” The aged scientist’s heart beat quickly; the weight of long years of labour and anxiety seemed to be lifted from his spirit, and it was with almost all the ardour of his young student days that he noted the gradual slow untwisting and dividing of those threads of storm-mist, that like a dark web, woven by the Fates, veiled the “red planet” whose flashing signal might prove to be the key to a thousand hitherto unexplored mysteries. It was strange that just at this particular moment of vague suspense his thoughts should go wandering in a desultory wilful fashion back to his past,—and that the history of his bygone life seemed to arrange itself, as it were, in a pattern as definite as the wavy lines on his “Light-Maps” and with just as indefinite a meaning. He, who had lived that life, was as perplexed concerning its ultimate intention as he was concerning the ultimate meanings conveyed by the light-vibrations through air. He tried to keep his ideas centred on the scientific puzzle he was attempting to unravel,—he strove to think of every small fact that bore more or less on that one central object,—he repeated to himself the A B C of his art, concerning the vibrations of light on that first natural reflector, the human eye,—how, in receiving the impression of the colour red, for instance, the nerves of the eye are set quivering four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times; or, of the colour violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times per second. How could he hope to catch the rapid flash of the “Third Ray” under these tremendous conditions? Would it not vanish from the very face of the Disc before he had time to track its circuit? But, though he strove to busy his brain with conjectures and calculations, he was forced, in spite of himself, to go on groping into the Past; that wonderful Past when he had been really young—young with a youth not born of El-Râmi’s secret concoctions,—but youth as it is received fresh and perfect from the hand of Divinity—the talisman which makes all the world an Eden of roses without thorns. He saw himself as he used to be, a slim student, fair-haired and blue-eyed, absorbed in science, trying strange experiments, testing new chemical combinations, ferreting out the curious mysteries of atmospheric phenomena, and then being gradually led to consider the vast amount of apparently unnecessary Light per second, that pours upon us from every radiating object in the firmament, bearing in mind the fact that our Earth itself radiates through Space, even though its glimmer be no more than that of a spark amid many huge fires. He remembered how he had pored over the strange but incontestable fact that two rays of light starting from the same point and travelling in the same direction frequently combine to produce darkness, by that principle which is known in the science of optics as the interference of the rays of light,—and how, in the midst of all this, his work had been suddenly interrupted and put a stop to by a power the stars in their courses cannot gainsay—Love. Yes—he had loved and been beloved,—this poor, gentle, dreamy man;—one winter in Russia—one winter when the snows lay deep on the wild steppes and the wolves were howling for hunger in the gloom of the forests,—he had dreamed his dream, and wakened from it—broken-hearted. She whom he loved, a beautiful girl connected with the Russian nobility, was associated, though he knew it not, with a secret society of Nihilists, and was all at once arrested with several others and accused of being party to a plot for the assassination of the Tsar. Found guilty, she was sentenced to exile in Siberia, but before the mandate could be carried out she died by her own hand, poisoned in her prison cell. Kremlin, though not “suspect,” went almost mad with grief, and fled from Russia never to set his foot on its accursëd soil again. People said that the excess of his sorrow, rage and despair had affected his brain, which was possible, as his manner and mode of living, and the peculiar grooves of study into which he fell, were undoubtedly strange and eccentric—and yet—tenderness for his dead love, self-murdered in her youth and beauty, kept him sensitively alive to human needs and human suffering,—there was no scorn or bitterness in his nature, and his faith in the unseen God was as great as El-Râmi’s doubt. But, left as he was all alone in the world, he plunged into the obscure depths of science with greater zest than ever, striving to forget the dire agony of that brief love-drama, the fatal end of which had nearly closed his own career in madness and death. And so the years drifted on and on in work that every day grew more abstruse and perplexing, till he had suddenly, as it were, found himself old,—too old, as he told himself with nervous trembling, ever to complete what he had begun. Then he had sent for El-Râmi; El-Râmi whom he had met and wondered at, during his travels in the East years ago ... and El-Râmi, at his desire, by strange yet potent skill, had actually turned back time in its too rapid flight—and a new lease of life was vouchsafed to him;—he had leisure,—long, peaceful leisure in which to carry out his problems to perfection, if to carry them out were at all possible. For had not El-Râmi said—“You cannot die, except by violence”?

And thus, like the “star-patterns,” all the fragments of his personal history came into his mind to-night as he waited at his tower-window, watching the black pavilion under which the world of Mars swung round in its fiery orbit.

“Why do I think of all these bygone things just now?” he asked himself wonderingly—“I who so seldom waste my time in looking back, my work being all for the Future?”

As he murmured the words half aloud, a rift showed itself in the cloud he was observing,—a rift which widened gradually and broke up the dark mass by swift and ever swifter degrees. Fold after fold of mist dissolved and dispersed itself along the sky, swept by the wings of the newly-arisen wind, and Mars, angrily crimson and stormily brilliant, flashed forth a lurid fire ... In less time than imagination can depict, Kremlin had noiselessly flung the black curtain back from his disc, ... and with his eyes riveted upon its gleaming pearly surface he waited ... scarcely breathing, ... every nerve in his body seeming to contract and grow rigid with expectation and something like dread. A pale light glistened on the huge disc ... it was gone! ... another flash, ... and this remained trembling in wavy lines and small revolving specks—now ... now ... the Third!—and Kremlin craned his head forward eagerly ... it came!—like a drop of human blood it fell, and raced more rapidly than quicksilver round and round the polished surface of the disc, paling in tint among the other innumerable silvery lines ... flashed again redly ... and ... disappeared! A cry of irrepressible disappointment broke from Kremlin’s lips.

“Impossible! ... my God! ... impossible!”

Ay!—impossible surely to track such velocity of motion—impossible to fix the spot where first its dazzling blood-like hue fell, and where it at last vanished. And yet Kremlin waited on in feverish expectancy,—his lips apart, his breath coming and going in quick uneasy gasps, his straining eyes fixed on that terrible, inscrutable creation of his own skill, that fearful Mirror of the heavens which reflected so much and betrayed so little! ... Heedless of the muttering roar of the wind which now suddenly assailed the tower, he stood, fascinated by the dazzling play of light that illumined the disc more brilliantly than usual. A dismal scream,—the cry of the cormorant perched on the roof above him, echoed faintly in his ears, but he scarcely heard it, so absorbed was he in his monstrous Enigma; till—all at once, a blue shaft of lightning glared in at the window, its brief reflection transforming the disc for a second to an almost overwhelming splendour of glittering colour. The strong blaze dazzled Kremlin’s eyes,—and as the answering thunder rattled through the sky he reluctantly moved from his position and went towards the window to shut it against the threatening storm. But when he reached it he saw that the planet Mars was yet distinctly visible; the lightning and thunder came from that huge bank of clouds in the south he had before noticed,—clouds which were flying rapidly up, but had not yet entirely obscured the heavens. In eager and trembling haste he hurried back to the disc,—it seemed alive with light, and glistened from point to point like a huge jewel as it whirled and hummed its strange monotonous music,—and, shading his eyes, he remained close beside it, determined to watch it still, hoping against hope that another red flash like the one he had lately seen might crimson the quivering mass of silvery intersecting lines which he knew were not so much the light-vibrations of stars now as reflexes of the electricity pent up in the tempestuous atmosphere.

“Patience ... patience!” he murmured aloud—“A moment more, and perhaps I shall see, ... I shall know ... I shall find what I have sought. ...”

The last words were yet trembling on his lips when a fearful forkëd tongue of red flame leaped from the clouds, descending obliquely like a colossal sword, ... it smote the tower, splitting its arched roof and rending its walls asunder,—and with the frightful boom and bellow of thunder that followed, echoing over land and sea for miles and miles there came another sound, ... a clanging jangle of chains and wires and ponderous metals, ... the mighty mass of the glittering Star-Dial swirled round unsteadily once ... twice ... quivered ... stopped ... and then ... slipping from its wondrous pendulum, hurled itself forward like a monster shield and fell! ... fell with an appalling crash and thud, bringing the roof down upon itself in a blinding shower of stones and dust and mortar. ... And then ... why, then nothing! Nothing but dense blackness, muttering thunder, and the roaring of the wind.

Outside, frantic with fear, Karl shook and battered at the firmly-locked and bolted door of the tower. When that forked flash of lightning had struck the house, it had stretched him senseless in his kitchen,—he had, however, recovered after a few minutes’ unconsciousness, dazed and stunned, but otherwise unhurt, and, becoming gradually alive to the immediate dangers of the situation, he had, notwithstanding the fury of the gale and the deafening peals of thunder, rushed out of doors instinctively to look at the tower. One glance showed him what had happened,—it was split asunder, and showed dimly against the stormy night like a yawning ruin round which in time the ivy might twist and cling. Breathless and mad with terror, he had rushed back to the house and up the stairs, and now stood impatiently clamouring outside the impenetrable portal whose firm interior fastenings resisted all his efforts. He called, he knocked, he kicked,—and then, exhausted with the vain attempt, stopped to listen. ... Nothing! ... not a sound! He made a hollow of his hands and put his mouth to the keyhole.

“Herr Doctor! ... Herr Doctor!”

No answer,—except the stormy whistle of the blast.

“No help for it!” he thought desperately, tears of excitement and alarm gathering in his eyes—“I must call for assistance,—rouse the neighbours and break open the door by force.”

He ran downstairs and out of the house bareheaded, to be met by a sudden sweep of rain which fell in a straight unpremeditated way from the clouds in stinging torrents. Heedless of wind and wet he sped along, making direct for some fishermen’s cottages whose inhabitants he knew and whom in a manner he was friendly with, and, having roused them up by shouts and cries, explained to them as briefly as possible what had happened. As soon as they understood the situation four stout fellows got ready to accompany him, and taking pickaxes, crowbars, boathooks, and any other such implements as were handy, they ran almost as quickly as Karl himself to the scene of the catastrophe. Their excitement was to the full as great as his, till they reached the top of the staircase and stood outside the mysterious door—there they hung back a moment hesitatingly.

“Call him again”—one whispered to Karl. “Mebbe he’s in there safe and sound and did not hear ye at fust.”

To satisfy the man’s scruples Karl obeyed, and called and called, and knocked and knocked again and yet again,—with the same result,—no answer, save the derisive yell of the gale.

“He be dead an’ gone for sure”—said a second man, with a slight pallor coming over his sea-tanned face—“Well ... well! ... if so be as we must break down th’ door——”

“Here, give me one of those things”—cried Karl impatiently, and snatching a crowbar he began dealing heavy blows at the massive nail-studded oaken barrier. Seeing him so much in earnest, his companions lost the touch of superstitious dread that had made them hesitate, and also set themselves to work with a will, and in a few minutes—minutes which to the anxious Karl seemed ages,—the door was battered in, ... and they all rushed forward, ... but the fierce wind, tearing wildly around them, caught the flame of the lamp they carried and extinguished it, so that they were left in total darkness. But over their heads the split roof yawned, showing the black sky, and about their feet was a mass of fallen stones and dust and indistinguishable ruin. As quickly as possible they re-lit the lamp and, holding it aloft, looked tremblingly, and without speaking a word, at the havoc and confusion around them. At first little could be seen but heaped-up stones and bricks and mortar, but Karl’s quick eyes roving eagerly about caught sight suddenly of something black under a heap of débris,—and quickly bending down over it he began with his hands to clear away the rubbish,—the other men, seeing what he was trying to do, aided him in his task, and in about twenty minutes’ time they succeeded in uncovering a black mass, huge and inanimate.

“What is it?” whispered one of the men—“It’s ... it’s not him?”

Karl said nothing—he felt himself turning sick with dread, ... he touched that doubtful blackness—it was a thick cloth like a great pall—it concealed ... what? Recklessly he pulled and tugged at it, getting his hands lacerated by a tangled mesh of wires and metals,—till, yielding at last to a strong jerk, it came away in weighty clinging folds, disclosing what to him seemed an enormous round stone, which, as the lamp-light flashed upon it, glistened mysteriously with a thousand curious hues. Karl grasped its edge in an effort to lift it—his fingers came in contact with something moist and warm, and, snatching them away in a sort of vague horror, he saw that they were stained with blood.

“Oh my God! my God!” he cried—“He is down there,—underneath this thing! ... help me to lift it, men!—lift it for Heaven’s sake!—lift it, quick—quick!”

But, though they all dragged at it with a will, the work was not so easy—the great Disc had fallen flat, and lay solemnly inert—and that oozing blood,—the blood of the too daring student of the stars who had designed its mystic proportions,—trickled from under it with sickening rapidity. At last, breathless and weary, they were about to give up the task in despair, when Karl snatched from out the ruins the iron needle or pendulum on which the Disc had originally swung, and, all unknowing what it was, thrust it cautiously under the body of the great stone to aid in getting a firmer hold of it, ... to his amazement and terror the huge round mass caught and clung to it, like warm sealing-wax to a piece of paper, and in an instant seemed to have magically dispensed with all its weight, for as, with his unassisted strength, he lifted the pendulum, the Disc lifted itself lightly and easily with it! A cry of fear and wonder broke from all the men,—Karl himself trembled in every limb, and big drops of cold sweat broke out on his forehead at what he deemed the devilish horror of this miracle. But as he, with no more difficulty than he would have experienced in heaving up a moderate-sized log of wood, raised the Disc and flung it back and away from him shudderingly, pendulum and all, his eyes fell on what had lain beneath it, ... a crushed pulp of human flesh and streaming blood—and reverend silver hairs ... and with a groan that seemed to rend his very heart Karl gave one upward sick stare at the reeling sky, and fainted, ... as unconscious for the time being as that indistinguishable mangled mass of perished mortality that once had been his master.

Gently and with compassionate kindness, the rough fishers who stood by lifted him up and bore him out of the tower and down the stairs,—and, after a whispered consultation, carried him away from the house altogether to one of their own cottages, where they put him under the care of one of their own women. None of them could sleep any more that night; they stood in a group close by their humble habitations, watching the progress of the storm, and ever and anon casting awe-stricken glances at the shattered tower.

“The devil was in it”—said one of the men at last, as he lit his pipe and endeavoured to soothe his nerves by several puffs at that smoky consoler—“or else how would it rise up like that as light as a feather at the touch of an iron pole?”

“It must ’a weighed twenty stun at least”—murmured another man meditatively.

“What was it?” demanded a third—“I should ’a took it for a big grindstone if it hadn’t sparkled up so when the light fell on it.”

“Well, it may stay where it is for all I care,” said the first speaker—“I wouldn’t touch it again for a hundred pound!”

“Nor I.” “Nor I.”

They were all agreed on that point.

“Wotever he were a-doin’ on,”—said the fourth man gravely—“whether it were God’s work or the devil’s, it’s all over now. He’s done for, poor old chap! It’s an awful end—God rest his soul!”

The others lifted their caps and murmured “Amen” with simple reverence. Then they looked out at the dark wallowing trough of the sea.

“How the wind roars!” said the last speaker.

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

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

XXXI.

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

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

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

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

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

“Still, you believe in the Invisible?”

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

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

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

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

Féraz laughed—then his eyes darkened.

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

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

Féraz shrugged his shoulders with a faint gesture of contempt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And that is——?” queried his brother.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Karl threw up his hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

El-Râmi bit his lip vexedly.

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

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

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

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

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

“To El-Râmi Zarânos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

El-Râmi listened to his observations patiently.

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

Karl brightened up immensely at this prospect.

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

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

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

XXXII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee!

“For the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,—

And the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee—

And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her tomb by the sounding sea!”

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

“And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.” ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XXXIII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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